Although my blog is entitled Mary Anne's Alaska, it would be just as fitting to call it Mickey's Alaska. In my last post I described how living in Alaska makes me feel close and connected to my wonderful late mother. She spent half her life in the Last Frontier and loved everything about this state. I feel I get to honor her legacy simply by embracing the beauty and lifestyle of Alaska and providing my children the chance to know and love it too.

I've done something special to celebrate her birthday every year since she died, and in honor of her recent birthday, I thought I'd share a few photos of her in her Alaskan surroundings in younger years.

She was a great cross-country skier! She competed in high school and always loved getting outside into the fresh, cold stillness. A good workout was just the added bonus! Pictured here, she and her brother were skiing just down the hill from their house in Anchorage.

This is one of my favorite photos of her. I believe this was her entrance/application photo for the Fur Rendezvous pageant as a senior in high school. Behind her is Portage Glacier, which has since receded out of sight from the spot this photo was taken. (This fantastic and entertaining article written by a University of Alaska faculty member explains the retreat of the glacier, and you might be surprised by the reason!)

"Fur Rondy" is a winter festival that's been held in Anchorage in February for over eighty years and is full of events from wacky to traditional. (I've personally participated in the Running of the Reindeer, a human race involving loose reindeer bolting down the road between and around runners!) Rondy hosts the ceremonial start of the famous Iditarod dog-sled race.

She wasn't crowned Fur Rondy Queen, but she was named Miss Congeniality of the pageant!

I'm not sure where in Alaska this one was taken, but I love everything about it—the birch log fence, the fall colors, and her posing in that red dress.

The background of this photo was slowly unraveled by my dad's eye for detail and great insight and memories. This was likely taken at Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, California, rather than Alaska. If so, my mom was visiting relatives who lived there and fished from there. I love her posing with these salmon (at least one of them is a king salmon, also known as a chinook). An Alaska girl through and through! I don't remember her actually doing much fishing when I was growing up, but she was busy providing a great environment for me to learn fishing from my dad, a pastime that has endured for me through the years. (Although now we fish to fill our freezer!)

This photo is so special to me since I am right in the same season of life my mom was in (with her first child) when this photo was taken. Story goes that it was her spontaneous idea to hop in the trees for this picture on the trail up to Flattop Mountain, and it turned into a beautiful memory.

This one is around the same timeframe as the last photo. My parents stood with my oldest brother in my grandfather's yard, the same Chugach Mountains in the background that I get to look at every day from my home. In the background on the right side was the trailer park my grandpa owned and managed. He sold it later on, and in its place is now a large condominium complex, so photos like this of the way things were back then are special to see.

This photo was taken in Oregon during my childhood (I'm the little one in red!). Mom was always up for outdoor adventures and wanted to be sure to introduce us kids to all kinds of new experiences. I ended up sitting this excursion out in the lodge with my dad, but I'm happy to report that as a grown-up (with much longer legs than I had in this photo, which makes it a little easier to keep up or set my own pace!), I love cross-country skiing. :)

Finally, one of the last photos I have of my mom in Alaska. Mom was generally the one behind the camera in all our years with her, so I cherish this photo. I was visiting when this was taken, and we were up at the Glen Alps viewpoint, overlooking Anchorage, near the base of the Flattop Mountain trailhead (the same trail pictured a few photos back in the photo of her and my oldest brother in the trees).

Thanks for joining me on a peek in the past at my mother's Alaska! :)

In honor of my mom's birthday, very soon I will be posting a few pictures of her younger years in Alaska as well as a few historic tidbits!

Also, these cuties are the reason for the months between this post and the previous one. :)

(This is a long post, but it's mostly pictures! Elk, musk oxen, brown bears, and much more! It takes me many nap times pieced together to get a blog post up, so here are all the photos in one post!)

I try to visit the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center once a year or so, and I am grateful to live less than an hour and a half from it! It feels like a mixture of a wildlife safari and zoo, but set in a beautiful expanse of land at the end of a body of water and between towering mountains.

​According to their website, "AWCC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Alaska’s wildlife through public education. AWCC takes in injured and orphaned animals year-round and provides spacious enclosures and quality animal care. Animals that cannot be released into the wild are given a permanent home at the center."

For instance, this porcupine was found with a back leg missing and is now being trained as an educational animal at AWCC. They are training him to follow this target, which means he'll get a food reward, and then they'll be able to take him for walks (no leash!) around the property where people can see him and learn about him up close.

The setting of AWCC is GORGEOUS! Even the moose appreciate the scenery!

As we are in rutting season, all the older male elk but one had been removed from the enclosure that houses the females and young ones and had been put in their own. (Elk are not native to Alaska but have been introduced.)

This elk was putting on a show for us as he stripped the velvet off his antlers. It looks painful and messy, but my husband assures me it does not cause them pain. They are, however, bothered by an itchy sensation, which is what compels them to scrape against trees and branches to rub the velvet off.

Musk oxen are amazing animals with a protective herd instinct. I have been told since living in Alaska that in the presence of a predator, the strong, able-bodied musk oxen will circle up around the weaker ones of their group and defend them. I mean, would you really want to mess with those horns? I have also seen these creatures run, and they are FAST!

You can walk or drive (or a bit of both) the two miles on the property. It is such a scenic place to stroll.

And the bears!! What an amazing opportunity to get so close to these fearsome, incredible animals. The organization currently has three brown bears and at least one black bear. Here are some interesting facts about brown bears (sometimes known as grizzly bears) in Alaska.

These wolves were beautiful. I have only seen one wolf in the wild, and it's a thrill to see.

The AWCC helped Alaska Fish and Game to reintroduce a herd of wood bison into the interior of Alaska to help establish a wood bison presence in Alaska for the first time in over 100 years. AWCC has a neat timeline of the process here.

Education, wildlife, and breathtaking views! Sounds like the recipe for a great adventure!

My wonderful sister-in-law and fellow twin mama came up for a quick visit by herself to meet the girls and help out. We went on our adventure on the one sunny day between rainy days, and we each wore one of my babies in a carrier and trekked around for two miles, having a wonderful time. I was so grateful for her company and her visit!

And lastly, my favorite picture from the day. As a nursing mama of twins, I felt a special connection to this moment and bond and was so glad to capture it on camera.

Well, hello! If moose could talk, I imagine them being quite friendly creatures. They roam our woods and neighborhoods, generally minding their own business and creating a wonderful sense of, quite literally, the wild in our backyards.

This pair (twins everywhere in my life!) and their mama paid us a visit recently, and watching the young ones right on the other side of our windows was a treat! I couldn't get a picture of all three together, sadly.

They didn't know quite what to think about us being so close to them. I would never purposefully get this close without being safely inside, especially when a mama has her young ones with her, as I have a healthy respect for these large animals we share Alaska with and know the safety recommendations for being around them. On this occasion, it was wonderful to get to see them so up close and personal.

We minimized our movements to not scare them, and they definitely saw us, but the roses and other plants were (unfortunately for the flowers) more alluring than we were interesting. I didn't know moose munched on rose bushes . . . or perhaps that was a juvenile mistake made only once.

All is well when mama is nearby. These young moose kept an eye on her so as not to stray too far from safety. We tried to get a picture of our twins with the moose twins in the background through the window, but we just couldn't get set up fast enough by the time we thought of it.

My, what large ears you have! Until next time, our long-legged neighbors!

Some of our other "neighbors" are sweet, juicy, plentiful raspberries! We haven't been able to get out to pick berries this year with the little ones, so we were grateful our landlords let us pick from their abundance! I made a delicious baked oatmeal modified from a recipe I found online. (I am a use-what-you-have and make-it-your-own kind of cook. I rarely follow a recipe exactly; I'm always lessening the amount of sweetener, swapping ingredients for those I have on hand, etc., and the result turns out more "me"!)

I don't know WHY I've never made baked oatmeal before! It was DELICIOUS, and eating it cold for a few mornings in a row was a filling, easy breakfast, which is essential for me these days with three-month-old twins!

Alas, nap time is almost over and two sweet girls are needing me. I'll be putting up my next post soon about my recent visit to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center! It will be full of lots of awesome pictures of Alaska wildlife (I am loving having a nice camera again!). Stay tuned! :)