I can say, without hesitation, that it was the worst tour I took in Alaska and a complete waste of money. \u00a0The tour guide, Sam, was nice, but really got started on a bad foot, so to speak. \u00a0He started the tour by telling the group that we were welcome to ask questions but there is a lot he doesn’t know because he doesn’t take the time to research things that don’t interest him. \u00a0Hmmm….he’s a tour guide in Fairbanks, Alaska, you’d think he’d be knowledgeable about things related to the area, the State, etc…<\/p>\n
Sam told us cheesy stories about how his family moved to Alaska looking for a better life, how is mother worked for the state taking care of the “native” people, as he put it. \u00a0We arrived at the North Pole and took the obligatory photo ops and walked over to The Santa Claus House. \u00a0The Santa Claus house does have some interesting history, but today is simply a gift shop\/coffee shop. \u00a0The city is 4.2 sq miles with a population of just over 2,000 people (seems like a lot of people in such a small area) and the streets have cute names like St. Nicholas Lane, Santa Claus Lane, Candy Cane Lane, and so forth.<\/p>\n
The Santa Claus House was originally a mercantile founded by the Miller family in 1940. The Millers were fur traders and as that business dried up, they needed a new hook for the small town they’d founded. \u00a0According to the guide, Miller dressed up as St Nick and the local kids called the mercantile “Santa’s House.” \u00a0This apparently inspired Miller to turn the mercantile into a tourist attraction – and that they did. \u00a0 You can visit Santa, buy just about anything Christmas related with the Santa Claus House logo and North Pole branding or just get a hot coffee and some fudge.<\/p>\n
When the guide said we’d spend 30 minutes at the Santa House, I about lost it. \u00a0We were wasting valuable time in a gift shop? \u00a0It took me about 5 minutes to get a post card and send a letter from Santa to a friend’s kids. \u00a0Luckily for me the other two people on the tour didn’t want to spend time shopping either! \u00a0We stopped to check out Santa’s Reindeer – yes, there are real live Reindeer at the Santa House.<\/p>\n
Our guide explained that the Reindeer had deformed antlers because they do not feed them a proper diet and the commercial food they ate had hormones. \u00a0He also gave some mis-information. I had learned from my earlier tour in Anchorage that the difference between Reindeer and Caribou is that Reindeer are domesticated and usually smaller than Caribou – that’s not what Sam told the group though. \u00a0 It was incredibly sad to see the deformed reindeer outside the Santa Claus House and such a shame to hear that they do not take care of them well.<\/p>\n
After the North Pole we headed back to Fairbanks for a tour of the free Fairbanks Community Museum. \u00a0Sam led the tour at the museum – we were the only people there on a Sunday afternoon. \u00a0Sam did provide a lot of information here, but I was not sure how accurate it was. The museum is small, but has some interesting exhibits. \u00a0Throughout the tour Sam pointed out inaccuracies with the exhibits. \u00a0For example, there was an exhibit with three guns in a case. He said that those were not historically accurate and probably just came from someone’s barn for the display. \u00a0It really made the tour disappointing to keep hearing that.<\/p>\n
Since we skipped the pipeline we headed to a bowl factory, and by factory they mean gift shop. \u00a0Sam took us to a gift shop where they make bowls out of Alaskan Birch. \u00a0The bowls were nice, but again, I was disappointed we were at a gift shop. \u00a0 The last stop was the Fountain Head museum. I had not done any research in advance and was surprised to learn that the Fountain head museum was an antique car museum. \u00a0While I do find antiques interesting, I probably wouldn’t have selected to spend my time in Fairbanks at that type of museum.<\/p>\n
We spent almost 2 hours at the museum and the other couple who was on the tour couldn’t get enough of the museum. I was done after about an hour. \u00a0The thing I enjoyed most about the museum were the cars that had been used in Alaska. They had several cars that were original to Alaska and had photographs from their original era mounted on the wall. \u00a0Along with the cars was antique clothing that was worn during the period. \u00a0 The museum was interesting and would be a great thing to do if you had unlimited time in Fairbanks or perhaps if you were a local. \u00a0The other interesting fact that Sam shared was that the car collection belonged to one individual.<\/p>\n
A lot of time was spent in a van driving from location to location, and of course, to the North Pole. \u00a0I’m really glad I can say I’ve been to the North Pole, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I was just disappointed in the tour itself. \u00a0 Since I would be spending the entire next day touring the Arctic Circle with the same tour company I was a little nervous…but since I’d pre-paid, I couldn’t really do much. We’ll see how it goes….<\/p>\n
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