Moominmama's Adventures

Wherein Moominmama visits the Alaska Native Heritage Center and is forced to turn back during a hike near Hatcher Pass... Anchorage is home to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, which provides information about the 11 major indigenous cultures of this vast land. It's also an indigenous youth employment program and allows teens to both learn about their own cultures as well as share with visitors like Moominmama. Since these are living traditions, new works of indigenous dance and art are flourishing at the center. The dance troupe here wears a common costume featuring an eagle and a raven designed by a modern indigenous artist.  But each dancer creates meaningful additions to the blanket cloaks they wear, and they learn and perform both modern indigenous choreography as well as traditional dances from their varied tribal backgrounds. The center has space for performances, native artists at work, various displays and a large outdoor area with a path that takes visitors to five diffe...

Wherein Moominmama dons crampons and explores the inner reaches of the Matanuska Glacier... Meet the Matanuska, a 27-mile river of glacial ice flowing from the Chugach Mountains of Alaska.  Unlike alpine glaciers that hang from mountain slopes, this tongue of ice is created by ocean moisture as it delivers snow to the Chugach Range, and like all glaciers, over time, the snow compresses and squeezes out air molecules to form the dense glacial ice. Moominmama learned it can take 600 years for the ice at the back to make it to the terminus or toe of the glacier, where my ice climbing adventure began with a long hike through the glacial moraine. While Moominmama has walked on a glacier before, ( the Athabasca between Jasper and Banff in Alberta), I've only seen the surface.  The Advanced Trek offered by MICA Guides brought me into the features of the glacier, rappelling down  cliffs and walking along ledges to get inside the strange shapes that the ice forms as it moves alon...

In which Moominmama visits glaciers and rides a tram high above the city of Juneau... Mendenhall Glacier is visible from the ferry entering the port of Juneau - actually, there are two ports. The cruise ships arrive at monster piers in the downtown. The workhorse ferry docks in Auke Bay to the north.  But the Mendenhall was one of the glaciers I'd come to visit so it was exciting to see it in the distance.  I would see it again from my campground on Mendenhall Lake. And a few days later, I would be in a canoe with a dozen others, beaching our vessel on the rocky lakeside for a closer view. Visitors are not allowed onto the glacier because it is too volatile.  Warmth and gravity mean those big blue chunks are shifting constantly and can drop into the water at any minute -- and they can kick up quite a wave, so we were not even allowed to get close. Moominmama will much closer to a glacier north of Anchorage in a few days. But in Juneau, the best I could do was take in that...

In which Moominmama travels three days on the ferry through the Inside Passage to reach Alaska... The Moominhouse was one of the last three vehicles to be loaded onto the Alaska Marine Highway ferry in Bellingham, Washington, and as a result, Moominmama lost out on a lounge chair for sleeping accommodations. They were all taken by the time I boarded. I did find a nice indoor corner to spread out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag so no complaints in the end. The journey winds through an amazing array of inland seas and islands, a few with lighthouses or summer camps. Moominmama saw an orca breach, twist and splash down. Also deer in the early morning that come to the edge of the water at low tide, and fishing boats dwarfed by the size of the ferry, which is still nowhere near the size of the cruise ships in the major ports.  The ferry is just the right size to squeeze through some of the narrower sections of the Inside Passage, though they posted a lookout the bow during low tide. It...