What to See in Fairbanks - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Fairbanks, Alaska. Pioneer Park is a 44-acre city park in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States run by the Fairbanks North Star Borough Department of Parks and Recreation. The park commemorates early Alaskan history with multiple museums and historic displays on site. The park is located along the Chena River and is accessible from Peger and Airport Roads. A waterfront path connects the park to the Carlson Center, Growden Memorial Park and downtown Fairbanks. There is no admission fee to enter the park, though many of the museums and attractions do charge an entrance fee. Concessions are open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, though the park is open year round and some events are held in the off-season. Free Wi-Fi is available.^[1]

Museum in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska. Goldstream Dredge No. 8 is a ladder dredge operated by the Fairbanks Exploration Company from 1928 to 1959. It is located on the old Steese Highway between Fairbanks and Fox in the central part of Alaska.

Starting in the 1920s, water was brought to the area through the 90-mile (145 km) Davidson Ditch for gold mining. The Goldstream Dredge No. 8 cut a 4.5-mile (7.2 km) track and produced 7.5 million ounces of gold.

The dredge was named a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1986. In 1984, it was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, it is open to the public. During summer months, tours of the dredge and gold panning are available for a small fee.^[3]

Arena in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Carlson Center is a 4,595-seat multi-purpose arena in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States. It is the third largest arena in Alaska by seating capacity after the Sullivan Arena and Alaska Airlines Center, both of which are in Anchorage. It is home to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks ice hockey team of the WCHA and also serves as the site for the university's commencement exercises as well as graduation ceremonies for Lathrop, West Valley, and North Pole High Schools. The building served as the site for the Top Of The World preseason college basketball tournament until its demise in 2007. Opening in 1990, the venue is named after John A. Carlson, who served as Fairbanks North Star Borough mayor from 1968 to 1982.

The facility is located on the banks of the Chena River near Growden Memorial Park. It is owned by the Fairbanks North Star Borough and managed by Terrell Echols of Fairbanks North Star Borough.^[4]

Church in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Immaculate Conception Church is a historic church and former cathedral at 115 N. Cushman Street in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States.

Built in 1904, it was the first Roman Catholic Church erected in Alaska's interior. The church was originally located on Dunkel Street, but in the winter of 1911–12, the church was moved across the Chena River to its present location so that it would be closer to St. Joseph's Hospital, which closed in the 1960s. After the move, the basement of rough frame structure was enlarged to provide a parish hall, it was wired for electricity, and a parish house was built adjacent. The steeple and vestibule were added in 1914, the roof was raised, and the choir gallery added. Its stained glass windows were added in 1926–28.

The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.^[5]

Theatre. The Lacey Street Theatre building, now hosting the Fairbanks Ice Museum, is an Art Deco architectural showpiece theatre located at 500 Second Avenue in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was designed by noted theatre designer B. Marcus Priteca, and built in 1939 by C.W. Hufeisen for Austin E. "Cap" Lathrop. It was one of a chain of movie theaters built by Lathrop across Alaska, and was one of only two in Fairbanks into the 1960s. It closed in 1981, and was repurposed to house the museum in 1992.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

The actual museum, devoted to the display of ice sculpture, offers a daily multimedia presentations, demonstrations of ice carving, and tours of its sculpture collection.^[6]

Wildlife refuge in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska. Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge is a 2,200 acre bird sanctuary, located within the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska and partially within the city limits of Fairbanks. It consists of wetlands, fields, and forests. The refuge surrounds the former farm of Charles Hinckley and later Charles Albert Creamer, a former chicken rancher from Washington state who moved to Fairbanks. Creamer saved waste grains from his barn to feed migrating birds. After Creamer's death, preservationists banded together to make the area a state refuge. The Creamer farmstead now serves as a visitor center and environmental education center, with the non-profit "Friends of Creamer's Field" presenting programs year-round. In the summer visitors can take a guided nature walk on the refuge trails. The refuge is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It is a multi-use refuge, and limited hunting is also allowed in certain seasons. In winter dog mushing trails criss cross the back of the acreage, while skijorers have trails in the front fields.

Among the birds that flock to the refuge in late summer during migration south are Sandhill Cranes, Many ducks and Canada geese.^[7]

Building in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Patrick B. Cole Fairbanks City Hall, also known as Main School and Old Main for its previous use as a school building, is located at 800 Cushman Street in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska. An Art Deco concrete building, it was built in 1934 to replace the original Fairbanks school, a wooden building constructed in 1907 which burned down in late 1932. As Fairbanks grew exponentially with the military buildup associated with World War II and the Cold War, the building was enlarged in 1939 and again in 1948.

It was the city's only school from its opening in 1934 until the opening of Denali Elementary School in 1951. It became a junior/senior high school for several years until Lathrop High School began operation. The school then became Main Junior High School until it was replaced by Ryan Junior High School and Tanana Junior High School during the early 1970s.

Following the disestablishment of Main Junior High, instruction in the building was mostly limited to alternative education programs. The building's primary purpose at that point was to house the administrative offices of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, a role it filled from 1976 until 1993. Most of those offices moved to the school district's current Fifth Avenue headquarters in the mid 1980s, and the building sat largely vacant for many years, eventually being completely abandoned.

The building has housed city offices since 1994, which moved from the longtime Fairbanks City Hall three blocks to the north. In addition to city offices, the former school gymnasium is home to the Fairbanks Boys & Girls Club. Previous non-governmental tenants of the building under city ownership have included the Fairbanks Boxing Club and the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 as Main School.^[11]

The Midnight Sun Game is an amateur baseball game played every summer solstice at Growden Memorial Park in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States. Because the sun is out for almost 24 hours a day, the game starts at about 10:30 at night and completes around 1:30 the next morning. However, because Fairbanks's summer time zone differs by about an hour from local solar time, coupled with the state's observance of daylight saving time, the game may not actually last until solar midnight, at about 1:53. Famous players who have appeared in the game include Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Terry Francona, Harold Reynolds, Jason Giambi, and Bill "Spaceman" Lee.

After Noel Wien's arrival in 1924, he noted, "The baseball team played on weekends, and on June 21 and July 4 they always started a game at midnight sharp, just to indicate that this was the farthest city in the country."

The first game was in 1906. Artificial light has never been used. The sun does dip below the horizon for about an hour. Since 1960, the game has been hosted by the Alaska Baseball League's Fairbanks-based Alaska Goldpanners. The opposing team may be another ABL team, but frequently an NCAA or other collegiate summer team from another league is invited to play.

In 2020 the Goldpanners pulled out of the contest due to the coronavirus pandemic and local amateur squads played the game instead, with a local American Legion Baseball squad facing the local town team baseball squad. The game has never been rained out; the game narrowly avoided a rainout in 2020 after heavy downpours flooded the field earlier in the day, but the two competing teams were unwilling not to let the game go forward and cleared the field to the best of their ability to allow the game to go on.

For 2021, the game expanded into a Midnight Sun Tournament, with a doubleheader consisting of the final of the American Legion Baseball tournament leading into the Goldpanners' Midnight Sun Game.^[12]