If I Were Going...: Alaska #3: Chena and Chatanika

"Can you see me?" Shy Alaskan Moose Cow on the Chena River

The rest of our time in Fairbanks was spent exploring the Chena and Chatanika River areas northeast of the city. One day, Scott went fishing and I went looking for birds and animals. He was more successful than me.

He had a great time fishing on the Chena River with a guide from Alaska Wilderness Enterprises. It was purely catch and release, but what would we have done with 15-16 Arctic Graylings anyway?

Scott on the Chena River (Scott is holding a fish in at least half of the photos I have of him)

While Scott was fishing, I explored the Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge that I mentioned in my last post ...

Greater White-Fronted Geese at Creamer's Field

... and the Chena River State Recreation Area, a 254,080-acre state park, with lots and lots of gravel roads that provide access to the river and adjacent ponds. I explored the Recreation Area while Scott was fishing and then we both explored more after his fishing trip was over. Although it is pretty, it isn't really extraordinary looking, which may explain why I don't really have any photos (and, later, it clouded up, making photography even move difficult).

Chena River; Photo by Scott Stevens

Located on the Chena River, the Chena River State Recreation Area offers campgrounds, hiking, ATV trails (LOTS of ATV trails), snow machine and sled dog trails, a shooting range, fishing ponds, and several public-use cabins.

The roads leading to the cabins all had locked gates, so we were never able to see them.

The road through the recreation area ends at the privately owned and operated Chena Hot Springs Resort, which is about 55 miles from the start of the road. The day Scott fished, the Resort was hosting a Renewable Energy Fair, so I didn't go in. We did the next day.

Pond on the Chena

The Chena River itself is a 100-mile tributary of the Tanana River that flows generally west from the White Mountains to the Tanana River confluence near Fairbanks, which grew up along the river.

The Tanana empties into the 2,300-mile-long Yukon River, which ultimately empties into the Bering Sea southwest of Fairbanks.

Tributaries of the Chena River include the North Fork, South Fork, West Fork, Middle (East) Fork and the Little Chena River (I guess that one didn't get the fork memo). The Chena River State Recreation Area surrounds much of the upper half of the main current.

Photo taken in 2011

The Chena River supports populations of many fish, including Arctic Grayling, Burbot, Chum Salmon, Humpback Whitefish, King Salmon, Least Cisco, Longnose Suckers, Northern Pike, Round Whitefish and Sheefish.

Easily accessible in a state where accessibility can be a big problem, the Chena is the most popular sport-fishing river in interior Alaska.

Overfishing reduced Arctic Grayling to "dangerous levels" by the mid-1980s. That’s why sport fishing for Arctic Grayling, which grow up to 18 inches long in the upper river, is limited to catch and release.

Despite all my exploring – and the fact that one of the guides at Alaska Wilderness Enterprises told me that the place was full of Bohemian Waxwings, I saw very little wildlife. I did see a couple of Belted Kingfishers that flew away as quickly as I saw them, but no Waxwings!

In the end, our total critter count was:

Two shy female Alaskan Moose Cows (one is pictured at the beginning of this post) …

River Moose

An American Three-toed Woodpecker …

The yellow cap is a give-away

A Columbia Spotted Frog (one of only two frogs that live in Alaska) ...

Frogs are rare

A smattering of Mosquitoes (fortunate because Alaska can have a lot more than a smattering) and some interesting mushrooms …

Bright red mushrooms

Scott saw a Bald Eagle while fishing but I didn’t see any.

One evening, we took a drive along the winding Chatanika River north of Fairbanks. The slightly tannic winding 128-mile-long Chatanika, like the Chena, is part of the Yukon River drainage basin. It has its headwaters in the mountains in the northeastern Alaska Range and flows westward to Minto Flats, a marshy area with multiple streams, rivers and lakes, and then joins the Tolovana, which flows into the Tanana River and on to the Yukon.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Chatanika was dominated by gold-mining, which used its flow to operate gold dredges. Now, it is primarily a recreation area with fishing, boating, camping and ATV and snow machine trails.

Once again, I took few pictures and the animals were hard to come by.

We saw only some Canada Jays …

On a tree top, as usual

Belted Kingfishers …

On a wire, as usual

And an Osprey in a nest with what seemed to be an awfully young chick for so late in the season ...

A nest

Along the route, we passed a portion of the Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR), the world's largest land-based rocket range. PFRR has been the site of more than 1,700 launches of equipment studying the Earth's atmosphere and its interaction with the space environment, including the Aurora Borealis, plasma physics, the ozone layer, solar proton events, Earth's magnetic field and ultraviolet radiation.

Photo: Atlas Obscura

PFRR is owned by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, which operates it under contract to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility.

I have heard of it, but never realized exactly where it was.

Unfortunately, there was nothing happening when we passed by.

While exploring the area, we also stopped at the Chena Hot Springs Resort for a light dinner.

Yum!

Chena Hot Springs was founded over 100 years ago by two gold mining brothers, Robert and Thomas Swan, who set out to find hot springs to ease Robert’s rheumatism pain. In 1911, they built twelve small cabins for visitors. Now, Chena Hot Springs is one of the most famous resorts in the interior of Alaska.

Left photo: Scott Stevens

On the grounds there is an Ice Museum that showcases the artwork of resident ice artists Steve and Heather Brice. The museum is open throughout the entire year, including the summer. We didn’t go this time, but I have visited in the winter, when ice sculpture seems more appropriate.