| From hiking in the wilderness to walking around the neighborhood. The fire hydrants have those tall sticks attached so that firefighters can find them if they are buried in the snow. |
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| Alaska fun fact: The Alaska state insect is the four spot skimmer dragonfly. |
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| It was Karen and Geoffrey's birthday on May 28, so to celebrate we went into Anchorage for dinner. |
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| Not here. This is the old Wendler Building. I
just like the architecture and the old Club 25 sign. It is the oldest
commercial building in Anchorage. It seems to now be a fur shop, of which there are quite a few along this stretch of the street. |
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| Not sure I want to eat anything from the Army Nave Surplus. Again, I just love the old sign. |
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| Here we are, the Whisky & Ramen. |
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| My ramen dish. Sadly no seaweed, but lots of things with names that I do not know. It was good anyway. |
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| Baked Alaska for dessert. It's a little hard to see, but it is on fire. |
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| We didn't fly out until that evening, so we visited the Alaska Native Heritage Center. |
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| This was more up my alley. Animals are nice and
all, but I like to go to places of historic or cultural interest. This is a statue called Raven the Creator. |
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| There were a bunch of high school kids doing demonstrations of games that their native American tribes play. This one involved kicking a ball hanging from a rope while standing on just one hand. |
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| Here's another one where they have to kick the ball balanced on their hands and their legs bound. From what they were saying, a lot of these games were meant to keep them in shape during the winter. |
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| Dena'ina birch bark baskets. |
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| Masks and a kayak. |
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| Out behind the building around a little lake are examples of types of native Alaskan village buildings. |
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| An example of a clan house in southeastern Alaska. |
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| Alaska has 228 federally recognized tribes. |
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| This looked a lot like a similar clan house I saw at Totem Bight State Historical Park in Ketchikan. |
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| Alaska fun fact: Alaska averages 5000 earthquakes per year. |
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| Mound structures of the Unangax and Sugpiaq people. |
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| Alaska fun fact: Alaska's largest mineral export is zinc. |
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| The people of southern Alaska were whale hunters. |
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| An example of a native restroom facility. |
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| A qargi, a traditional semi-subterranean men's community house, of the Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik people of northern Alaska. |
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| There is a long entrance. |
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| You have to crawl up to get out this way. |
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| A similar structure of the Yupiit and Cupiit people of western Alaska. |
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| There was a museum person in here talking about some of the stuff inside. |
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| But I could not say now what she said, so... Alaska fun fact: Alaska has significantly more caribou than people. |
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| A tree house without a tree? |
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| An Athabascan family lodge building. |
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| Back indoors. I think I managed to keep track
of which stuff belonged to which group of tribes. Of course, if I am wrong,
I don't think anyone is really going to know. So I'm going to sat this is stuff from the Dene. |
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| Yupiit and Cupiit. You know, to be honest some of these names are spelled slightly different in different places. |
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| Inupiat and Sivuqam. These were the folks in the northern part of Alaska. |
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| Unangax and Sugpiat, from the Alutian Islands area. |
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| Daxunhyuu, Lingit, Xaadas and Ts'msyen from the southeast part of the state. |
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| If you wanted to be one of the cool Inupiaq or Yupiit in the late 19th century, you just had to have a seal scratcher like this. |
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| This is a book called Eskimo Land: A
Supplementary Reader for Primary Schools, published in 1914. It's not
exactly a nice story. This part is about a little Alaskan native girl who
went to school wearing her traditional regalia and they took them from her
and "dressed her up like a little white girl." The sign indicated that the story ends on the next page with the girl telling the teacher she is cold and pleading for her warm clothing back. |
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| A parka made of fish skin. |
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| After the museum it was time for a late lunch, so we drove into town to 49th State Brewing. |
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| ***STOLEN PHOTO ALERT*** Not sure why I look like I am in pain. I guess that is the face I make when opening my mouth as big as possible. I was eating a yak burger. Yes, it was made of real yak. I think Karen took this one. |
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| Finally, two more animals. Laika, the big ol' black poodle who wins all sorts of ribbons at kennel club trials. |
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| And Stanley, the evil black cat. |
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