Wednesday August 21, 2019
It was a cool 53 degrees this morning and the air was much clearer than the last couple of days. We heard reports that the forest fires were diminishing. We drove to the Alaska Native Heritage Center located just outside Anchorage. The educational and cultural center’s goal is to educate visitors and share the heritage of Alaska’s 11 major indigenous groups.
We arrived in “The Gathering Place” of the main building to hear a young man talk about his life growing up with his grandparents in northern St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Afterwards, there was a musical performance of singing and dancing.
The Heritage Center is located in a beautiful setting on Lake Tiulana. Five distinct houses were constructed around the lake to replicate Alaskan villages. They demonstrate how different indigenous groups of people lived and survived in the harsh northern climate.
In the southeastern part of Alaska, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Eyak people lived in wooden houses built out of local spruce and pine trees:
The Unangax and Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) people of the Aleutian peninsula and islands built their homes largely underground or covered with earth:
The northern Inupiaq and St Lawrence Island Yupik groups also built their houses under earth and had small entrances to keep out bears and cold weather:
The Athabaskan people of the interior of Alaska built log houses out of available trees:
There were interpreters inside each house who explained how residents lived and used their hand-made tools. It was an incredible experience to hear about the peoples’ resourcefulness and survival skills. The people survived in extreme northern conditions for thousands of years.
Later, we had tea outdoors with a view of the lake. There were signs everywhere warning us about bears. When I asked the man at the cafe about the signs, he showed me his “bear spray’ which he kept close at hand, right under the counter. We didn’t see any bears….
It was still early when we left the Heritage Center, so we drove to the Anchorage Museum located downtown in the center of the city.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the ultra-modern exterior of the museum, but it was another excellent place to visit to learn about the land, peoples, art, and history of Alaska.
There was an exhibition of Salmon: catching, breeding, fishing, cooking, and eating. Also included was an explanation of the different kinds of salmon and ‘when and where’ to catch them.
Also contemporary Alaskan art:
Both the Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Anchorage Museum had excellent exhibits and were great introductions to Alaska for us first time visitors! In the evening, we had dinner at the Moose Tooth Pub & Pizzeria. I had Margarita pizza with reindeer sausage – not bad. Later, back at the hotel we turned on Alaskan television. The most exciting program was a nature show on PBS: The Squirrel’s Guide to Success. I’m not making this up! We didn’t watch much of it. We’ll catch it when it comes to New York!! :-)