Moominmama's Adventures: Fairbanks, Alaska

In which Moominmama visits the Museum of the North, goes in search of sandhill cranes and locates Mike Mulligan's famous steam shovel...

Fairbanks is as far north as Moominmama is going this trip and given the wildfire smoke, it was a good place for a museum visit. The Museum of the North turned out to be one of the most innovative and interesting museums Moominmama has seen!

It is a natural history museum with traditional exhibits like the one above, but also a history, culture and art museum all rolled into one. Among the more interesting fusions is "The Place Where You Go to Listen," where composer John Luther Adams assigned musical sounds and tones to data streams of natural phenomenon. 

So seismic activity is turned into deep bass notes. Solar flares measure as bells. Changing sunlight levels create tones in between. The data collected by the University of Alaska or other scientific sources flow into the room and reflect back as an ever-changing soundscape.

Moominmama was also struck by an exhibit on the internment of people from the Aleutian Islands during World War II. While I'd heard about the treatment of Japanese Americans, this is shocking because there was no connection between the Aleuts and the war except for the proximity of their homes to Japanese invaders.

Six months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese took the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska, and Aleutian people there were taken prisoner by the Japanese.

For the safety of the remaining Aleutian Islanders, they were evacuated on boats, unaware of where they'd be taken. They ended up in abandoned cannery buildings in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. People fell through rotten wood floors, huddled by the dozens between makeshift blanket walls and many died. 

The fact that they were indigenous people no doubt made it easier to deny them basic civil rights. Back in their villages, American soldiers set up camp, occupied homes and in many cases, ransacked what the Aleuts were forced to leave behind. 

There's no doubt people living on the Aleutian Islands were in danger, so it's not the evacuation that's the problem. It's how people were treated after they were evacuated and how their homes and property were abused after they left.

Less than a year after the Japanese invasion, America reclaimed the islands in what's known as the Battle of Attu, the only WWII battle fought on American soil, and a fight involving heavy casualties for the Americans who were inadequately prepared or dressed for the cold. When the U.S. subsequently prepared to reclaim Kiska, they found the Japanese had already fled.

Once again, Moominmama finds history that never was included in her high school lessons. But the combination of exhibits about different regions of Alaska and local wildlife (see bowhead whale skeleton above), various research projects, and the interpretations, both scientific and artistic, made for a very stimulating day.

Moominmama also felt blessed to discover Creamer's Field, a former farm, now a migratory bird sanctuary, that attracts many critters including sandhill cranes!

Located near my campground, I was able to visit twice and watch the elegant birds stretch their long necks to pick tidbits from a freshly turned field or groom their feathers beside a pond. The mix of marshy wetlands, grassy fields, scrubby bushes, and birch and spruce trees make this a bird haven.

The sandhill cranes that spend summers here and raise their young will eventually migrate to West Texas for the winter.

With only a short time to spend in Fairbanks, including time devoted to some basic trailer maintenance  (thanks to Bulletproof Trailers of Fairbanks!), I made one final stop to a city park and playground called Pioneer Park, where the city has a collection of historic buildings now used as small shops and museums.

In an old equipment graveyard, Moominmama found this gem to the right! I'm quite positive it is Mike Mulligan's big red steam shovel, Mary Anne, a little aged and rusted but still beautiful in her own way, if you remember the children's book.

From Fairbanks, I return south via the Alcan Highway, this time traveling through the Yukon. I'll spend a day in Whitehorse, a city that quite charmed me. 

Among other things, it features a museum focused on Beringia, or what I knew as the Bering strait, which provided egress during the last major ice age for creatures traveling from Asia to North America, like the Woolly Mammoth -- and some of the humans that followed them.

Moominmama also got to hike Miles Canyon near Whitehorse, which is a beautiful set of trails, including the colorful turquoise waters that pass through an unusual outbreak of volcanic rock.

Next up is British Columbia, which is suffering from terrible fires and evacuations. But Moominmama's route should take her clear of those disasters. I enjoy a brief stay in Stewart and touch the state of Alaska for a final time on this trip. More on that when I reach the lower 48!