Alaska USA 150 year anniversary

[Foxi]

Velo Dog ,
I dont want to be off topic with my post and so I moved here.
Have you celebrated the Alaska 150 year anniversary last weekend also ?
Or do you wait until October ?
Here a few pics from "good old days " for you and your Alaskan guys:

the check which Alaska was paid.
7,2 Mio Dollar for Sewards (the Foreign minister) "stupidity".
Donald Trump would say "a really great deal"
Yes,it was,but also a lot of money in those days.
Russia was broken.The Crim War was to expensive and the Zar had enough undeveloped land in his own country.
And he feared (and USA also) that England would occupy Alaska.
In this conflict ,the Zar knew, that Russia has no chance.

the ridicule was big , to buy a polarbear cage..................

Skagway in 1905

Kechtikan 1908

Alaskan hereos
Seppala and his leading dog Togo.
Velo,is he still a prominent figure in your country,or is he forgotten ?

Seppala and his Sibiriean Huskys

a really though hunter.
Inuit and his prey.
Have a look at this bow.
Today we will give that our children.

Regards from Munich and to sad that I'm so far away.
Foxi

 

[Velo Dog]

Velo Dog ,
I dont want to be off topic with my post and so I moved here.
Have you celebrated the Alaska 150 year anniversary last weekend also ?
Or do you wait until October ?
Here a few pics from "good old days " for you and your Alaskan guys:
View attachment 183886
the check which Alaska was paid.
7,2 Mio Dollar for Sewards (the Foreign minister) "stupidity".
Donald Trump would say "a really great deal"
Yes,it was,but also a lot of money in those days.
Russia was broken.The Crim War was to expensive and the Zar had enough undeveloped land in his own country.
And he feared (and USA also) that England would occupy Alaska.
In this conflict ,the Zar knew, that Russia has no chance.

View attachment 183887
the ridicule was big , to buy a polarbear cage..................

View attachment 183888
Skagway in 1905

View attachment 183889
Kechtikan 1908

View attachment 183890
Alaskan hereos
Seppala and his leading dog Togo.
Velo,is he still a prominent figure in your country,or is he forgotten ?


View attachment 183891
Seppala and his Sibiriean Huskys

View attachment 183892
a really though hunter.
Inuit and his prey.
Have a look at this bow.
Today we will give that our children.

Regards from Munich and to sad that I'm so far away.
Foxi

Hi Foxi,

Unfortunately, Seppala and Togo are names known only to those interested in the history of Alaska, these days.
The most famous sled dog here seems to be Balto.
He was lead dog when the vaccine was carried from Anchorage to Nome (over a thousand miles) to stop a fast spreading deadly disease there.
There is a life size bronze statue of Balto, on top of a fancy concrete / stone pedestal, near 4th Avenue and C Street, downtown Anchorage.
The Inuit are actually Canadian Eskimo, Alaska Eskimo are Inupiaq (Arctic Ocean) and Yupik (both the lower Yukon and lower Kuskokwim River deltas).
I love the seal skin parka (heavy pull-over coat), with wolf hair ruff that Seppala is wearing.
The archer is wearing one made of what looks like polar bear and either wolf hair ruff or wolverine hair ruff, also a beautiful museum piece.

No matter what country this archer in the photo is from, it is interesting that his arrows look as if they were fletched with domestic turkey feathers.
You'd think Eskimo fletching would be of goose feathers.
Also, I was not aware this group of hunters ever had long bows but, they probably did, I just had not seen any photos of them until now.
Previously, I had only seen fairly short / compact bows in photos of the Eskimo hunters.
Furthermore, some areas of far northern Canada / Alaska did not see any sort of archery tackle until their first contact with Russian-European-Scandinavian sailing ships.
My understanding is that some villages had fashioned and were hunting with archery tackle of their own design (also for village to village fighting) but, some only had spears / harpoons, with or without atlatl leverage handle, at the time of "first contact".

In Alaska, we celebrate "Seward's day" on or near March 27 each year.
We also celebrate "Alaska Day" on or near Oct-18 each year.
Foxi, I love all the photographs you have posted here, thank you for them.
I have been to Ketchikan and Skagway but, they do not look like that any more - LOL.
Yes, it is a shame that we do not live a bit closer.
I would enjoy buying you a cold one and listening to your hunting stories, as I know you enjoy excellent hunting in your home country plus, you have travelled to other places to hunt as well.

My best regards from Anchorage,
Velo Dog.

 

[Foxi]

Velo,
very interesting your explanations,especially over the Eskimos.
Lot of good stories was written in our newspapers over the Alaska purchase at these days here.
I took the pics from there and I cant say where does the Eskimo with the polarbear was comming from.
You see the sailing ship in the back right ?
From Greenland to Russia .All could be possible.
May be the accessory is "fake news " for the photographer.
I dont know nothing about the bows of the Eskimos,the following forms in the pics below remind me a little bit on the bows of the Asiatic horsepeople.
Africahunting.com has a lot of bowhunters here,Im sure they know much more.
Here pics from Eskimos in Alaska from the Gjoa Expedition from Roald Amudsen 1906

Regards
Foxi

 

[CAustin]

Thank you for share the historical photos.

 

[Jfet]

Alaskan hereos
Seppala and his leading dog Togo.
Velo,is he still a prominent figure in your country,or is he forgotten ?

I can tell you this Texas high school football coach likes to tell his defensive tackles this story.

In 1925, a ravaging case of diphtheria broke out in the isolated Alaskan village of Nome. No plane or ship could get the serum there, so the decision was made for multiple sled dog teams to relay the medicine across the treacherous frozen land. The dog that often gets credit for eventually saving the town is Balto, but he just happened to run the last, 55-mile leg in the race. The sled dog who did the lion's share of the work was Togo. His journey, fraught with white-out storms, was the longest by 200 miles and included a traverse across perilous Norton Sound — where he saved his team and driver in a courageous swim through ice floes.

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2059858_2059863_2060458,00.html

 

[Velo Dog]

Velo,
very interesting your explanations,especially over the Eskimos.
Lot of good stories was written in our newspapers over the Alaska purchase at these days here.
I took the pics from there and I cant say where does the Eskimo with the polarbear was comming from.
You see the sailing ship in the back right ?
From Greenland to Russia .All could be possible.
May be the accessory is "fake news " for the photographer.
I dont know nothing about the bows of the Eskimos,the following forms in the pics below remind me a little bit on the bows of the Asiatic horsepeople.
Africahunting.com has a lot of bowhunters here,Im sure they know much more.
Here pics from Eskimos in Alaska from the Gjoa Expedition from Roald Amudsen 1906
View attachment 183919
View attachment 183920
Regards
Foxi

Foxi,

I love these photos you are posting!
The bow that the adult is shooting looks significantly similar to some early Asiatic (and early Eastern European) bows.
The lamination is clear in the picture ....... it looks very strong (bound with caribou sinew?).

Yes I agree with you, the bow looks very similar to the Northern China Horsemen style.
In other words, Genghis Khan and his incredible Mongol Cavalry (who probably invented the riding stirrup, in their need to accurately shoot arrows from a hard galloping horse.)

A few years ago, three fellows from Mongolia walked through parts of Anchorage, selling ink drawings to pay their way through Alaska, on holiday.
I bought two of these.
One is of an archer, on a horse, at full gallop, drawing back his bow / arrow.
It looks nearly identical to the bow in the picture you posted.

The Inupiaq people believe they descended from "people of the raven" and were ejected from what is now Siberia (I do not know why).
So, I wonder if the bow in your photo is also left over from their Siberian past or, if it is a later development (after settling on the northern coast of Alaska).

Anyway, I appreciate your posts and photos, yours are always interesting.

Cheers,
Velo Dog.

 

[jeff]

Great photos, enjoyed the archer with the polar bear the most, it show that primitive tackle was effective!

 

[Foxi]

Anyway, I appreciate your posts and photos, yours are always interesting.

Thank you Captain Miles