July 12, fireweed

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This excursion also introduced us to the ubiquitous and lovely fireweed.

The first image was taken near the gold dredge. Note rusty stuff in background.






This next image was taken on the tour bus. Our driver/guide picked the fireweed and passed it around.






Essentially all of the bus drivers we encountered were friendly, chatty, and very knowledgeable. One of the first drivers told us that most everyone who lives in Alaska has chosen to do so because they love it, and that they are eager to share their beautiful state with us Outsiders. This certainly was true of tour bus drivers, in our experience.

Gwen, our driver on July 12, was born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, which is east and a bit south of Fairbanks. She is finishing a music degree at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and sang for us in addition to educating us about fireweed and many other aspects of Alaska.

Tourism is big business in Alaska.

(Note fireweed in foreground.)






I was struck by the fact that traditional Alaskan life required a HUGE amount of work during the warm months, in order to survive the long, long, cold, long winter. I thought -- not much has changed. There is still a huge amount of work to be done in the summer (showing all the visitors around, feeding them, housing them, selling them stuff), in order to make it through the winter, which is still long, long, cold, and long.

So much work needs to be done in summer that workers are imported from all over. We had guides from all over the US who work in Alaska over the summer. Workers in hotels in Fairbanks were from Bulgaria. Many of the US workers told us that they would love to live in Alaska, but can't find winter work, and can't afford to stay in Alaska over the winter, so they work in other parts of the States the rest of the year.

(Digression: I surely hope that local people are given first shot at all these jobs!)

Our guides gave us mini-lessons on plants, animals, geography, history (why *were* the Russians willing to sell Alaska to us for 2 cents an acre?), native culture. We were sung to, regaled with poetry recitation, entertained with stand-up comedy.

The plane ride home was dull and tedious -- we wanted our accustomed chatty banter and edification......

Have you seen the commercial on tv, where people just home from a cruise state sadly that recently their every whim was catered to -- someone knew just how they liked their tea, etc, etc, etc? I'm perfectly happy to make my own tea, but I do miss having someone knowlegeable about what we're seeing out the window share interesting facts and stories and poems and songs about it........



In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, a link to the next one is here.

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