This is only the second time in my life to visit Alaska, and
my departure date is September 27th, one week away. The excitement
is building; this is going to be big! This is a place that’s twice the size of
Texas, but has about the same amount of people living in the state, (731,449)
that live within 5 miles of me in Long Beach, California. That’s a whole lot of
wilderness, and lots of room to meet moose, bear, wolves, caribou and many
other wild animals. I can’t wait!
The first time I saw a moose in Alaska I could not believe
how huge the thing was. It was walking on a train track near Eagle River, AK,
and my head would not have reached his shoulder. The largest of all the moose
races is the Alaskan subspecies (A. a. gigas), which can stand over 2.1 m
(7 ft) at the shoulder, has a span across the antlers of 1.8 m
(6 ft) and averages 634.5 kg (1,396 lbs) in males and
478 kg (1,052 lbs) in females. The largest confirmed size for this
species was a bull shot at the Yukon River in
September 1897 that weighed 820 kg (1,800 lb) and measured
2.33 m (7.6 ft) high at the shoulder.
Like me, the moose is a vegetarian. However an adult moose
needs to consume 9770 calories per day to maintain its body weight. That’s
about 5 times the calories that a human eats, and if I eat that much, I would
be the size of a moose! Their diet is mostly fresh shoots from trees such as
willow and birch. They also eat aquatic plant life in lakes and rivers. In winter,
moose are often drawn to roadways, to lick the salt that is used to melt the
snow and ice. This leads to many car / moose accidents in Alaska.
I will be posting pictures on this blog from my Alaska
Wilderness Adventure from September 29 – October 5. Although there are only
about 150,000 moose in Alaska, I hope to photograph a good number of them here
for you to see. Watch for images of pristine lakes, majestic mountains, blue
ice glaciers, and tundra, and animals, lots of animals.
On the other hand, I will also be posting lots of pictures
of the wild and rugged people in Alaska, including my nieces and their families.
I am shooting lifestyle advertising photography for my niece Cindy Davis
Wilson, to use on her Alaska Real Estate website http://www.EagleRiverHomes.com if you
are buying or selling property in Alaska; Cindy Wilson is who to see. So watch
for people pictures as well as wilderness and animals.
So what would you do with a 10 day visit to Alaska? Where
would you go? Would you go dog sledding, on a cruise ship around the harbors? Denali
is the highest mountain in North America, with 20,156 feet (6,144
meters) in height, creates its own weather patterns. Do you want to see bears,
lakes, forests, natives, towns – what would you want to photograph, and what
would you want to see? Follow my blog, and experience Alaska Wilderness from
your Laptop.
Keywords: Travel Photography, National Parks, Landscape
photography, Alaska, Alaska Wilderness, moose, animal photographers
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