With just 32,000 residents, Fairbanks is a mid-sized town by most standards, but in sparsely inhabited Alaska, it’s the largest community in the interior of the state, its population second only to that of the much larger city of Anchorage. It was founded in 1901 as a trading post on the Chena River, at the height of the Alaskan Gold Rush, and the identity of the place is still tied to that era–which was not so very long ago, in the broader scheme of things. Fairbanks is not an easy place to live, even in modern times, and the frontier spirit that drove those pioneers to seek their fortune in the frozen wilderness of the Klondike is still very much alive.

On the surface, from the perspective of a tourist passing through, Fairbanks seems like a relatively ordinary American town, complete with all the same fast food drive-thru and chain restaurants you’d see anywhere else, along with billboards advertising familiar brands, and plenty of traffic on well-paved streets. There are no dramatic snowy mountains visible, no rocky arctic coastline teeming with fish and seabirds, no windswept tundra or caribou herds. From a purely visual perspective, there’s nothing obvious to establish your sense of place—until you consider the dramatic shifts in the hours of daylight. If you’re there in the summer, the sun doesn’t go down until the wee hours of the morning, and if you’re there in the winter, it barely comes up at all until spring. Fairbanks is just 200 miles from the Arctic Circle, in the Land of the Midnight Sun, and there’s no escaping the effect that very real phenomenon has on your lifestyle, not to mention your sleep cycle.

The hardy folk who call Fairbanks home embrace the extremes: the short, but intensely beautiful spring and summer, and the dark, cold, seemingly interminable winter, when their skies are ablaze with the aurora borealis, some of the finest displays of the northern lights to be seen anywhere. Cross country skiing and snowmobiling are among the most popular outdoor activities during the cold months, and in a region where temperatures routinely hit 20 below zero, just about everybody loves a good soak in a hot spring. There are several to choose from in the general area, but the closest, and by far the most popular is the Chena Hot Springs, 60 miles northeast of town.

I visited Fairbanks in the summer of 2015, after driving up on the Alaska Highway. By the time I arrived, I’d been on the road for three weeks, and what I needed more than anything was a comfortable place to relax and unwind.

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First discovered in 1905 by two gold-mining brothers, Robert and Thomas Swan, the hot spring puts out steaming water at a temperature of 150 degrees, producing enough energy to provide all the heat and power required for the resort, as well as filling the hot springs pools used by the guests. The resort overall was kind of neat. In addition to the lodge and restaurant, they offered camping and horseback riding, and they had exhibits featuring sled dogs, greenhouses, and geothermal energy. 

Tent Camping and Yurt Camping at Chena Hot Springs

The lesson (which I’d already learned, long ago): never travel without a roll of duct tape! That stuff has a thousand and one uses. By the time I finished setting up the tent, I was being eaten alive by voracious, insatiable Alaskan mosquitoes! Brutal! But my tent came with built in mosquito netting, and once I got everything snugged up and propely zipped, I had no further issues with the little buggers.

The indoor pool, which is kept at 90 degrees; the outdoor pool, which is kept at 106 degrees; and the covered walkway between the two, an important amenity in the frigid winter.

After everything was set, I spent another $15 for an all-day pass to the thermal pool. I entered the building, only to find a regular swimming pool full of boisterous kids throwing balls around, the water lukewarm, at best, and there were a couple of hot tubs, which were warmer, but I was feeling a bit ripped off—it was nowhere near as enticing as the Liard Hot Springs in BC. I read the signs in the pool area, and realized, silly me, that there was an outdoor pool as well; it just wasn’t visible through the windows. That rock-lined pool was fabulous, better than Liard Hot Springs, VERY warm, and wonderfully relaxing. I tried to imagine soaking in that outdoor pool in the winter, with snow all around, dark skies, and temperatures well below zero. Most definitely not for me!

The resort even had its own airstrip, private planes being relatively common in Alaska.

It rained pretty much all night, but I stayed warm in my sleeping bag and dry enough in my tent. Used the sleep mask I’d bought in Fairbanks, but stripped it off at some point, as it didn’t help all that much. It doesn’t really get dark at all, that time of year at that latitude—more like dusk that never quite fades to black. My brain is so accustomed to waking when the sun rises, I’m not sure I could ever adjust to the unnatural day and night swings of the far north (or south). Meanwhile, I slept pretty poorly, and woke up still tired. The tent actually did leak just a little—rain coming through the mosquito net, most likely, because I’d left the windows unzipped for ventilation.

The rain had stopped by the time I got up. I went ahead and started breaking camp, since the restaurant didn’t open until 7:00. When the time came, I took a stroll to the main building, pausing to exchange pleasantries with a group of guys on motorcycles who had spent the night in a yurt at the campsite next to mine.

I had breakfast and some very good coffee, and in the parking lot outside the lodge, I saw the bikers again. One of them had a dead battery, and was using a battery charger provided by the hotel in hopes of getting it going again. I finished taking down the tent and all—pretty much of a hassle, with all the wet and the mud. On the way out, I swung through the parking lot again to check on the biker with the battery problem. Good thing I did that—turned out his battery was shot, and wasn’t going to take a charge. His companions were just guys he’d met along the route and traveled with briefly, so they were already long gone, leaving him to his own devices. I offered him a ride to Fairbanks, which he most gratefully accepted. He’d ridden all the way from Maine on that bike in just two weeks. Like me, his trip to Alaska was a bucket list thing that he’d planned for a long time, but that’s where the comparison stops. Doing all that on a motorcycle? That’s a whole different category of endeavor! We had a pleasant conversation on the hour long drive back to town, and I took him to a motorcycle shop, where he was able to buy a battery that would fit his Italian motorcycle (a Moto Guzzi). The new battery had to be charged before use—an all-day process, so I left him there, after making sure he’d be able to get back out to Chena Hot Springs on his own. Made me feel great, to have been able to offer much needed assistance to a fellow traveler. Many a stranger has been very kind to me on my own travels, and I was happy for the chance to pay it forward.

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Some of the text and many of the photos in my Alaska Highway series first appeared on RoadTrip America’s website. A few years ago, I posted a detailed account of my entire 57 day, 13,000 mile “Mother of All Road Trips,” and RTA has kept that account available in their archive of Field Reports. If you’d like to read it, the link below will take you there:

MORE ABOUT THE ALASKA HIGHWAY:

This is an interactive Table of Contents. Click the pictures to open the pages.

Alaska Road Trip

A few years ago I wrote a book about road trips in Arizona and New Mexico that's a lot like this website, packed with interesting information, and illustrated with beautiful photographs. Check it out! You can find it on Amazon, and at all other major booksellers.