Anchorage

Anchorage August 13th and 14th

We left Kelly Lake on the 13th and headed across the Sterling Highway back onto the Seward highway and headed north along the Cook Inlet into Anchorage. We continued on north of Anchorage and camped at Eagle River in the Chugach State Park for two days. The river is swift with rapids and it is full of the glacial "flour" which makes it look dirty but isn't.  We were surprised to hear that the Salmon can actually get up this river to the  head water to spawn.

We drove back into Anchorage to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Museum. Wonderful experience. There were children there that explained and demonstrated the games that keep them in shape during the long winter days with no sun and too cold to go outside. They have established their own "olympics" for these games competing with other Native cultures not only in Alaska but also Russia and Canada. The young lady below holds the women's record for jumping the highest and kicking the ball with one foot and landing on one foot.

Women's Record Holder

The Museum itself was nicely done with exhibits from all of the Native tribes: Eyak, Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida from the Southeast; Unangaz and Alutiiq from the Southwest; Inupiaq, St. Lawrence, Island Yupok in the North; the Yup'ik and Cup'ik from the West and the Athabascans from the East. We toured the villages that were built outside to see in more detail how these cultures live(d) and survive(d) in this wilderness.

Totem Pole at Museum

We also toured the Ulu factory. An Ulu is a device designed and created by native Alaskans for chopping and cutting foods and in previous days,  scraping hides. An Ulu is a rounded blade made out of stainless steel now (previously just steel) with a wooden handle (previously antler horns, wood, ivory) and is used in a rounded out cutting board for chopping and dicing. The "factory" was more or a less a gift shop but they were packing the Ulus as we went through.

The following day, we went to the Eagle River Nature Center in Chugach State Park for the afternoon.  We did a hike around the grounds but saw no Bear just Salmon in the river.

Eagle River with Chugach Mountain Range

They had closed the trail we were hoping to walk on due to a lot of Bear activity there. Relaxing easy walk.. the hard part was just getting there for all of the road construction along the way.