The trader was Captain E.T. Barnette. In August 1901 he was steaming up the Tanana River aboard the sternwheeler Lavelle Young, hoping to plant a trading post far upriver, when low water forced the boat into the shallow Chena and stranded it well short of his goal. Under his contract, the captain put Barnette and his tons of goods ashore right there, on the bank where downtown Fairbanks stands today. Barnette was furious — he was hundreds of miles from where he meant to be — but he had little choice, so he set up shop and waited to see what the country would bring.
Today the thing that draws the world to Fairbanks hangs in the sky. The city sits directly under the auroral oval, which makes it one of the best places on Earth to watch the northern lights — green and violet curtains rippling over the boreal forest on clear, cold nights. The same far-north position gives Fairbanks its other signature: a summer of nearly endless daylight, the Midnight Sun, balanced against winters that drop to forty and fifty below. People come now for the aurora, the ice-carving championships, the hot springs, and the road north toward Denali and the Arctic — the same Interior wilderness the stampeders crossed, seen from the warm side of the window.
Why People Visit Fairbanks
Visitors come to Fairbanks for the aurora — the city's spot under the auroral oval is hard to beat — and stay for the layered Interior story: gold dredges and frontier cabins, a northern university and big-sky wilderness in every direction. It is the gateway to Denali and the Arctic, with hot springs and ice art for the winter and the Midnight Sun for the summer. Equal parts gold-rush heritage and far-north spectacle, Fairbanks rewards anyone drawn to the heart of Alaska.
