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Published: August 7th 2010
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Reindeer Farm - feeding the reindeer small pellets of food. The reindeer recognise when you have an empty hand and will go to other visitors for their treat. Dick Eveson’s Alaska Tour - The Mat-Su Valley
We had the pleasure of hosting good friend Dick Eveson’s first trek to Alaska. It was a busy two weeks filled with lots of little excursions and two major Alaska tours. Locally, from our home base in Chugiak, some twenty miles north of Anchorage, a few of the places we visited were The Williams Reindeer Farm in Butte, The Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, Hatcher Pass and the Independence Mine. Local friend Larry Tower was kind enough to provide an off-road vehicle so Dick could experience wilderness Alaska bordering Eklutna Lake high up in the Chugach Mountains. One of the major tours was the Resurrection Bay and Kenai Fjords tour. An eight-hour boat tour through waters teeming with birds and sea life, it was culminated with a buffet dinner of grilled salmon and roast prime rib on Fox Island. The second major tour was a Princess Tundra Wilderness Tour of Denali National Park and Preserve. It is an exciting eight-hour bus tour through the mostly unspoiled wilderness nestled around Denali, the highest mountain in North America.
The native Alaska animal is the caribou. It’s slightly smaller and partly domesticated cousin from Scandinavia
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The reindeer are gentile creatures. You may get bumped by an antler but is by accident. The animals are just after the food pellets in the cup. is the reindeer. These reindeer were imported for the farm because only aboriginal Alaskans can own or herd the caribou. (Anyone with a hunting license can go out and kill the caribou, however. Go figure!) Visiting the Reindeer Farm is a unique opportunity to get close and personal with an animal usually only seen across a moat in a zoo. After a short introduction and explanation by docents who seem to enjoy their work, you get a small container of reindeer food and enter the yard to mingle with the reindeer. Intimidating at first with their massive antlers, the animals are more like pets. The reindeer recognize the food containers and approach the visitor for a nibble of food. Simply pour a bit of the kibble-like food on the palm of your hand and the reindeer will take the food much as a horse will take a cube of sugar. If you get overwhelmed with lots of the critters coming for food, hide the small food container in your pocket and show the reindeer your empty palms. They will pass you by and look for someone else with a food offering. Avoid touching the sensitive covering of the antlers, but
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The reindeer aree tame enough to allow petting. Don't touch the velvet covered ntlersw as they are tender.Avoid petting them on the haunches where a predator attack may come from. you can pet their heads. Although domesticated, the reindeer retain instincts and they will spook if touched on the rear where they cannot protect themselves from predator attack. It is a rare opportunity to wander among a herd of the gentile creatures. Also it is a rare opportunity to have a photograph taken of you surrounded by a waving sea of impressive antlers while hand feeding the animals.
Additional delights at the Reindeer Farm are the elk, moose and bison. The female elk are a bit standoffish but the male elk, large elegant animals, readily come to the fence looking for a handful of the lush green grass that grows along the fence. The one stag tolerated being petted on the nose.
There is a supply of willow bough to feed the moose. The moose come to the fence and take the offered leafy branches from your hand. Moose are generally considered to be ill-tempered animals and can be very dangerous to be around. The moose at the Reindeer Farm have learned to at least be civil to the people on the other side of the fence.
At the end of the line is an American bison or
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This moose seems gentle unlike the others. It has learned that the visitors will give it willow branches piled near the fence. buffalo if you prefer. This particular animal is not as friendly as the others on the farm and mostly keeps its distance from the fence. The bison is America’s largest animal and the contrast in size from the other animals, the reindeer, elk and moose, and is easy to appreciate.
If you ever do visit the Reindeer Farm, do not confuse the reindeer with wild caribou. The caribou are not viscous and will not attack. But the visitor to the wilderness has to recognize that wild animals have a need for personal space. If you enter into that space the animal will feel threatened and flee, and if cornered, may trample you trying to escape. That is especially true of the elk, moose and bison.
It was an enjoyable visit, getting close up and personal with the reindeer. It can awaken a sense of awe even in the adult. If you would like more information about The Reindeer Farm, see http://www.reindeerfarm.com/ .
A short distance up the Glenn Highway, east of Palmer, is the small blue sign pointing to The Musk Ox Farm. The musk ox is a survivor of the ice age. It once roamed the plains
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Dick with a full scale model of Muak Ox. Located in the gift shop, it gives you perspective on the size of the anomaland to feel the coarse outer hair fibwers and the sofy under wool, the qiviut. alongside the other now extinct animals such as the American horse, the wooly mammoth, giant sloth and the saber tooth tiger. The once abundant animal almost became extinct because of indiscriminate hunting. Luckily it is making a comeback thanks to careful management and reintroduction from surviving herds. The musk ox is called oomingmak by the native Alaskans and I have been told that means, “the bearded one.” The wool from the musk ox is among the finest in the world, an excellent insulator against the cold. The musk ox has two hair layers, the outer guard hairs it keeps all year round and the finer, inner layer that it sheds in the spring. The shed hair is combed from the musk ox and is used to produce musk ox wool, called qiviut. Qiviut wool products retail for about $100 per knitted ounce.
About sixty years ago a cooperative was formed to collect musk ox wool, qiviut, and distribute it to remote villagers so they could knit the wool into products they could sell and bring money into the household. The original herd was in a remote location and transportation difficulties necessitated the move to the colony farmstead it now
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The musk ox shed their warm inner wool in the springtime. Thay have a shaggy before they are combed for their wool occupies. An additional herd is located at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks but the main interest is in research while the colony herd is for producing wool.
Strong and powerful, the shaggy coat and curved horns make an imposing animal. It is one of the few that will work collectively to ward off predators. The adult animals will circle facing the attacker while the juveniles are inside the safety of the circle. Some of the animals at the farm have been raised by hand after being brought to the farm as orphaned calves. They are used to humans and will come to the fence for attention. Some of the older animals are still a bit on the defensive side. The guided tour leader will point out the different animals. It is an interesting tour and one can’t but marvel over the animals that have survived since the ice age in such harsh arctic conditions.
More information about the musk ox can be found at http://www.muskoxfarm.org/ .
A few minute’s drive away is the steep sided valley carved by the Little Susitna River. A mixture of snow melt and glacier, the river is cold and fast running. It brings
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The musk ox are powerful animals suited for the arctic regions. They are on animal that cooperates with others of its species toprotect the youh and females and to ward off predators. down sand and gravel from the quartz-veined granite higher up in the mountains. Part of the river is open to recreational gold panning. The quartz veins in the mountains have attracted the attention of many miners. Old gold mines are plentiful there. One, the Independence Mine, is now an Alaska State Park. The mine was active up to the start of the Second World War. The mine was closed for the duration. After the war the mine reopened but the fixed price of gold, $32.00 an ounce, made the mine an unprofitable venture and it closed about five years later. Sometime later the family ceded the mine to the State for use as a park.
Some of the buildings, notably the large mill, processing plant and powerhouse, have been abandoned to the elements and are not very deteriorated. Other buildings, bunk houses, some shops and the mess hall, are well preserved and are under active maintenance. The old mine superintendant’s house is a visitor center and museum. There are a lot of informative signs t help guide you through the mine’s building complex.
The discovery site is on a ledge near the top of a mountain behind the
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A short on the soggy tundra above Hatcher Pass. The asctive layer, just a few inches thick, is all the soil the srctic can depend on mine buildings. The mine portals are a bit farther down the sheer face but still hundreds of feet above the buildings. The waste rock, the tailings, was dumped from the portal. The gold bearing rock was transported down to the mill in buckets on a cable. I think we can all agree that hard rock mining can be dangerous and toilsome work. What fascinates me is the stairway on the mountain face. It is a shamble of decaying wood now but once it was a stairway with a snow roof. The miners lived in the barracks and ate in the mess hall below. Every day, even in the midst of the coldest winter, they had to dress for the outside weather, and climb the hundreds of step to the mine portal. Then, after a hard day’s work in the hot and wet mine, dress for the cold and descend the hundreds of steps to supper, a shower, and hopefully a night’s sleep before the next day’s climb up the stairs. As a young man I think I could have done that but I surely wouldn’t have wanted to.
In the later years of the mine’s operation, a water tunnel was
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The dark granite and white quartz of the mountains contrasts with summer coat of grasses, sedges and berries. blasted out of the solid rock. That let the water drain from the mine and gave the miners a short cut to the tunnel system that honeycombs the mountain. The opening is gated and general public access is blocked. It is only opened for special occasions. Outside the mine portal are several mine cars and electric locomotives.
Independence Mine is a fascinating place. One can’t but wonder at the hard work and sever conditions that the miners endured. All that effort spent just to produce gold, a nice shiny metal. True, it can be made into jewelry, plated onto electronic devices, but mostly just melted into bars or ingots that go into the darkness of a vault. The search for gold brought many miners to the area. There are traces of many other mines that can be seen from Independence Mine. In fact, in the valley on the other side of the mountain is an operating gold mine. The search for gold goes on. For more information about Independence Mine go to http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/units/indmine.htm .
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