Cathy's Place: Post tour to Denali

After the ship docked at Seward AK, we were met by our guide, Betsi, and driver, Debi. About 40 of us were driven to Anchorage then up to Talkeetna Lodge which was beautiful and had a glorious view of Denali. Only about 5% of visitors get to see the whole Alaskan Range, including the highest point Denali. It's usually cloudy and/or rainy. We had a beautiful view of the whole range for 3 days! Saturday we drove the rest of the way up to Denali Nature Park and Preserve. We had a guided tour of the park and saw lots of animals including a grizzly bear, caribou, and moose. We stayed at Denali Village which was rustic but very nice. Sunday morning, Sim and I took an excursion to Jeff King's Husky Homestead. Jeff is a 4-time champion of the Iditarod race. He competes annually in March and almost always finishes in the top 10. It takes about 8 days to race the dogs from Anchorage to Nome. We got to hold puppies and heard a lively presentation about how to breed and raise the Alaskan Huskies to race. In the afternoon we drove back to Talkeetna and boarded the Wilderness Express train bound for Anchorage. It was a very nice train and we had our car to ourselves with observation seating above and dining below. John and Carol flew back Monday morning and we flew back Monday night. While in Anchorage, I met with Moody's first cousin once removed, Betsy Hallam, who lives in Anchorage. The weather for the entire tour was absolutely beautiful! I gather we were very lucky.

We had a young Alaskan native give us a talk in Denali about her culture but this was her first attempt and not informative. So here's something from the Internet. "Alaska's indigenous people, who are jointly called Alaska Natives, can be divided into five major groupings: Aleuts, Northern Eskimos (Inupiat), Southern Eskimos (Yuit), Interior Indians (Athabascans) and Southeast Coastal Indians (Tlingit and Haida)." We saw many totems from the Tlingit tribe which had several clans. A member of one clan may not marry from his own clan, but any girl from another clan. We saw dancing and singing from some Tlingit members at Icy Strait Point. That is also where we saw many whales in the waters surrounding the ship. I was very intrigued by their art. Alaskan native DNA indicates that they came across from Russia with much in common with Asian DNA.