Pioneer Park

Pioneer Park Review

The 44-acre park is along the Chena River near downtown Fairbanks, and has several museums, an art gallery, theater, civic center, Native village, large children's playground, miniature-golf course, antique merry-go-round, and restaurants. The park also has a re-created gold-rush town with historic buildings saved from urban renewal, log-cabin gift shops, and Mining Valley, an outdoor museum of mining artifacts surrounding an indoor-outdoor Alaska Salmon Bake restaurant. The 227-foot stern-wheeler Nenana is the second-largest wooden vessel in existence and a national historic landmark. A diorama inside the stern-wheeler details the course the riverboat took on the Yukon and Tanana rivers around the turn of the 20th century. The Crooked Creek and Whiskey Island Railroad, a narrow-gauge train, circles the park. The newest addition to the park is a museum housing the first locomotive in Fairbanks, which has been restored to its 1905 condition and is run on special occasions. This is one of the best places in Fairbanks to bring kids and let them run off some energy. No-frills (dry) RV camping is available for $12 a night in the west end of the large parking lot on Airport Way.