So I’ve been in Fairbanks for almost a week now and yes, there are things other than trees here. Besides being cooped up in a windowless room at the bottom of our hotel with eyes glued to our computer screens while our ears are straining to absorb as much information as possible, we’ve been getting out periodically.
One day we took a little side excursion to the Museum of the North at the University of Arizona, Fairbanks. We didn't see the very special male reindeer but we did get a “behind-the-scene” tour of the basement of this museum to see where they identify and catalog all of the material that will go into the museum. Here are footprints, bones, fossils and baskets and tribal tools. Other scientists and researchers can come here and borrow or study these objects for their own research.
Will be cataloging organisms (not bones but sponges) that SCINI captures from the seafloor in Antarctica?
A dinosaur was here
They belong to the Mastodon and Woolly Mammoth
Eskimo, Aleut, and Athabaskan Baskets
Back in the main floor, which anyone can visit, I saw how huge grizzly bears really are. Sadly, though fortunately for me, my fuzzy 9-foot giant was not alive anymore.
Black bears are about 5 feet tall, Polar bears are 8-10 feet tall, and Brown Bears are 7-9 feet. This one was 8'9
The most interesting part of the museum was the “Place to Listen” which is a room that amplifies the natural sounds of the world: the vibrations, the moon, and the sun. After all the information that has been thrown at us it was really nice just to lay down and listen to the music of the world.
Here you hear not silence but the music of the earth.
Another interesting side-excursion was the Large Animal Research Station where we saw and learned about musk oxen and caribou and reindeer.
So beautiful!
Musk Oxen are dangerous but beautiful, shaggy animals that are actually more closely related to sheep and goats than to bison. Burdened with giant, curved horns, the oxen have a hump on their back to counterweigh the load on the front. Though they like to roll around in dung and pee on themselves, their soft, undercoat, qivuit is so luxurious and insulating that it costs $25 an ounce. Since the doggies in my life don’t roll around in pee, do you think I could sell their underfur for $30 an ounce?
A musk ox's expression when he's being brushed
Besides watching the king musk ox Zane teaching the younger ones to chill out and watching our wonderful guide Lindsay Blane brush out the qivuit from Bernie the musk ox, we also saw reindeer and caribou.
A reindeer (left) and a caribou (right)
Did you know that reindeer are caribou? Just like dogs are domesticated wolves, reindeer are domesticated caribou. People raise caribou for meat just like people in California raise cows for meat. Since reindeer have been domesticated for thousands of years, they’re now smaller and thicker though genetically they are similar and both groups can interbreed. Did you also know that both male and female caribou (and reindeer) have antlers? This leads to the question of Santa and his reindeer. Rudolf and all of the other male caribou and most of the female lose their antlers in November, before Christmas. The only caribou that have antlers in December are pregnant females. What does this show us about Rudolf and his gang?
A more scientific question involves what will happen to caribou and reindeer in the future. Sadly, since places like northern Alaska are getting warmer due to climate change, the greens that the caribou are eat are growing twice as tall. Having to devote precious energy to growing big, the greens don’t have as many nutrients just like the overgrown zucchini in my garden. The caribou can’t go to the store and buy better greens and thus their hungry herds are shrinking.
As our guide Lindsay Blane questions, will they be able to adapt to their changing environment?
