Ian was our bus driver for a tour about the town. It was 57 degrees at 0830 hours. Fairbanks has the greatest temperature ranges in Alaska, ranging approximately from MINUS 72 degrees to 99 degrees Fahrenheit. Did you know that -40 degrees celsius is the same as -40 degrees fahrenheit? It is where the two scales meet. Put this on your whadda ya know list.
The entire population is around 700,000 and 42,000 of those are in Fairbanks, the state's second largest city. A burrough has around 98,000 people in an area the size of the State of New Jersey. Ian was very entertaining. He told the story of the creation of Fairbanks and how Barnett was dumped out after they ran aground and he started a trading post there. When he needed to add an aura of respectability he recruited his friend, Judge Wickersham, to join him.
Read More about the History of Fairbanks
The water has high iron and arsenic content and 20% of residents haul their water or purchase it from a "water wagon" for 18 cents per gallon. The world's three largest gold mines are in the Fairbanks burrough, with a new vein of 5-10 billion reportedly under Knob Hill in Livengood. The area is very green because of the permafrost. They receive 1-2 feet of snow but it is the light, fluffy stuff and you don't make snowballs with it because they get so little precipitation.
We drove past the KGB house. The KGB had a presence in Fairbanks and was known and accepted. The folks there liked the agents living there and the house continued to exist 5 years after the war had ended, until President Eisenhower found out and put a stop to it. The house remains but the agents are gone. (allegedly)
I'm convinced that Alaskans are simply Northern Jamaicans! Everyone has at least three jobs! Ian drives tour bus, and I thought he also said he works in a nursing home (though I could be confusing drivers, at this point) and in the winter he goes to Prudhoe Bay and works as an Ice Road trucker. The residents seem to have several seasonal jobs and then something to tide them over for the winter.
We stopped to view an area of the oil pipeline. The pipeline snakes in and out of the ground, depending on whether it is on a frozen slope of permafrost. Everyone wonders how so much oil can come from Alaska and yet their gas prices are so high, but it is because the oil in Alaska is of the lowest grade of dirty oil and is used to make diesel 1 & 2 and jet fuel. The pipeline is very sturdy and the greatest threat has come from the "drunken white guy rule"; the stupid drunk guy who tried to blow it up, the one who shot at it and of course, the Valdez. Three helicopters fly the length every day with armed Navy Seals aboard.
Ian pointed out other sights, such as the former red light district and the church that was skidded across the ice on the river because the priest wanted it closer to the hospital. He was an extremely entertaining driver and was a wealth of information about the area.
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