Back to the cabin for another charming night! This time, instead of getting into the hot tub with four inches of cold water at the bottom, we resolved to stir it up every time we stoked the fire. Success! The water was fully hot when I finally got in. Unfortunately for me it was 105 degrees. That’s a bit out of my comfort zone. So, I got in, promptly got out and then enjoyed the night sky while sitting above the steaming water. Still overall fun.
We woke up to a snow covered view, and, honestly, I could have done without it. YES, I know I came to Alaska. YES,I know it’s cold here. YES, I know the spring and summer come later than normal. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about the snow! Fine, I’ll concede that it was pretty.
We set off around noon and went straight to the Alaska Conservation Center. If only they’d had Dall Sheep I could have checked off all the Alaska “big five” animals! Dall Sheep, Moose, Bear, Caribou, Wolves. I mean, I think it’s fine to have seen them in a rehabilitation center. It still counts. The Conservation Center was pretty fun. It’s a big space that most people drive through but we decided to walk.
We started by visiting the wolves where I learned that a “pack” of wolves is usually just a family unit. Parents and offspring, usually 5-6, and in that context the idea of an “alpha” male is actually not correct. It's not stranger wolves that are fighting for supremacy - it's parents, co-parenting and annoying children. Next we saw the Caribou and was reminded of the fact that Caribou and Reindeer are the same animal. Reindeer usually refers to domesticated Caribou. Also, males lose their antlers by October. Females keep them until may. So either Santa used Christmas magic to keep the antlers on his sleigh pullers or all the dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen, coment, cupid, donner, blitzen and rudolph are actually female. We strolled down to look at the Moose and we were lucky to see three of them hanging out in the shed. Moose are HUGE and their noses/mouths were even more so strangely huge. Like the width of a piece of paper. The 11’ side. Moose, as you may know, are aggressive and I learned that it IS ok to run from a moose (if you have a head start). They will often just lose interest and wander off. The moose here at the center are often used in filming for movies in Alaska. In fact, if you’ve seen Into the Wild you’ve seen an AWCC moose. Autographs weren’t allowed. After the moose we saw MuskOxen. They aren’t actually musky. Just so you know. They do, however, have some of the softest fur around - their winter under layers- called Quiviut. I’m gonna try to get some thing made with it. There's a great collective that makes clothing from them. It's a conglomeration of various native tribes. The women collect the fur (the harvest it from shedding muxkoxen), send it off to be spun and then the spun wool comes back to them they they make the garments. The designs are pretty specific to whatever community has made them so when you go into the store (in anchorage) the women there will tell you the place it was made from just by looking at the pattern. Check out the shop! Back to the animals and their habits - the males, when they are butting heads have the same impact of a car ramming a concrete wall at 17 miles per hour. Awesome.
Don’t worry, more animal facts coming your way. We wandered over to the bear enclosure. On one side they had Black Bears and on the other, Brown and Grizzly. Black Bears are the ones we have in New England. Kinda small, scavengers, generally prone to run away. They don’t always have to be Black. Apparently they come in lots of colors including "Glacial Blue". I looked that up online...that color phrasing is a stretch. (It's like someone from Sherwin Williams was brought in to name it.) In a fight with a bear, the main thing is DON’T. Just don’t. "i started a fight with a bear" is something you should NEVER SAY. But if you do: fight back, don’t run. Let me repeat. FIGHT BACK AND DONT RUN. and then curl into a ball and cry while you wait for the bear to wander off. Hopefully it’s just aggressive and not hungry. Brown and Grizzly bears are the same species but the grizzly is considered to be a distinct subspecies. Grizzlies don't get quite as big as Brown bears as they live in inner Alaska and don't’have access to the Salmon. Grizzlies live outside of Alaska but Brown bears don’t. There you go.
After the Bears we we wandered past the Elk. Elk are a bit smaller than moose, tend to be generally more skittish than moose and, in my opinion, just look like massive deer.
At this point we were out by the Turnigan Arm (the big body of water out here) and took in the view from out there for a bit before circling back around and going to visit the Wood Bison. The Wood Bison are an interesting story. There are no fully wild Wood Bison in America (yet). Canada has a herd of about 2000 but it took heavy management and effort to make it self sustaining. We have only 93 (originally over 115) that were released in 2015 from the AWCC making it pretty exciting to see the Bison at the AWCC as seeing them truly wild is impossible. The process of "releasing" them seems like an incredible logistical feat. They flew the females and babies out to their release area, sedated and in a plane. The males, weighing in at 2,200lbs were barged up. They didn’t want any issue in flight should one decide to act out. When they brought the first group up, females and calves, it was spring and they weren’t in exactly the place they wanted them. They needed to move them across the river but getting them to do that quickly and with no problems could be difficult so they waited until winter when the river was frozen and they put some feed on the back of a snowmobile and had them follow it to the new location. And by “follow” i mean “thunder after at high speeds”. This video is pretty fun to watch. I found it captivating! I really like the shots starting at 1 minute. As a side note, this was planned. This was a thing they were working on 'training" the bison to do at the AWCC to faciliate this process once they were released.
Wood Bison were followed by Sitka Black Tailed Deer. Which, honestly, were deer...so...yeah. Most interesting fact, for me, is that they are the most hunted animal in South East Alaska with an annual harvest of 12,000 deer over a 20 year period ending in 2007. The numbers are still pretty high but that’s VERY intense. And just in case you missed the key word, that’s an ANNUAL harvest number. Eek!
Finally we were getting down to the smaller animals, the Coyotes. When you think of those howling sounds in the wild, ppl often think of wolves but really, Coyotes are the most vocal doglike creature out there. Singing all the time! Next we saw Twix, the porcupine. I love porcupines. They are deceptively soft looking but DON’T HUG THEM! Also, the hang out in trees. And are obsessed with salt. They’ll eat anything with salt on it -your shoes, the edge of a wooden bench that sweaty people have been sitting on, you get the idea. I mean, in reality, we’re pretty salt obsessed too..chips, pretzels, jerky. ANYWAY, I think it was just near feeding time so he was out strolling around.
We saw a bald eagle who’s wing had been shot off. This eagle, incidentally, was also featured in “into the wild”. I love how eagles look like they’re wearing pants.
Next was a great horned owl, an apex predator. Don’t think they’re just cute.
And finally a lynx. And you should DEFINITELY look at this. It’s photos and video of a family of Lynx’s playing on a porch in Alaska. Tots, presh, adorbs.
After the wildlife center we were a bit tired of touring so we booked it back to Anchorage and went for Pizza at the hugely popular Moose’s Tooth. They brew their own delicious beer and make delicious pizza, pretty much all you need to be worth a 35 minute wait. Jeremy’s friends Joe and Emily came out to join us and we had a lovely final evening with Jamie as he was only visiting AK for his April Vacation week.
The little cabin in Hope. So adorable! And set up so it gets sunlight almost all day!
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