Anchorage

(Whale)

When in Anchorage, mom and I went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. It was really wonderful- like an Alaskan Epcot Center. There are a lot of different Native Alaskan tribes, with really different ways of life and traditions, but they can be broken down into five major groups. At the center, there is a lake, and around the lake are five permanent structures, one for each group of Native Alaskans.

(Mammoth Tusk Fossils)

They were really neat- full-size structures you could go in and see, with examples of clothing and weapons and other materials inside. There was a younng person in each one, who was a member of the respective tribe. Some were more talkative than others, but they shared stories about their tribe, and showed how to use various weapons and other tools.

Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian Clan House (live in the panhandle, in temperate rain forest, and use cedar to build their homes, which makes the houses smell incredible):

Ulax/Ciqlluaq Long House (live on the Aleutian Islands):


Inupiaq/St. Lawrence Island Yupik Seasonal Round (Northern-most AK):

The guy in the Seasonal Round told some really good stories about life in the far-north Alaska. He explained that polar bears were the greatest enemy of his people, and as a result, they needed escape hatches in case the polar bears attacked their home. He also told some stories he had heard from an elder, about the elder's experience living in a Seasonal Round, and about fighting off polar bears, and the methods used to kill them. Apparently polar bear meat is very high in mercury, and so must be cooked a very long time before it can be eaten, otherwise it is lethal.

Escape Tunnel:


Yup'ik/Cup'ik in Southwestern Alaska. Apparently, in many places here there is no wood, or if there is, it is very scarce, so they have to find other sources of fuel. The men all live together in the large structure, and the smaller openings are where women and children live:


Athabaskan log house: (East and Central AK- these are the people most common in my area of
Alaska as well)


There was also a neat museum of artifacts, and a music/dance performance as well. I really liked this Loon Mask:



Later at night, we went to see the Cook Inlet. There was a statue of Captain James Cook:

I read Blue Latitudes by Tony Horowitz, in which the author visits all the places Cook discovered, it was an excellent book, I highly recommend it. It was exciting to be at the Cook Inlet, a place that Cook put on the map.

There was also a great view of Sleeping Lady (Mt. Susitna), which looks like the profile of a lady lying down:

The legend about this mountain is that friends came to tell the lady that her lover had beeen killed, and couldn't bear to wake her. Instead, they asked the gods to protect her until peace returned forever to the land. The gods complied, and now she sleeps under grass in the summer and snow in the winter.

It was so nice having mom come and visit- I'm glad she's seen where I live and my new area!