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 Fishermen at Homer, Alaska by jumpingnorman
And seafood here is really fresh and they take pride in this -- you will order salmon in restaurants and they taste so fresh and not fishy at all! There's 34,000 miles of coastline, and my newfound friend on the plane said he has gone to remote places just to fish. Even being near a bear once --- and his wife and him being stuck at some remote area. Kinda scary but you could see he was excited talking about his adventures...
The five species of salmon range from pan-size to 80 pounds (or 94 pounds as we saw in Soldotna's Visitor Center which had the biggest salmon caught). We saw a fisherman get a halibut which looked big to us, but I saw an huge huge one at the airport --- on display and it was like several hundreds of pounds! Amazing they grow that big!
Mountain View Sports (562-8600) will guide you to how to get fishing licenses. Have Fun Fishing, and if you just want to eat seafood, that's fine too! Leave a Comment
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One thing you might find confusing if you’re driving is how the highways have a number but no one refers to them this way. Getting directions from someone will probably involve a name and not a number. Following the number is okay on the map but one number can be a few different highways. Alaska 1 is a great example of this…it’s called all of these depending where you are on the highway:
Tok Cut-Off
Glenn Highway
Seward Highway
Sterling Highway
Also, unlike the US interstate system, Alaska doesn’t follow the “odd numbers go north and south” and the “even numbers run east and west” so don’t base the roads on that system. You’re better off knowing which name goes where. Like the Parks highway connects Wasilla (at the Glenn Highway) to Fairbanks. The numbering pattern seems to go from 1-11 which could make sense, but then there’s Alaska 98 also called the Klondike Highway. Name changes are common among Alaska roads—one side is usually called one thing, another side a different name. Or it may seem one road ends but then you see it again on the other side of the town and no way to figure out how that road made it there. One last thing: don’t bet that just because it’s called a highway, that it’s paved. It’s not always the case. Leave a Comment
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The Iditarod is one of the biggest things people associate with Alaska. It covers 1100 miles (1760km) from Anchorage to Nome in the winter. The route does get altered sometimes due to lack of snow and while the ceremonial start is here in Anchorage, the restart is in Wasilla (or Willow Lake, depending on conditions.) The historic route starts in Seward, which is marked by the “historic trail” People from anywhere may compete, but they have to get through smaller races before they can move on because this is such a difficult competition. The dogs are trained for this and the breeds are ones who prefer weather well below freezing. Still, the race has been met with protests and objections by animal rights advocates. (Everything in Alaska seems to have controversy)
A man I knew who did this race didn’t use dogs at all—he just wanted to complete the race and did so on cross country skis. Seeing the start of it is big here in Anchorage and the race is televised at the checkpoints and then at the end in Nome. I’m sure it’s huge up there too, though a lot of time passes between the musher who arrives first and the rest who complete the race. Leave a Comment
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 hmmm by PA2AKgirl
Alaska has its own time zone—one hour behind Pacific Time
No matter what you think about it, hunting or fishing is a way of life here. They aren’t just sports for everyone, but truly a way of life.
Snowmobiles are called Snowmachines
The contiguous US states are referred to as the “Lower 48”
When we were stopping for coffee, a lady asked us if we were going to the “outside” meaning out of Alaska. If you hear that and you’re outdoors already, don’t be confused;-)
Cold weather doesn’t bother a lot of people here. We heard that children up in the
Fairbanks area still have recess until it’s below -20F.
The farther east you go in the interior, the more Alaskans sound like Canadians--
sometimes more so than people you’ll come across in Whitehorse, Yukon.
reindeer meat is available in many forms--sausage, hot dogs, ground in omelets, etc. Leave a Comment
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 Monument in Fairbanks by Matyas
The largest ancestry groups in the state are: German (16.6%), Alaska Native or American Indian (15.6%), Irish (10.8%), British (9.6%), American (5.7%), and Norwegian (4.2%). Alaska has the largest percentage of American Indians of any state.
More than 90 languages are spoken in Alaska, including 20 which are indigenous to Alaska. The indigenous languages, known locally as Native languages, belong to two major language families. As the homeland of two of North America's major language families, Eskimo-Aleut and Athabaskan, Alaska has been described as the crossroads of the continents... Leave a Comment
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We arrived here in the winter of last year and soon, we began to hear about Nenana Ice Classic. Nenana is town located south of Fairbanks, quite a distance north of here on the Parks Highway. We didn’t know anything about this and actually kinda forgot about it until we went to Nenana recently. The Ice Classic is a wonderful local custom that anyone can win—it’s a complete guessing game. People put money down and make a guess as to when the ice is going to break on the Tanana river. This means it’s time for spring. The town goes all out for this—there’s a building for the Ice Classic, a number to get tickets and place your guess (up to the minute), provides employment (short term). It gets the whole state involved and big money can be won ($300,000 in the past years) just by making that lucky guess. Leave a Comment
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 Beuatiful colours near
Fairbanks by Matyas
State bird - Willow Ptarmigan
State land mammal - Moose
State marine mammal - Bowhead Whale
State fish - King Salmon
State insect - Skimmer Dragonfly
State flower - Forget-me-not
State motto - "North To The Future"
State song - "Alaska's Flag"
State tree - Sitka Spruce
State fossil - Woolly Mammoth
State gem - Jade Leave a Comment
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 The TAPS by Matyas
The main Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs north to south, almost 800 miles (1,300 km), from the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the Gulf of Alaska at Valdez, Alaska, passing near several Alaskan towns, including Wiseman, Bettles, Livengood, Fox, Fairbanks, and Glennallen.
Construction of the pipeline presented significant challenges due to the remoteness of the terrain and the harshness of the environment it had to pass through. Geological activity has damaged the pipeline on several occasions. Since its completion in 1977, the pipeline has transported over 15 billion barrels of oil.
Summary Source: Wikipedia. Leave a Comment
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 Tlingit image, Glacier
Bay National Park by mrclay2000Leave a Comment
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 Halibut Derby by Matyas
The Oregon man who won the jackpot last summer took home $48,504 for pulling in a 310 lb. halibut. You can check the result board just nearby the visitor centre. It was so much fun to see how big these animals are. Leave a Comment
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