Happy Belated Birthday to Me

Stephen bought me a remote starter for my minivan for my birthday. That was, of course, back in November. It has not been installed yet. And in the meantime, he's hinted at wanting just such a thing installed on his truck...

It turns out, I don't have as much need for the remote starter given my current parking situation at work. So I told him he could use it for his truck. He offered to get me a replacement present.

This week I figured out what a good replacement present might be. I had him buy me a membership to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. It's 2 blocks down from my office building and I can pop over there on my lunch hour all year long to browse the exhibits. It's awesome!

I have a 1/2 hour lunch, and it takes me 5 minutes each way. So that gives me 20 minutes to look at the exhibits. Today I got a little further through the Yup'ik Science exhibit. The Yup'ik people are the Alaska Natives who live mostly in southwestern Alaska. I think there are around 25,000 Yup'ik people in Alaska today. Most of them live in 56 villages around the lower Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers.

One of those villages is Akiak. That's where Tess will be visiting for a week later this month. In the meantime, one of the students from Akiak will be staying with us next week! It should be an interesting visit. He arrives Tuesday evening along with his classmates.

More on that later... For now, let's get back to the museum. Today, at lunch, I learned how the Yup'ik make and use kayaks. I learned about seal hunting and the uses of seals, including using the seal guts to make a waterproof parka as seen in the photo. I also tried my hand at sewing a waterproof seam at one of the hands-on exhibits. This is done by stitching a reed of grass along each side of the seam.

The bentwood hats are used to camouflage the hunter to resemble floating ice. They also have the effect of enhancing the hunter's hearing by funneling the sound waves directly into the ear... Neat stuff! Happy Birthday to me! This is definitely a gift that keeps on giving...