Anchorage

Russ outside the downtown Visitor Center.

We are near the end of our ten day stay in Anchorage. I am looking forward to getting back out into the wilderness although it has been nice to have the amenities readily available (especially cellphone and internet.) Anchorage is not a large city, so touring it was pretty easy.  I have blogged about some of the highlights already, so this blog is a collection of photos from the other places we visited in Anchorage.

The downtown section is very compact and touristy.  There are beautiful flowers in the parks and at the tourist center though.  We enjoyed walking along the streets and people watching.

Beautiful begonias were everywhere!

The colors of the flowers were brilliant.

The Anchorage Museum is very nice, especially its section on the history and culture of Alaska.

One of the art carvings in the museum.  There were many!

We spent an afternoon out at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Saw dancing and heard some talks about the different native groups.  They have a lake in the back of the center with representative houses for the five different native groups situated on a path around the lake.

They have a program where they are teaching the high school kids their native culture, including dancing.

Inside one of the native houses.  This group lives in the Southeast part of Alaska.

Another example of a native home.  This group lives on the west side of Alaska.

Russ went on a short sled dog ride while at the Heritage Center.

Took a drive out to Eklunta Village and Lake.  This is the site of one of the oldest Athabasca communities in the Anchorage area.  The Russians had a huge influence in this area, and converted many of the natives to the Russian Orthodox religion.  The lake is a water source for Anchorage.  There is a very nice packed earth/gravel walk along the lake. 

This small Russian Orthodox church was built in 1972.

This is the original church, well over 100 years old.  It was in use until the new one was built in 1972.

The inside of the new church.  There are no chairs, everyone stands during the service. 
There were beautiful woodcarved stands.

The natives place small houses over the graves, so the departed have a place to stay. 
These are called spirit houses.  The colors indicate the family.

Ekluntna Lake.  It was getting ready to rain on us.

After Russ took his floatplane ride, he walked over to the Aviation Museum and spent an hour or so looking around.

A Grumman Goose.  Interesting to us since we worked for and retired from Northrop Grumman.

Anchorage has some very nice spots, especially along the south side. The houses are built in the “Alaska” style which means that every house is different – there is no dominant style anywhere. There are a ton of parks with some having very sophisticated trail systems that are used for cross country skiing in the winter. We spent a couple of hours one afternoon walking along the coastal trail that starts near the downtown area and runs for about 13 miles along the Inlet. They also have a planet trail where the Sun marker is placed downtown and the planets are placed along the trail proportionally to their distance from the Sun. We found the Pluto marker (the trail was done before Pluto was demoted) clear out in Kincaid park which is many miles from downtown.

A view of Anchorage from the Coastal Trail.

I am looking forward to a dinner at the Sourdough Mining Company tonight.  Then we head north to Denali.  The weather the past couple of days has been rainy and they are forecasting rain for the rest of the week.  So that means we are unlikely to see Mt. McKinley while we are in the park.  But we are planning on spending several days in the Denali area after we leave the park, so hopefully the weather will clear up and we will get a good view. Don’t know when I will have internet access out there, so the next blog may be several days away.

Corrigan visiting the sights of Anchorage.  This is a monster Inutshuk.

Corrigan visiting a reindeer, which is a domesticated Caribou.