Fairbanks Museums (08-11-14)

As the second largest city in Alaska, Fairbanks has a fair amount of things to do.  It sits on the Chena River, which is open to all kinds of boating.  There are several museums, and its a great place to see the Aurora Borealis, when the timing is right.  We are hoping that before we leave Alaska we’ll have a chance to see them.

We chose two museums to visit.  The first was the Museum of the North at University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

We visit a lot of museums, so sometimes we scout around looking for something we haven’t learned about before.  I thought this arctic fox was unique.  I had never seen one before.

I usually skate right past the dinosaur type stuff.  Its never been a huge interest of mine, and we’ve been to some world class dinosaur museums already.  But this display had an interesting, easy to understand explanation of carbon dating.


Carbon 14 combines with oxygen in the atmosphere, creating carbon dioxide.  Plants and animals absorb carbon dioxide, and thus, carbon 14, over time. When an animal dies, carbon is obviously no longer absorbed and the carbon 14 starts to deteriorate at a very slow, but very steady, rate.
After a period of 5,558 years, half the carbon will have converted to nitrogen.  By comparing the amount of carbon left in ancient bones to the amount of carbon found in a modern sample, they can determine how long ago an animal died.

Fountainhead

Fountainhead is a private antique car museum. All the cars are owned by Tim Cerny, a local businessman. Other than a few cars that have not been restored at all, this is a living museum- all but a few of the cars are operational.  This old Ford was converted into a portable saw mill. 

One we got inside the building, the cars were in pristine condition and ranged from the late 1800s to the 1930s.

In 1917 a New Hampshire man patented his “snowmobile” kit- made from a Ford Model T.  Although many cars were adapted to drive on the snow, this was the first recorded use of the word Snowmobile.








 
In and among all the cars there were other displays.  This was a 7 minute movie, perhaps the first 35mm film ever made.  It showcases the interaction of a variety of methods of transportation in San Francisco.  It was filmed just 4 days before the great earthquake of 1906.
It really shows the chaos of life before traffic regulations.





All of the cars have a unique story, and many of them are one of a kind.  This 1898 Hay Motor Vehicle was found in a barn in 1940.  Its a prototype and was never built for production.












This 1907 Ford Model K Roadster was one of several Ford vehicles in the building.










From gangster cars to family sedans, there was a huge variety of automobiles in the museum.  We were given audio players so that we individually hear stories about each car.

The museum was very well done!