Alaskan Vocabulary – Part 2

There are certain images of Alaska that are embedded deeply within the American consciousness . . . images of sentinel pine trees frozen in time; of glaciers blanketing the peripherals with giant walls of white; of huskies hopping through a snow drift, the tips of their fur crystallized and glistening. But when it comes to the authentic Alaska, these icons are merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Here is part 2 of Alaskan Vocabulary to get you in tune with some of the topics in my blog and to enhance your experience if you travel to our great land in the north.

Iditarod: Known as the "The Last Great Race on Earth". From Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast, each team of 12 to 16 dogs and their musher cover over 1150 miles in 10 to 17 days.

Ice fog: Is what occurs when water vapor meets bitter cold air that can't hold any more water in 10 seconds or less. Water cooled that fast forms tiny ice particles. Collectively, millions of these particles take form as ice fog, the cotton candy-like clouds that hang over our roads.

Breakup: The spring melt season is a season unto itself. The rivers thaw and begin to flow again, carrying huge chunks of ice down river. Breakup is followed by days of celebration as Alaskan's emerge from long, long winter nights.

Aurora Borealis: The official term for northern lights, which are visible for more than half the year in the far north. The University of Alaska Fairbanks houses a research center dedicated to studying the phenomena, which is caused by magnetic particles from the sun as they hit the earth’s atmosphere.

Permanent Fund: A state savings account created by constitutional amendment that requires at least 25% of Alaska's royalties from oil to be set aside, with only the interest earnings available for spending. Permanent residents receive a yearly dividend check.

Mushing: Is the game of sled dog racing.

Cache: A small shed like building on stilts where furriers and hunters kept their goods.

Alcan: The Alaska Highway, also "Alaska-Canadian Highway", "Al-Can Highway", runs form Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska via Whitehorse, Yukon. It is 1,523 miles or 2,451 kilometers long.

Blanket toss: The blanket toss is now conducted as entertainment, but it didn't originate that way. The Inupiaq hunter would be tossed in the air, enabling them to see across the horizon to hunt game. Now thirty or more Inupiaq gather in a circle, holding the edges of a large skin made from walrus hides, and toss someone into the air as high as possible. The person being tossed throws gifts into the crowd and loses their turn when they lose their balance. The object: to maintain balance and return to the blanket without falling over. This is one of many games played during the course of a 10-day celebration.

Totems: Totem poles are known as silent storytellers, depicting figures that were relevant to a specific Native tribe.

Ulu: The native people of northern Alaska invented this knife centuries ago. It is used for hunting, fishing, skinning, filleting and every other imaginable domestic cutting need by the Inuit (Eskimo) people. Nowadays, replicas can be purchased at any souvenir shop in Alaska.

Ice worms: Ice worms are real. They live in pools of water and crawl around between ice crystals near the glacier surface. Ice worms have been observed to move around in the ice at depths near two meters. Even in the Alaska Range, the glacial ice at that depth can remain near freezing and so can provide at least a marginal ice worm habitat.

Ice