Locals shake their heads and say, 'Anchorage is great; it's only 20 minutes from Alaska.' Others call it 'a beer can in the wilderness'. It is Alaska's Big Apple. At 260 thousand people strong, it is home to almost half the state residents. It felt like a large city in Colorado or Washington State.
We visited the Alaska Native Heritage Center. We learned about the various tribes living throughout Alaska, past and present, and walked through authentic examples of each of their villages. We listened to an old lady talk of times long gone. She had stories of when she was small, and stories her mother had told. Alaska sure has changed during her life. Most of it wasn't very happy to hear.
In contrast, they also presented several groups of native dancers. The group pictured below was excellent. Their group had member from ages of maybe 5 to 80. The old men really got into the drumbeat, alternating between soft and then very loud, kind of like a Nirvana song. It rocked! After their set, they invited audience members to join them. Tammy did a great job!
Later we took a tour of the city. There were a surprising number of flowers decorating the town, due to the extended daylight that's available this far north. We stopped by the "starting point" for the 1100-mile Anchorage to Nome Iditarod dogsled race. That's for the cameras. In reality, they drive to snowier country up north for a "restart". We passed by the airport with the Worlds largest number of small private planes. The aircraft were built for the bush, able to land almost anywhere, having very large balloon tires. We checked out the mud flats that cover large areas of the towns bay. The 1964 Good Friday Earthquake created them. That was the largest earthquake ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, being 9.2 on the Richter scale and lasting 5 minutes. Parts of town dropped 10 feet, and over 100 homes slide 1200 feet into the Cook Inlet.