Alaska

Introduction Alaska is a state situated in the extreme northwest of North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. The most important landmarks are: Yukon River, Kasilof River, McKinley Mount, Kenai Mount, St. Elias Mount, Wrangell Volcano, Bering Glacier and Trails Lakes. The most important cities and towns are: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Wasilla and the North Pole.

North Pole North Pole is a small city in Fairbanks. This area stretches between the Chena River and the Tanana River. The most important monument is The Santa Claus House, I think it is very interesting and nice; it is the largest fiberglass statue in Alaska. In North Pole the Christmas is very important and the people make a lot of good decorations. The McKinley Mount is the most important mountain in North Pole.

What do you do every day? Every day we get up, and get dressed. Then we have breakfast: hot chocolate and toasts to survive because it’s very cold. When we finish, we go fishing and keep the fishes for lunch and dinner. Then we go to see some animals: otters, puffins and gray whales. When we are hungry we go to our cabin for lunch and we have our nap. Then we make snowball fights and make snowmen. So we are very tired we go fast to have dinner and go to bed early.

What clothing items do you usually wear for a winter like this? We wear an anorak made of woollen and animal’s skins with hood, under the anorak. We wear a jumper and some woollen T-shirts and boots made of wool too.

What kind of food do you eat according to the season and the area you live in? For breakfast we eat hot chocolate and toasts, if we are very of hungry but if we aren´t hungry we only eat bread and fish. For lunch we eat meat of seal and oysters. For dinner we eat only soup and fishes.

How do you get your food? We buy hot chocolate, bread and the oysters, from an elderly person who visits us once a week. But for the seal meat we go hunting and then with the knife we remove the skin and we cook the meat and for the soup we take water and add some vegetables.

We live in a cabin. The cabin is built with pine wood, but it is very small and we are three people. In the cabin there are three beds with a lot of blankets and quilts. There are two tables, one of them has a normal size and we use it to eat, the other one is very big and we use it to remove the skins, do some wood pendants. In front of the little table there is a sofa and next to the sofa there is a heater to be warmer. In the cabin there is a fireplace too. The floor is carpeted because it’s very cold. There are some icicles hanging from the roof. It’s a sloping roof so that there is no build up of snow. Where do you live? What´s your house like?

What non-clothing items would you purchase to get ready for this winter? I would buy some kitchen items like a knife, a pan, traps to hunt animals, a reed for fishing, hot chocolate, bread, oysters, a lighter, wood and three walky-talkies to communicate with each other.

What emergency/safety items do you have on hand to be ready for this winter? We take a knife to hunt some animals, a walkie-talkie and a bottle with hot soup.

What´s the weather like? It’s very cold and sometimes there are blizzards and we need to get into the cabin. That’s the reason why we wear these warm clothes. What´s the weather like?

Do you exercise? What sports do you do? Do you prefer to do it outdoors or indoors? We sometimes do exercise because we need to get warm. We run races; have snow fights, slide on a sledge down the Snow Mountains, hockey on ice and ski. We prefer to be outdoors to do sport because there is more space. But we prefer to be indoors too because it is warmer than being outdoors.

What do you do in your free time? What popular winter activities do you enjoy doing? In our free time we do sports, talk with each other, keep warm in our cabin, have snow fights, slide on sledge, and tell jokes... We enjoy ice hockey and ski.

What do you hear/ see/smell / taste/feel? We hear the wind when it's a blizzard and the waves of the sea. We see a lot of snow and animals playing. We smell the sea and the food when we are cooking. We taste the hot chocolate, the meat of seal, the oysters, the soup and the fishes. We feel cold, happiness when we play Inuit Games and we feel pleased to have sufficient resources to live in an environment as cold.

Polar bears, seals, otters, puffins, grizzly bears, little brown bats, short tailed weasel and red foxes. The polar bears, grizzly bears, tailed weasel and red foxes have a thick skin. The seals and otters have a lot of fat under their skin. The puffins migrate to warmer places. What animals live in your area? What do they do to survive?

What can you see when you look through your window? Describe the landscape and vegetation Through our window we can see: mountains of snow, a lot of ice and the sea. There is little vegetation but we can see some trees like pines.

Which traditions or festivals do you celebrate? Soapberries: Celebrated the 6 th of November. It’s a competition when the people prepare soapberries. Soapberries it’s like the red berries. The person that prepares the most delicious soapberries is the winner. The winner is chosen by judges. The Inuit’s Games: some days we do Inuit Games. We think it’s very funny, but some games are very difficult and hard. The Inuit Games are very interesting and you enjoy a lot.

McKinley Mount Yukon River

Our house The Santa Claus house

Soapberry

Inuit Games