The Discovery III sternwheeler has plied the Chena River since 1975, when Jim and Mary Binkley launched what would become Alaska's most enduring family-operated river cruise. The vessel runs a three-and-a-half-hour route from Discovery Drive through a corridor of boreal forest, past the confluence with the Tanana River, and into a riverside Athabascan encampment that has anchored the fairbanks riverboat discovery cruise experience for five decades. The Binkleys descend from riverboat captains who navigated the Yukon and Tanana systems during the gold rush; Jim Binkley himself piloted the original Discovery before handing the wheel to his sons. Today's itinerary remains faithful to the 1975 template. The sternwheeler departs twice daily during the May-through-September season, carrying 900 passengers on each sailing. Narration covers the mechanics of the paddlewheel, the ecology of the Interior's rivers, and the logistics of bush aviation — floatplanes occasionally taxi past mid-cruise. The vessel slows at a re-created fish camp where guides demonstrate set-net techniques and fillet king salmon on driftwood tables. A second stop introduces visitors to an Athabascan village site operated by descendants of the Tanana Chiefs. Handlers here work with Alaskan huskies year-round; teams of sled dogs pull wheeled carts in summer to illustrate winter travel methods. The riverboat discovery cruise tickets include access to both the waterborne segment and the guided village walk. The village tour proceeds through cache cabins raised on stilts, a smokehouse, and a ceremonial platform where an elder recounts oral histories tied to the Tanana and Yukon watersheds. Guides explain the construction of birch-bark canoes and the preparation of dried salmon strips. The sled-dog demonstration features a sprint by a six-dog team; handlers field questions about breeding lines and the mechanics of harness rigging. The entire loop — boarding, cruise, village, and return — occupies between three and four hours, with the vessel moored at the village site for roughly 45 minutes. The Chena River route offers unobstructed sightlines across the Interior's low-relief terrain. Spruce and birch dominate the riverbanks; in late August, the first yellowing leaves signal the approach of autumn. The river itself is a tributary of the Tanana, which flows west to meet the Yukon near the village of Tanana. Water levels fluctuate through the season; late-summer sailings navigate shallower channels, occasionally grounding on sandbars that shift with each spring breakup. The Discovery III draws less than four feet, a shallow draft inherited from the flat-bottomed stern-wheelers that once hauled freight upriver to Fairbanks before the completion of the Alaska Railroad.