Day 40: Still Hanging Around Fairbanks

Halfway Through the Great Alaska Adventure

Museum of the North (at University of Alaska, Fairbanks)

Today marks the halfway point for our Great Alaska Adventure (give or take), and we spent it hanging around Fairbanks.  We hit a number of galleries, but didn't really find anything we couldn't live without.

That is, until we hit Taylor's "voted best jewelry store in Fairbanks Four Times." In addition to the regular jewelry store fare, they specialized in Alaska mined Quartz gemstones--and of course I had to have some to add to my vacation native stones collection.

I got two Northway smoky quartz stones mined just outside Tok, Alaska.  One is a deep "rootbeer" brown, and the other is a unique very light almost yellow color. (The yellow is apparently a less desirable color and thus less expensive than the others-- but I really liked it.)

Alaska Smoky Quartz, light & dark
(the lines in the square are stray threads from the box, not inclusions)

But the real prize is this pear shaped Rutilated Quartz stone.  These stones are found in the Brooks Range mine, about 65 miles north of the Arctic Circle. You can just about see that the titanium oxide crisscross inclusions are reddish, rather than the usual brown or black.  

Rudilated Quartz from the Brooks Range mine in Northern Alaska

So, Nelson-- yet another project for you!

Stones in hand, we headed over to the Museum of the North on the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (USF) campus.  The museum itself was a striking building, and the exhibits were fun as well.

The special exhibition while we were there was a collection of different types of Polar Bear art, collected by a woman with that particular passion.  The permanent collection included a section on Alaskan Heritage and a native Alaska art gallery.

Bob particularly liked this one-- it had everything he could desire in a piece of art: big, heavy, and you can stand in it:

Bob stands in big heavy art

As with just about every museum in Alaska, this one too devoted considerable space to numerous taxidermy exhibits. Here I am with one of them:

Lisa with a Polar Bear

My brother recently asked where my sudden interest in taxidermy came from-- and tell the truth it has nothing to do with any desire to mingle with preserved dead animals.  It is just that I really wanted to be with the bears (black, grizzly, and especially polar) while we are in Alaska, but getting up close and personal with the live variety was simply cost-prohibitive-- so, the dead stuffed variety was the best I could do.

After walking through the museum, we took a stroll around the very lovely (and very new) campus. It is located at a high point in town, and from the museum you can see for miles even on an overcast day like today.  Here's a short panorama:



We haven't figured out tomorrow yet, but when we do you'll read about it here.

--Lisa