There's a reason why the license plates here boast of Alaska being "The Last Frontier"...most areas are still wild and rather inaccessible to tourists like me, short of hiring a bush plane. There's an average of 1.2 people per square mile here.
And everyone knows Mt. Denali is tall, over 20,000 feet above sea level:
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| Not my photo!! (From nbcnews.com) |
Here are some more big Alaska moments we've had:
1) Big fish. Seriously big fish. We were tipped off as we arrived at the airport:
That's a 459 lb. halibut, in case you were wondering.
I saw the tourist brochures at the airport with the iconic proud fisherman holding a huge catch. And I assumed that photo was probably the top catch or so of the year to draw in the tourists. But as one tour group advertised, Alaska has "Fish so big you don't gotta lie about 'em." Big fish are no big deal here. It seems anyone with minimal effort and experience can catch them (or hire a guide to help them).
Alaskan citizens are allowed to just dip a net into the waters ("dip netting") and catch fish...it's that easy. (Tourists, who are not subsistence fishing, are not allowed to do this.) To clarify: I'm not saying I could catch a huge fish if you put a pole in my hands. I know next to nothing about fishing. But I can tell that the learning curve to landing a big one is not crazy steep.
2) Whales. My boys are fascinated with whales, even before coming here. We went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center a few days ago and a lady there told us to go and find the whale jaw bones. They were hard to miss:
And they had a full grey whale skeleton there:
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| Joshua and a grey whale skeleton at the Alaska Native Heritage Center |
3) Snuggles with a walrus.
I guess snuggles can be big if it's with a walrus, even if it's a baby walrus:
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| That's a baby walrus. |
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| And that's a guy snuggling with the baby walrus. All for science!! |
This was at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, AK. Read this article if you're curious why people are snuggling with a walrus there. Seeing this not-so-small young walrus snuggle with a human caretaker was so so so enjoyable/heartbreaking...I probably stood there for 20 minutes just fascinated and transfixed watching the walrus/human snuggles. You could tell so clearly how much the baby walrus wanted/needed to snuggle with its human caregiver, along with the amused smiles from the human caregiver being watched by an ongoing rotation of people.
4) Big (high) food prices.
We knew this was coming, but still, this is sort of a shocker:
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| Medium sized, mediocre-tasting watermelons for $6.99. Meanwhile watermelons were selling for $2.99 in Minnesota. We ate watermelon exactly once this summer. |
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| Cherry tomatoes for $4.49. Never bought these so can't tell you how they tasted. |
There is a Costco in Anchorage, which we went to a few times, but prices are still higher there than a Costco in Minnesota, and we're trying to be careful to not overbuy there since we leave soon. Sadly Aldis is not here (sigh) but, even with adjusted prices, I think they'd make a killing here.
BUT, in exchange for these high food prices (or contributing to them) there are some unique perks. Timothy and Matthew can be dropped off at a child care room to watch movies while I shop with Joshua (who is too young for the child care). Joshua was absolutely furious that he could not also stay with the big kids and watch a movie, but a store employee (along with everyone else) heard my screaming 1-year-old going up and down the grocery store aisles and gave him a balloon.
So then he was happy. Apparantly grocery stores here are also in the entertain-your-kid business. Happy kids equal mothers who shop longer I suppose.
5) Bears. Lots more bears. And a big surprise meetup.
Thought I'd take this chance to give a bear update. No more crazy close sightings or bears in our yard, but we have seen bears in the wild two more times (now for a total of 5 times we've seen wild bears this summer*). Beyond the two sightings at our house earlier in the summer we saw a baby bear cub on the side of the river as we were rafting, and then a few days ago this kicker of a story happened...
We were on an evening adventure to see the fish hatchery in Anchorage, but bummed to see that they had closed a bit earlier. We just got out of the car to see if there was anything outside worth seeing. As I was getting the last of our gear out of the car a lady came up to me in the parking lot and said "Um, hi...I have two things to tell you." (This is an odd intro from a stranger in a parking lot, no?) "First...there are some bears over there, so you might want to watch out with kids and all. And also, I think I know you from Minnesota." Either one of those statements would have been astonishing, and yet my brain needed to process both simultaneously.
Sure enough on both counts......there were 3 bear cubs across a fenced area and creek that David and the boys were busily getting glimpses of. And yes, this was a lady (Jamie) who I had connected with at our old church a few years ago in Minnesota as we have a number of common interests, but hadn't seen her in maybe 3 years. I'm so glad she recognized me and said hello!!
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| Matthew looking at 3 bears. Ann and Jamie looking at the camera. I cannot tell you what a big shock it was to meet someone I know from Minnesota *in Anchorage*!!! |
On a similar note...here's a lady we met on a hike. Carrying her young bobcat. On a hike. Carrying it. Regular old house cats don't cut it here apparently.
*And since writing this post we've seen another bear in the wild. Now 6 total bear sightings, 12 bears across those 6 sightings.
6) A politician with big guts.
Agree or disagree with the politics of trying to repeal Obamacare...Alaska's senator (Lisa Murkowski) had some big guts to vote 'no' on the various Obamacare repeal efforts. Local newspapers touted her independence in the vote and how she was grabbing national headlines. Given my political persuasion on healthcare, her vote made me very happy, so the kids and I brought a balloon to her office to say thank you. Her staff member seemed a bit on edge when we were there, maybe because it was the day after a big vote. There was no guest book to write a note, very strict about where we could take a picture, and he quickly ushered out out the door after said picture.
7) Big (high) diversity in Anchorage
On a recent adventure around town we drove by this sign:
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| Sign says: "Welcome to Mountain View. Most diverse neighborhood in the USA 2017" |
Whaaaaaaat? I made David turn the car around just to get that picture. I had to Google it...could somehwere in Anchorage ALASKA be the most diverse neighborhood in the U.S.? For real? Yes, according to a number of articles online (and a University of Alaska sociology professor). This part of Anchorage has roughly equal proportions of Native Americans, whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and people who identify as biracial. Once I learned this, it does jive with my on-the-ground observations here. There are a ton of ethnic restaurants here for a city of only 300,000 people...we wanted to eat some Thai food last Sunday and our Garmin gave us a bajillion choices. There are lots of transplants here...Alaska in general has a lot of people coming and going with various seasonal jobs or the military or tourists. We were told be a number of people that it would be no big deal for us being here just 10 weeks...we'd fit right in with the other many people who are constantly coming and going. And we've found that to be true. Also......it was enjoyable seeing the diversity of people fishing at the local hot fishing spot the other day. Silver salmon, the best tasting kind, are currently running up stream now, so Anchorage is out fishing at the world's only urban salmon fishery. And I loved seeing the diversity of the anglers, packed along the stream needing to be careful each time they cast lest they hook a fellow angler. There were people in their fancy Cabelas clothes, and people who looked like they may have been homeless (and this place is not too far from some homeless camps in Anchorage). There were more men for sure, but also a fair number of women, some in hot pink wader boots. Many racial groups were represented. One black man who was fishing looked like he came straight from the hoops in the hood, with his baggy, colorful pants, fancy sneakers, gold watch, and flat rimmed baseball hat. Many of those we saw fishing here did not fit the stereotypical profile of a fisherman in my brain: a grey-haired white man off on his own. It was clear that these locals were not fishing for sport...this was an opportunity to catch some excellent food and store it in freezers for winter...and no one wanted to miss out.
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| Lots of anglers fishing at Ship's Creek in downtown Anchorage. |
8) Big food. Like this:
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| Big taco salad. |
Or this:
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| What percent of that blueberry pancake can Joshua conquer? These were pancakes made with a sourdough starter that's over 100 years old, at a restaurant called "The Roadhouse" in Talkeetna, Alaska. Seating is family style at long tables so our closest tablemates were a couple from Australia. |
And I would be remiss to not show you a picture of what is believed to be the world's tallest chocolate waterfall:
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| At Alaska Wildberry Products in Anchorage. |
which I'm told if you eat a lot will give you big baseball muscles like these:
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| At an Anchorage Glacier Pilots baseball game. Alaska has its own summer baseball league for college students to come up and play each summer...no pay for the players but locals host players to give them free room and board. We got to say 'hi' to a few of the players and an umpire, because our seats were right on the way to the only (shared by fans and players) bathroom! |
9) Then there are those hoping for big money...anyone is welcome to pan for gold here!
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| Sign reads: "This area open to recreational gold mining" |
Timothy and Matthew panned for gold in a stream for about, um, 15 seconds. And then the boys wanted to play with rocks and sticks in the stream. They did not uncover any gold in those 15 seconds.
10) But perhaps the most memorable BIG thing in Alaska, for me, have been the bigger than life stories where I honestly have a hard time sorting out fact from fiction. The stories are so right on the line of plausibility where I just start to get suspicious that someone MUST be trying to pull my leg. My ignorant tourist defenses go up high. But when I cross-examine the details with someone else later on, I learn that these crazy stories, somehow, just might be true.
One example (of many):
Our first weekend here we went to the Summer Solstice festival in Anchorage. A nice way to get our feet wet, culturally speaking. Of course Alaskans are rightfully proud of the Iditarod race from Anchorage to Nome each year in March, and at this festival we saw some sled dogs we could pet and a real sled we could stand on and explore. I was asking a young girl there some questions about dog sledding as I figured it was probably her parents or older siblings who did dog sled races and were around but chatting with other people.
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| Timothy and Matthew checking out a real dog sled at the Summer Solstice Festival in Anchorage while this nine year old girl taught us lots about dog sledding. |
But it soon became apparent that this girl, nine years old, really knew what she was talking about. And she said yes, she races dogsled teams herself. I believed her, mostly, but seriously...nine years old?? When I was nine years old I was busy learning to cross stitch and play the flute. I was proud if I got into a canoe with my Dad. This girl (and many young Alaskans) seriously put me to shame.
So later on I asked Rachel about this...she's a friend of Jerami, one of his fellow yardies. She kindly let Timothy and Matthew ride on a "sled" for training sled dogs in the summer, pictured here pulled by Rachel's collie dog:
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| A summer dog training "sled" |
And I asked Rachel...is this nine year old dogsled racing girl for real??! And Rachel laughed at me and said yes, of course that's plausible. Here, let me show you the sled for even younger kids:
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| A dog sled for the little dog sledding tykes. |
Rachel said this sled can be ridden alone by a THREE YEAR OLD in a children's dog sled race if their parents allow it. They'd be pulled by just 1 dog and the only requisite skill is that they just have to hold on to the sled handle bar. Um, yeah. So I guess three year olds can race dog sleds now? Or is this another tall tale? I don't even know, but I've confirmed enough of these crazy stories that now I just have to wonder and keep it in the maybe-possible category. At the end of this conversation about dog sledding, Rachel apologized that she did not think to let me know in time about signing up our boys to enter the local mutton busting competition that apparently happened last week. It was implied that this is the summer equivalent of dog sledding for a 3 year old. And she said if we come back during the winter she'll get our boys out dog sledding if they want to. At ages 6 and 4 they're plenty old enough to mush.
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