Only one month left here :-(

Sorry for the late update! I’ve been really busy!

On Saturday, Fran and Jack threw a party up at their cabin – loads of people were invited but not many turned up; Fran was a bit slow in confirming the date and giving directions, and a lot of people were going off to some event out of town. But it was a nice evening. I met some people my age – at first a girl named Claire, who taught me how to row in a canoe – this is us:

I can canoe now ^_^

She invited me out to a rave in Anchorage that evening but I didn’t have any decent clothes packed (we were staying the night at the cabin, it’s pretty much like camping because there’s no electricity or anything), and I don’t think Fran would have let me go anyway!

A little later two guys showed up, one of them was the son of one of Fran’s friends. I think Fran’s friend couldn’t make it so she sent her son and his friend. I think they were expecting a huge party with loads of people, because they were around my age and they didn’t know us. In the end I was really glad Claire and these guys showed up, I was getting a teeny bit bored because Fran and her friends were talking about all this stuff I didn’t understand, so it was a relief hanging out with Claire and Zach and Richard, because we were all the same age. They taught me how to toast marshmallows properly on the campfire... My attempts were not successful, unless you count the invention of a new campfire snack – the flaming marshmallow.

So I left the marshmallow-toasting to the Americans, and they even made me a smore. I thought I’d been enlightened... A smore is a tasty, sugary creation descended from junk food heaven. Step 1: Place a chunk of chocolate in between two biscuity cracker things. Step 2: Toast a marshmallow. Step 3: Insert toasted, melting marshmallow into the cracker and chocolate sandwich. Step 4: Cram into mouth.

Here I am so excited about the smore I’m about to consume I forgot to take my glasses off for the photo:

The next day I was going to go to the Moose Dropping Festival in Talkeetna, with another girl I met last week. Her name is Randi and she’s really cool – she’s 18 and she’s a jazz musician, she plays a lot of paid gigs and also works at the visitor centre in town (that’s how I met her). Anyway she cancelled on me... Although it wasn’t really her fault, her mom was taking a company car so she couldn’t bring a guest. And it was kinda bad weather anyway so I didn’t feel like going much.

So anyway, the reason Fran had the party the night before was because that day a friend she knew from New York arrived in Anchorage to visit and stay with us for the weekend. So we went out at the weekend and did some cool stuff. Firstly we went to the Native Heritage Centre. It’s a really cool place where you can learn all about the native Alaskans (there are several different types, not just Eskimo!). They had a dance performance, here’s a picture:

I wanted to upload a video but it didn’t seem to work :-(

Their dances and songs are all about real things. Like that one was about hunting for caribou. The actions all having meanings (e.g moving arms to each side rowing a canoe, etc.) The heritage centre was so pretty, it had lovely grounds and all around the grounds are examples of typical buildings of each native group. For example the Athabascans and Inupiat are from different areas so have different landscapes, resources and wildlife, and different styles of buildings. They have some really cool customs. Like when you’re born, you get your own bowl for eating. The bowl is specially carved just for you – if your name is something to do with seal hunting it would be carved into a seal, or if you’re named after a warrior, it would be warrior carvings. You keep your bowl forever and no-one else can ever touch it or use it, because it’s your own special bowl. It’s actually practical too, it helps stop spread of disease ^_^

Anyway, here I am at the Native Heritage Centre with a traditional landmark of a native clan:

They're bones from a whale's jaw :-)


Anyway, on Sunday I’m going to the Yukon in Canada for two weeks – the first week I’ll be going up with a woman Fran knows (I’ve never met her!) in her car. It’s about the same drive as it is from Hastings to Scotland! The first week I’ll be joining an archaeology field school of about 10 uni students, when I get there they’ll have been working on it for 2 weeks already so I’m joining in late. They have a camp set up there and I’ll have my own tent. We went to pick out the tent the other day at a store called “Sportsmans Warehouse” which is this huge store selling camping, fishing, hunting, survival, outdoor gear – everything. Anyway... I took some pictures in the store. I felt crazy doing it but I had to. Let me explain why I had to:

There is something really weird about Alaska that you HAVE to know. They are HUGE on trophy hunting and taxidermy here. It’s normal to go into someone’s living room and see a rug made out of a bear, caribou heads on the wall, moose skulls and racks, stuffed wolves – you name it. It’s perfectly normal here. And it doesn’t just include the living room but also supermarkets, restaurants, hotels... And Sportsmans Warehouse must have had at least 100 dead animal trophys. I even saw a giraffe head. I mean, seriously, they’re not even Alaskan! But as you can see there are animal heads all over the wall and stuffed bears on the aisles and everything:

(I got the pictures from an upper balcony of the store)

And this is the lobby of a hotel we ate lunch at:

It was actually a lovely place to eat :-D The food was good and this was the view out of the window: It might not seem like much but the best part is that the lake is actually an airport. Most of Alaska is unreachable by road, so they have these float planes that can land and take off from water. I was watching them landing the whole time I was eating lunch, it was so awesome!

Oh yeah, and you can get fur here. Its expensive but everywhere. I bought a racoon hat. The main part of the hat is fake fur but the “tail” is real fur.

I shall leave you with a picture of me wearing a fox on my head:


PS It’s not my hat but it is 100% real fox. It was so comfy and warm ^_^