Anchorage Experiences

---

Bureaucracy is alive and well even in Alaska. I am working at the Alaska Native Medical Center here in Anchorage and orientation is 2 weeks and sometimes it's hard to stay awake. One highlight--we went through cultural and geographic orientation. The native Alaskans seem very organized and strong up here. There are 12 native "corporations" and they seem to run most native Alaskan business up here. Many of them at least grew up living a subsistence life, ie fishing, hunting and growing their own foods. A common question if you are eating fish is if you caught it or bought it!

Did you know that there are more bald eagles in Prince William Sound (a small area of Alaska) than all the other states combined. So far I have seen 3.

There are more earthquakes here than in the rest of the US combined, more than 4000 have been recorded per year. Morgan and I have felt several small ones but on 7/27/06 at 5:18am, a 4.9 earthquake woke us from a deep sleep! That's the strongest earthquake I've ever felt and I've lived a good part of my life in California.

Anchorage is a city of around 250,000. You can see 6 different mountain ranges from the city and they are so steep that they appear to be rising straight up from the water. Even though it's a city, you still occasionally see wildlife around town, and I don't mean squirrels! We have seen moose on a bike trail!

---