Anchorage: Crafts--native and quilts

We were in Anchorage a very short time after taking the bus from Seward (which took about 2.5 hours).  I was surprised that most of the way was open nature areas that were not populated by humans.

Bus Window View

We arrived in late afternoon and were to leave the next morning for Denali Park by train.

The above lamp post was right outside of our hotel.  Many lamp posts in town had flowers hanging from them.

Anchorage is a center of commerce, oil and gas, and tourism.  It has passed Seattle as the place for the most # of expresso shops per capital with 2.8 per 10,000. Seattle just has 2.5 per 10,000. 

 

As we got close to town, the bus driver told us that moose wander around town—300 on average in summer and 1000+, in winter as the city offers protection from bear predators.  Moose traps are in and near city.  Last winter, one moose was in town square, lying in show for 2 weeks.  It was very cute until a tourist tried to pet it.  Another ended up on a roof and the story and picture made the news.

After checking into our rooms at the Hilton,  the four of us walked around town a bit, heading to what looked like a native art exhibit.  It turned out to be a small gallery and had some really really interesting pieces of art.  (Marty and I still seemed to have sea legs--we both thought we had felt an earthquake but we were wrong.)

On the way, we passed a few sites of note including the mural below on the J. C. Penney's building. We were so close that I couldn't get the entire mural in one shot.

Mural on the J. C. Penney's building

Mural on J. C. Penney's building

Bear On Street--No climbing as bear is "tipsy"

Mural around another building

One building had 3 different brightly colored moose on it.

The green moose

Statue on Street

There are a number of statues of the street representing area history.  This was one of several we saw.

Anchorage Cultural Center

We got to the museum just about an hour before closing and didn't think it justified going in.

Anchorage Museum

Sculpture in garden outside the museum

Mini-irises in the garden outside the museum

More flowers in the garden

 But we did go into the gift shop and enjoyed that a lot.  The colors were much brighter on the 2 objects below but since I was taking the photo with available light, they didn't appear as bright as normal.

Museum gift shop drum

Museum gift shop rattle

 We then stopped at the gallery and really enjoyed it.

Here are some of the items in the gallery:

Mastadon Tooth made to look like a Musk Ox

Baby carrier

Mask Sculpture

Doll

Sculture: Tower of Seals

Not sure if this came from there...but I think so

The people were very friendly and said that there were several native crafts festivals in Alaska every year including one in Fairbanks in February.  I'd love to go but it would be -60 degrees....  Maybe if I stayed 4 days i cold see the Aurora Borealis.

There was one room with an art show of paintings by Percy C. Avugiak.   Most were from a series with colors like the second one.  The first one below was the only one in blue shades.  It fascinated me.

Mushing with Northern Lights

Walrus Dance

We then walked back past the hotel to the Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewing Company.  Howard was looking forward to the local brew.  The current owners have had the place for 19 years and the greeter had grown up in the place with her parents. 

 The place was decorated with a number of quilts, and we found out that they were made by the co-owner, the greeter's mother.  She never made any other quilts--just the ones on display.  Some were exquisite.  We said that if there were small posters of them (8x10), we definitely would have bought some.  

Snow Goose Quilt--photo does not do it justice

Mountain Scenes in 4 seasons

Fish

Animals, state flag

Animals, Water Scene

Activities, industry?

Geese, wood cut

By the way, the food was good too. Howard had a smoked salmon chowder that was very good--not too creamy but very salmony.  Several of us had reindeer.  I even had the carabou tundra burger, made from Reindeer, the first time in a long time I had eaten meat from a mammal.  It definitely was leaner and more appealing than beef.  

There were nice signs around town on the history.  One that I photographed was of the origins of the name "Anchorage."

I hope you have enjoyed this intro to a little corner of Anchorage!