End of Alaska Adventure

June 12-June 13, 2007 Traveling Home: Seward to Anchorage to Phoenix

We are back on planes heading to Phoenix and reflecting on the past couple of days. The highlights? The Alaska Native Heritage Center, The Alaska Sealife Center in Seward and the Alaska Railroad trip from Seward to Anchorage. The lowlife: the hotel we stayed in while in Anchorage. Let’s focus on the positives….

Alaska Sea Life Center
In the months after the 1989 spill, as oil spread more than 600 miles from the rupture point near Valdez, the town of Seward served as a triage base for the thousands of dying marine mammals and birds. Subsequent to that, this center was established to research and rescue sea life. The center had wonderful exhibits and serves to research the ups and downs of marine life. We loved seeing the Puffins and dolphins in particular and close encounters with fish and sea anemones. We learned how the sea otter population was devastated with the oil spill as it occurred during the time that most females were pregnant and lost their litters. The center is a world-class hospital for marine mammals or birds in peril and an enormous window on the world of the north Pacific and all its inlets.

The Train
The Alaska Railroad starts in Seward and goes over 500 miles to Fairbanks along a magnificent route of forests, lakes (Kenai Lake) rivers, inlets, waterfalls, canyons and snow-topped mountains and glaciers. We alternated from our seat, to the dome car to the dining car. The 4- hour 114-mile ride was all in daylight, despite the fact we departed at 6PM and arrived around 10:30 PM! Most of the route was rural; some small settlements; and along the highway in a few spots. We couldn’t take our eyes off the scenery: I must have taken 200 photos along the way! The time flew by. There were young women “commentators” who shared information about the scenery and alerted us to watch for geological and animal life of interest. And we saw Dall sheep, a moose and yes, I finally saw my bear!

We so enjoyed the ride that we are thinking about taking the trans-Canada train some time soon.

When the van arrived from our hotel to pick us up at the train station and it had a severely cracked windshield and a very gruff driver (who looked more like the maintenance guy), I began to worry about the place we were staying at for the night. The city was booked. We arrive to what can only be described as a dingy hotel in a dismal part of town that went downhill from there. The walls were thin enough to allow me to hear every one of our neighbor’s belches. When the woman arrived home at 2 or 3 am in the room above us, her high heels made a racket across the floor and the plumbing continued to rattle loudly when she used the toilet or sink or shower. The television in the room on the other side of ours was on till 1 or 2; off for a few hours and then back on at 4 or 5. We got very little sleep….so we left as early as possible, dropped our bags at the airport and headed off to the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

Alaska Native Heritage Center
Aside from the Cultural Center in Cordova, we had a limited opportunity to learn about the rich local heritage of Alaskan natives. So, despite our fatigue, we were determined to visit this center way north of Anchorage. We only had a few hours in what has been described as a visit that could take an entire day. The center includes a wonderful gift shop, a gathering place for presentations of dance and athletic demonstrations, an auditorium for video, etc. a hall of cultures-with information and artifacts from each of the sub-cultures along with artisans demonstrating native art and crafts and an outdoor area with 5 village sites containing structures that replicated homes from the different areas throughout Alaska (which as mentioned before, is twice as large as Texas and contains many different climate and geographic regions.).

There were 5 different groups of peoples featured in the center: Aleut/Alutiiq; Yup’ik/Cup’ik; Athabascan; Inupiaq/St. Lawrence Island Yupik; and Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tisimshian. The Athabascan are also related to the peoples of the southwest (Navajos refer to themselves as “dineh” and the Athabascans had a very similar word to refer to themselves here). Each of these 3 groups had representatives speaking about their culture and heritage and sharing some of their language. I learned that the Eyaks whom we met and learned about in Cordova, have almost lost their language. There is one elder woman who still speaks it and has taught it to a university linguist who is trying to revive it by teaching it to tribal people in the Cordova area.

We first enjoyed watching traditional athletic feats, then dancing and drumming, talking with craftspeople and seeing the exhibits. They had a special exhibit regarding an exchange between Hawaiian natives and Alaskan! I intend to study a book from this exhibit as we head to Hawaii next week! Outdoors, we visited the log homes, lodges and earthen dwellings along with traditional artifacts of those dwellings. We learned about the use of intestines of animals as window coverings; fur for floors, etc. They used every part of the animals, fish, whales or otters in their lives. Their ingenuity and ability to sustain themselves naturally was inspiring. The beauty of their creative expression was humbling.

So with this brief introduction to the native peoples of Alaska, we round out our visit to the natural beauty of this region. We traveled by land, sea and air and across millennia as we bore witness to the ancient geological phenomena. We enjoyed the company of family in a relaxed way that we seldom get to do which was also a joy. And we slowed down our pace and allowed our senses to soak in more of the wonders of our universe. I hope you enjoyed the journey with us.