Page 118 - Vacation Country Travel Guide

museum and loading docks are located here.
Popular attractions in the Fox area include the
Fort Knox gold mine, the Pedro Monument and
the El Dorado gold mine, where visitors can take a
permafrost tunnel tour, a walking tour of the camp
or pick up a shovel and look for their own piece of
Alaskan gold. At a special pipeline display area
visitors can make close contact with an impressive
portion of the Alyeska (or Trans-Alaska) Pipeline.
The Turtle Club been been delighting diners with
delectable meals since 1950. Signature dishes include
their famous prime rib, succulent Australian lobster,
Alaskan king crab, deep-fried halibut and more, all
with the best salad bar around. Complete your meal
with delicious desserts made fresh daily and visit their
full bar.

Stacker Dredge #3
photo by:
Chatanika Lodge

Chatanika
Location: Approximately 28 miles northeast of
Fairbanks on Highway #2 to Fox, turn right on
Steese Highway #6.

When Italian immigrant Felix Pedro discovered
gold in a creek north of Fairbanks in 1902, the rush
was on. Shortly thereafter the bustling town of
Chatanika was born and the valley grew to be home to
more people than Fairbanks with a population of over
10,000. Located at Mile 27.5 on Hwy #2, the historic
FE Gold Camp was a 1925 settlement built to support
local dredging operations that recovered $70 million
in gold by 1957. The impressive Stacker Dredge #3
operated from the early 1920s until 1962, employing
a large portion of the community. Athough it was
largely destroyed in a 2013 fire, the dredge still looms
across the road from the Chatanika Lodge. The camp
itself is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Chatanika Lodge is a large cedar structure
established in the late 1930s as a trading post to serve
miners and trappers traveling to the gold fields or
trap lines in the Circle mining district near Central,
Alaska. The Lodge has a large screen theater room
for showing free films on the gold dredge and the
Alaska Highway.
Chatanika Lodge provides comfortable and cozy
overnight lodging with a rustic Alaskan atmosphere,
fine dining and live music on the weekends. They
also offer dry RV parking. The gift shop includes
furs, hand made diamond willow hanging lamps and
burls. The museum features a 1955 Thunderbird,
vintage snow machine and lots of antiques.
Held in March, Chatanika Days features the
famous “Outhouse Race,” longjohn contest, pool
tournament and snowmachine tug-of-war.
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