Julie swimming with fish, Denali mountain and the igloo hotel

Saterday night we had a restless sleep because there were mosquitoes getting into our trailer and it was also really hot in there, so we slept in a bunch Sunday morning. It was Canada Day, July 1, but I'd forgotten to get decorations or anything special, so we just enjoyed each other's company, instead. I made pancakes for breakfast, while Ryan went to check out the stream that people were fishing in.

After breakfast, we all walked down to the water to look at the spawning salmon. There was a fast-moving, cloudy stream that met up with a slow-moving clear stream there, and the salmon were resting in the slower stream before continuing their journey. I had never seen red salmon before, and I was surprised that they were so bright! The salmon were cherry red-some of them more so than others- and there were several hundred swimming around in the stream. Ryan thought there were at least 300 fish in a 40ft length of the stream and most were around 2ft long.

I was fascinated and delighted with how beautiful they were, and how near they seemed to be. The stream looked quite shallow so I thought that if I could just get in the water with them and stop moving I might be able to touch them and catch one! Even though salmon aren't supposed to east while their spawning there were quite a few jumping, but they could have been other kinds of fish like the trout that some people came down to fish for among the salmon.

We went back to the car and listened to a sermon, because it was our first Sunday we didn't make it to a church. After lunch, we went back down to the stream, with our bathing suits.

 I waded in a bit, it was pretty cold, but not nearly as cold as the ice cold water of the falls we'd seen a few days earlier. I caught a 5 or 6 inch eel in my hand as it swam by, but let it go too soon, because I thought Ryan had gotten a picture of it when he hadn't yet. I decided that if I just got wet quickly, it'd be ok. I waded out to my waist, and dove into the water, just as a couple of men came down the trail. They though I was crazy. 

I swam to where I could just stand: it was a lot deeper than I'd thought before getting in! Stood there with water up to my chin, but wasn't able to stand still enough that the fish would swim close by, so I couldn't see them. Ryan said they swam all around, leaving 5 feet between any fish and me. He wanted me to put my head under to look at them, but I knew I wouldn't be able to stay in that cold water long enough to see them. I did see pretty shiny bits on the bottom, which made me think of gold, but when we'd learned a bit about gold later, I realized that it was just mica. I came out shivering, teeth chattering for the first time in more than 20 years, and Ryan helped me get warm and dry again, but the warm part took many hours.

Made supper with still-numb fingers, washed dishes, and we headed to bed.

This video of Julie swimming with the fish is compiled from a whole bunch to give a bit of an idea what happened. You basically cant see the fish in the photos and you cant see them that well in the video but its better than the pictures. It was really frustrating being able to see hundreds of fish but not be able to video or photograph them well but there are a few fish jumping and Julie swimming around in the video. Video of Julie swimming with the fish

On Monday, July 2 we were packed up and gone by about 9 but the road out took a while to navigate. We restocked our ice and then drove towards Fairbanks. I drove past the Denali south lookout because there were quite a few clouds around the mountain and I figured there would be a better spot further on. That was a mistake because that was by far the best lookout point. We pulled into an info centre that was supposed to have a good view of Denali mountain but it was covered in clouds so we kept going after I took photos of some of their interesting signs. The Denali north lookout is quite far from the mountain and I didn't get great photos there either.

We stopped by

Hurricane Gulch Bridge which was built in 1971, is 407 feet long and 254 feet above the  water of Hurricane Creek, that was pretty cool. From the side we stopped on you couldn't see the bottom but you could when driving across it.

This spot was pretty neat with a mountain range on each side of us

We got to see a moose family and watch them for a while. We parked on the side of the road and watched them, I got some decent video of it.

Up-close video footage of a moose family. A mom and 2 young calves

The next stop was the igloo- an abandoned 80-foot tall unfinished hotel that’s become an attraction for its unique and crumbling appearance. The developer had a cool idea in the 1970s but found out he couldn’t meet building codes half way through. 

View out of one of the hotel windows:

Video of the inside of the igloo

Then we stopped at a spot that had some really neat scenery, almost no trees on the plain/valley between the mountains here.

We stopped at the Denali national park entrance for lunch and looked around the info centre. There were some not so smart people blocking the entire road and getting up close to some moose for photos there. 

More scenery:

I put togeather some of the nicer dashcamera footage along the way into one shorter video:

Video of some really nice Alaskan scenery between Anchorage and Fairbanks

The town of Ester was supposed to be a gold mining town and tourist attraction but we drove through it and didn't see anything so we just went and camped in downtown Fairbanks for the night. It was underneath the flight path of a very nearby runway but the mosquitos weren't too bad there.