On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Ken Waller <kwal...@peoplepc.com> wrote: > While I didn't get Bear to be a deterrent, he was definitely viewed as such > by neighbors until they became familar with him - strangers mostly stayed > away. > > I wasn't aware of the info about the Inuit Malamute background - thanks.
That was one of the things we learned from the Inuit in Alaska. Two decades ago, my wife and I took my son on a trip to Alaska, as a high school graduation present. Neither Greg nor I liked the idea of a cruise, and my wife was prone to sea sickness, so we planned our own itinerary, aiming to see the "real Alaska. Over two weeks, we had 15 airplane flights (including 4 that took off and landed on water), 4 train trips, 3 boat trips, 3 bus tours, two minivan tours, and about 900 miles by rental car. Since Lee was teaching Earth Science as well as Chemistry at the time, she wanted to be north of the Arctic Circle on the summer solstice. T accomplich this, we flew to Anchorage, stayed overnight at an airport hotel, and got up at 3:00 AM the next morning to fly to Kotzebue, 550 miles from Anchorage on the Northwest Coast and 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It was an amazing experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Kotzebue,_Alaska Kotzebue in the seat of the Northwest Arctic Borough, governed by Nana, Northwest Arctic Native Association. It has a magnificent airport capable of handling large jets, which it inherited from the Air Force when it was part of the "Dew Line" series of early warning radar sites. Kotzebue Sound lies just north of the Bering Strait, between the Bering Sea and the Chuckchi Sea. We stood on the beach at midnight, and it was as bright as as it was at 10:00 in the morning. There is one hotel, one store, one tour company and one museum, all run by NANA. That evening, the put on a presentation of native songs, dances, games and stories in the community hall. The story about borrowing dogs was something I learned there. They also said that, in the old days before they had snow mobiles and modern weapons, they would occasionally be interrupted by a polar bear on a whale, walrus or seal hunt. If the bear couldn't be scared away by shouting, they would unhook the dogs from the sled. The dogs would never back off from a bear, and they would immediately go after it. If the bear stood its ground, they would load as much of their catch as they could on the sled and drag it home, while the dogs fought off the bear. Some dogs would make it home, some would not, but they would never let a bear near their humans. Unfortunately, today there are few sled dogs and even fewer sleds, even in Northwest Alaska. The snow mobile has made them obsolete -- except of course for sled dog racing. John Baker, a Kotzebue native and resident, won the Iditarod in 2011, setting a new record time. He was the first Native Alaskan to win the race, and all of Northwest Alaska celebrated. Dan Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
