The Ester Gold Camp hotel, constructed in the 1930s, was originally a mess hall-bunkhouse for the Fairbanks Exploration Company. The structure is at the center of Ester Camp Historic District, located in Ester,...
The giant dredges scattered along the creeks around Fairbanks are testament to the decades when dredging dominated local gold production, just as the headframes and mill buildings in the hills are reminders of hard-rock...
The Pioneer Hotel and riverfront as it looked in the mid-1910s The Pioneer Hotel on First Avenue was one of the landmarks in early Fairbanks. Located on the waterfront a half-block west of the...
Some buildings, because of location or design, are picturesque from the moment they are completed. Others acquire character as they settle into the landscape. Immaculate Conception Church has had its charm bequeathed to it...
Kitty Hensley is a bit of a mystery. No one is quite sure when she came to Fairbanks, when she married, or who exactly her husband was. Some say he was a lawyer from...
Carl Ben Eielson, one of Alaska’s pioneering aviators, grew up yearning to fly. Born in Hatton, North Dakota in 1897, he got his chance to become a pilot during World War I by enlisting...
When the tug boat Taku Chief began its career in Southeast Alaska in 1938, the age of steamboating on Interior Alaska rivers was dying. Gold mining, which had spurred a few decades of frenetic...
By the 1930s, residents of Fairbanks were fed up with the fires that plagued downtown. In its short life, the city had already experienced two district-consuming conflagrations and numerous other building fires. Consequently, in...
The Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) is a distant cousin of trout and salmon. It tastes great and is fun to catch. With its sail-like dorsal fin and streamlined body, it is one of the...
