Moose and Native Traditions

The moose report for today is brief.  No moose.  Applebees parking lot has been empty.  To be fair to the moose I have not have the time to actually look for them.  Today I had a meeting with the biologists who study land birds in Alaska.  Very interesting day, better than statistics.

I did get a moose report from Katmai.  My partners are trying to get the moose surveys done for me while I am gone.  Today I got a report from the office.  On Monday the pilot and my partners went up and with in two hours into the survey team ran into ice fog.  A fog so thick they had to turn back.   Tuesday they were set to go and the pilot got called into jury duty.  Today, bad weather.  But in the two hours they were in the air on Monday they saw 25 moose and two of the bulls only had one antler.  Things are not looking good for moose work.  They did see two groups of caribou.  Yeah!  Not sure I really have enthusiasm behind that yeah.  I want to see the moose and the caribou.

At lunch today my friend took me to the Native Hospital to visit their gift shop.  If you are ever in Anchorage don't miss this shop.  It is small but everything in it is made by the native tribes.  Everything in the shop is absolutely beautiful.  There are ivory carvings, handmade jewelry, wall hangings and moccasins and mittens made from a variety of animal furs.  There were three small trees that were covered with homemade ornaments made with fur.  I could have spent a fortune.  I bought a wonderful seal fur ornament in the shape of an angel.

I looked at other things and fell in love with a hand carved jewelry  box.  The only problem with this little shop is that they only take cash or checks and I had $25 in cash and no check book.  Be sure if you visit and I wouldn't miss it if I were you, take lots of cash.  While I was paying for my purchase I was talking to the clerk and I found out that items made of fur are going to be rare items in the future as not many of the natives are tanning hides any more and the children don' t seem to be interested in the art form.  It is so sad as this has been a way of life for the tribal community for centuries.  We should be worried about these lost cultures because once they are gone, we can't get them back.  I know there are people out there who think this is horrible that we kill animals for clothes or art work but we could learn so much on how to live in harmony with nature from tribal cultures.  They honor the creatures of world, not exploit them or worse ignore them.  By the way, there were lots of things made of moose hides there.