Winter Alaska

Anchorage and surrounds

Captain Cook was among the first of the explorers to map the Alaskan coastline. He was searching for the fabled North West passage, a shorter way to get from Europe to the Pacific. He anchored his ship at a place called Anchor Point which is now Anchorage.

Cook spent 10 days exploring the inlet to find the North West passage without success and after grounding his ship on a sandbar in shallow waters, he had to turn around. He called the place “river Turnagain” and on our way out of Anchorage, we passed through the town of Turnagain.

We also passed a huge frozen lake, filled with thousands of bush planes which were equipped with skies, wheels, whatever was needed to land on any surface. Hence this sign….

We headed to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre, which is on the shore of the Turnagain River. It’s a home for orphaned, injured or endangered wildlife. Have you ever seen a muskox?

The bison were a bit hard to photograph because, at first they were too far away and then one of them came right up to the fence where we stood and looked very threatening so we moved away. This is the best I could do

The brown bears were very cute. One was trying to burrow something out of the snow, and he kept falling over onto his back. The other one just looked on, waiting for the first to do all the hard work.

The porcupine was amusing. He was obviously thirsty or hungry and kept turning over his food bowl to see if some food or water might magically appear.

The wolves howled for us and I would have sent the video of them howling but it was too long to condense, so you’ll have to be satisfied with a couple of pictures.

Then we headed to the only ski resort in Alaska, Mt Alyeska, which is 2300 feet above sea level ( and yes, all you skiers, it has black diamond runs). Scenery is stunning.

I showed the group how to make our guide show up twice in a photo. They were impressed!

Back to Anchorage for our last dinner. We dined at the top of the Captain Cook hotel and watched the sun set.