The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

Living in Alaska sometimes means you get so busy living that you forget that you live in Alaska. Tourist pay thousands of dollars to come and enjoy this place we call home... Why should we let them have all the fun? So recently we headed to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to conservation, education, and quality animal care of Alaska's wildlife. AWCC has provided care for hundreds of displaced animals that otherwise would have died in the wild.

Kuma is a male black bear that was brought to AWCC in May 2002, weighing only three pounds. He was found alone in a hole in a backyard in Trapper Creek, AK. The homeowner was putting in a septic system and when the mother bear passed by, the cub fell in and was unable to climb out. When the cub was discovered, the sow was nowhere to be found. One of Kuma’s favorite hangouts at AWCC is high up in the cottonwood trees. He spends hours napping comfortably in the high elevation and doesn’t appear to be bothered by heavy rain or high winds!

 There are 3 brown bears at the AWCC, but they are in a 20 acre enclosure, giving them plenty of room to hide. The closest I was able to come to seeing them was spotting their tracks in the silty mud.

The Wood bison is the northern cousin of the Plains bison that roams many states down-below. It is bigger than the Plains bison and a large, mature bull will often weigh 2,250 pounds versus the 1,900 pounds of the smaller Plains. A mature cow will weigh about 1,000 pounds. Calves are born in May to July and are a reddish color for a few weeks. They begin to grow horns and develop a bison’s “hump” at about two months.

 After more than 100 years of extirpation throughout Alaska, wood bison have found their way back to the state!  In collaboration with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, AWCC was able to reintroduce the wood bison back into the Alaska wild. In 2003, 13 wood bison were brought to AWCC from a disease-free herd in the Yukon Territory in Canada.  The goal is to release the AWCC herd back into the Alaska wild. Currently, AWCC is home to the only wood bison herd in the United States. The first wood bison calves born in the state of Alaska in over 100 years were born at AWCC in 2005. In 2008, AWCC received 53 calves from Canada and placed them with the existing AWCC herd. Since 2006, AWCC has seen the birth of multiple calves every spring.

 Muskox are members of the goat family. They’re an arctic survivor with a thick coat consisting of long (up to 36 inches) guard hairs covering a dense winter coat of harvestable warm fur called Qiviut. Qiviut is considered to be one of the warmest materials in the world.

 During the summer of 2004, a working firefighter spotted month-old lynx  kittens in a recently burned area in Interior Alaska. Three kittens were found alone and suffered from burns on their paws, legs, faces and ears. The whereabouts of the mother was unknown. Had she died in the fire? Had she left some kittens behind, but carried as many as she could as she fled to safety? In need of treatment and knowing the kittens could not survive on their own, the firefighter put them into his backpack and carried them back to camp where he could make arrangements for their transport. Unfortunately, one male kitten died soon after the rescue, but the two females were flown to the Anchorage airport and transported to AWCC for treatment and care on July 20th. In the wild, lynx stay with their mothers for almost a year in order to learn hunting and survival skills. Since these lynx were orphaned at such a young age, a permanent home has been provided for them at AWCC.

 Adonis arrived at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in 1995. He was found near a remote village in Alaska and had been shot. His left wing required a full amputation as a result. Even though it is illegal to harm an eagle under the Bald Eagle Protection Act, an estimated 2,000 – 3,000 eagles are shot or injured in the United States each year. Since Adonis cannot fly, he has found a permanent home here at AWCC.

The Tram at Alyeska Resort

Living in Alaska sometimes means you get so busy living that you forget that you live in Alaska. Tourist pay thousands of dollars to come and enjoy this place we call home... Why should we let them have all the fun? So recently we headed to Girdwood to enjoy the Alyeska Tram.

The tram ascends 2,000 feet up the mountain to the Upper Tram Terminal, which is also home to the Bore Tide Deli and the Seven Glaciers restaurant. The tram can move at 26 miles per hour, making the trip in 4 minutes. In the summer, they slow it down to a 7 minute ride to give you time to enjoy the view. In the winter, the tram is part of a network of ski lifts to move skiers up the mountain.

The Alyeska Tramway, designed by Von Roll Tramways, Inc. of Switzerland, has a regenerative drive system. AC power is converted to DC, allowing the tram to operate at varied speeds – slow for scenic rides and fast for powder days.
The tram operates two cars on a counterweight system -- as one car goes up the other car comes down.

 The views are amazing. Below you can see the Girdwood Valley and the Turnagain Arm. To reach Girdwood and the Alyeska Resort, you take the scenic Seward Highway south from Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm. Girdwood is a funky ski resort town with some great restaurants.

With the valley below,the views above are all about the mountains, snow and glaciers. You can see several glaciers from the Upper Tram Terminal.

You can do the tram on it's own. It's also how you access the fine dining Seven Glaciers restaurant. The Roundhouse Museum is part gift shop and part museum with some displays explaining the history of skiing in the area. You can also purchase a ticket that includes a dining credit for lunch at the Bore Tide Deli.

Our group ordered an assortment of soups, sandwiches, fries and chicken strips. All of it was pretty good. But the real star attraction is the view from up top.

Even though we've been having summer weather down below, it's still winter up on the mountain. It'll be another month or more before the snow completely melts away.

Some years there is still skiing on the upper mountain into May and early June. This year we had a mild winter and Alyeska struggled to have enough snow to stay open.

 The tram runs every fifteen minutes or so into the evening. (Check the schedule for exact times...) So after eating you can explore as much as you like. Just pay attention to any signage marking a closed area.

The Alyeska Resort is one of Alaska's nicest hotel complexes. In the winter its a skiing hotspot. In the summer there's plenty of hiking that can be done on the trails in the adjacent Chugach National Forest.

On the way back down we managed to spot a black bear sow and her cub on the hillside below. Seeing wildlife is not guaranteed, but it does happen.

Your tram ticket is good all day. So after some other sight seeing we went up again. No bears were sighted this time, but it was still worth doing a second time.

Death Valley National Park

On March 23rd, as part of vacation to southern Nevada, we did a day trip drive through a portion of Death Valley National Park. The park is made up of over 3 million acres and you could spend several days exploring the whole thing. As well as being a natural wonder, it also has a rich history of man's ability to adapt to any environment.

You can read more about the park on it's Wikipedia page here, or visit their official website here. They also maintain a very informative Facebook page here.
You can find the map of our route here...

 

For a guy born in the foothills of Cascade Mountains of Oregon and raise in a temperate rain forest in Alaska, I sure do love being in the desert. Maybe because it's different than my usual surroundings, but whatever the reason, the desert certainly has a beauty to it.

 

We started our day in Las Vegas. We got an early start to maximize our time in the daylight hours. Being late March, we knew the temperatures would be too bad. The warmest it got was 95 degrees. Not that 95 degrees isn't hot...  But it's a lot cooler than the 116 degrees it averages in July.

 

We drove to Pahrump and hit a few geocaches before continuing onto Death Valley Junction, crossing the border into California in the process. From Death Valley Junction, we headed to north to Furnace Creek, where the National Park has a visitor center and campground. On the way we made a short stop at Zabriskie Point which has a great view of the valley below.

At the Visitor Center we picked up an America the Beautiful Pass. This pass is good for one year and provides access to more than 2,000 areas managed by five federal agencies including the National Park Service, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. We had a couple of more National Parks on the agenda for our trip, so we know we'd get the use out of it.

 

Part of the history of Death Valley includes man's attempt to survive and thrive in it's extreme conditions. Borax mining used 20 mule teams to haul the borax out. It traveled with two trailers for the borax and 1,200 gallon tank trailer full of water for the mules. But even 1,200 gallons was not enough to last for the 165 miles the mules would pull the 73,200 pound load. Water had to be replenished at springs along the way.

From the Furnace Creek Visitor Center we started our drive down Badwater Road. Traffic was fairly light, so we could take our time as we wanted to. If you ever do this drive, I 100% recommend you do the detour on Artist Drive. It's a one-way loop road that takes you through some amazing rock formations. It was a highlight of the day!

You can see the map of our route here... Overall our drive was just under 300 miles. We continued down Badwater road to Shoshone, California. This was our dinner stop, at the Crowbar Cafe. For a little place in the middle of no where, they had some really, really good food.

From Shoshone, we crossed the border back into Nevada and came back into Pahrump. We had some more geocaching planned for here. There was a series of caches strung out through the desert east of town and we hit as many as we watched a beautiful sunset. We didn't mind driving back to Vegas in the dark, since we had driven through the same route that morning in the daylight.

The beauty of Death Valley is a vastness that makes you realize just how small you are.

We spent a lot of time in the desert on this trip, and previous trips. The amazing thing to me is the variety of different environments that you see. From sand and cactus to rocky landscapes to salt flats. To just say "desert" is a very broad term..

 

Speaking of salt flats... We took a short side trip the Devil's Golf Course. This was an amazing spot!! Death Valley was a prehistoric lake, and as the water evaporated it left behind the salt, which formed in this jagged, bizarre landscape. And I do mean jagged. I did a little walking around, but had to be very careful about it. If a person fell, you'd cut yourself up pretty bad.

 

From a distance, the salt flats looked the tidal mudflats we have here in Alaska.

You almost expected to see the tide come in... And when we stopped, I was anticipating that smell that tidal flats have.

Badwater Basin is the lowest point on the North American continent, coming in at 282 feet below sea level. there's a natural spring here, but because it's in the middle of a salt flat, it's too salty to drink and couldn't be used to water animals.

This is a popular spot for people to walk out on the salt flats. As people have walked out, they've ground the salt into a fine powder that looks like a developed trail.

On the rocky cliffs above, you can just barely make out a sign marking sea level. You can click on any of these pictures to enlarge them.

I feel very blessed to have been able to experience some amazing places, and Death Valley is certainly one those places. I hope some day to make it back to explore even more.

Prison Ministry Update

In April of 2013 while at the Alaska Ministry Network Conference in Anchorage I had a discussion with Reverend Jim Duncan, the statewide chaplaincy coordinator for the Department of Corrections. The state was preparing to open the newly built Goose Creek Correction Center which would eventually house over 1,500 inmates, most of whom would be transferred back to Alaska from a private prison out of state.

This move provided an incredible opportunity for ministry and Chaplain Duncan was looking to recruit. I had been coordinating Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University in churches and the Mat-Su community since 2007 and have seen over 200 people be a part of the class. I’ve always had a desire to see the class conducted in a correctional facility but the right door had never open before.

 In July of 2013 I began coordinating my first Financial Peace class at Goose Creek. Dave Ramsey is the leading teacher of personal financial management and hosts the 3rd most listened to talk radio show in America. The Financial Peace class teaches the basics of money management, including getting on a budget, saving for the future, getting out of debt and investing for retirement.

We know that 94% of all inmates incarcerated today will eventually be released, with most inmates serving less than 5 years. The tragedy is that 66% of those released will reoffend and be back in jail within two years. While there are many things that contribute to the recidivism rate, the inability to handle money is one of them.

Financial Peace University is a faith based video curriculum. A key part of the class is the workbook that each student is required to have. Initially I had no idea how I was going to cover the $22 per workbook cost, so I turned to social media. A blog post and a few Facebook posts later and I had a wide range of people and churches donate enough to cover workbooks for my first class, plus the next one. Since then I have a few regular donors continue to make tax-deductible contributions through the Alaska Ministry Network for purchasing the workbooks. I am incredibly grateful to the Alaska Ministry Network for their support in these ministry efforts.

To date I’ve had 109 inmates complete the 12 week course with 15 inmates enrolled in my 7th class. Originally the class was only available to inmates in the Faith Wing program, but is now open to all inmates in general population. Classes are held on Friday afternoons for 12 weeks. I am grateful that my boss allows me to work longer days Monday through Thursday and then leave early on Friday to head to the prison.

In addition to Financial Peace University I’m also the service host for the Friday night God Behind Bars video service. This service uses a video service provided by Central Christian Church in Henderson, Nevada to present a worship time and preaching. We see between 60 an 100 inmates attend this service each week.

In December an inmate inquired about getting a bible. The supply in the chaplain’s office had ran out and he was looking to get a New Living Translation. It being just prior to the Christmas season, I knew I’d be putting in an Amazon order and saw that for less than $4 per bible I could add them to my order with the free shipping. Thinking that others might be interesting in doing the same thing, I threw out a challenge on social media, hoping to get 30 or 40 bibles. Within a few weeks I had 288 bibles donated, providing access to the Word of God to those who are seeking.

God is moving among the men at Goose Creek. We are seeing salvations, baptisms and the inmates growing in their walks with Christ. The inmate population at Goose Creek represent every region and many villages of Alaska. It’s my prayer that as they return home, they will carry that fire of revival back with them.

Another Sunset at the Palmer Hay Flats Post

Alaska is always beautiful, but sometimes it's extra-beautiful. The other night was one of those times..

Bible Behind Bars - An Update

In case you missed my previous post (you can read it here...), I put out a call for people to donate bibles for inmates at Goose Creek Correctional Center. I was hoping for 30, maybe 40 bibles to come through.
The final count: 288. Yeah, you read that right. Two hundred and eighty eight bibles. The smallest donation was one bible, the biggest donation was 80 bibles.
I personally think that's pretty awesome. And I want to say a big THANK YOU to all who donated. And the inmates wanted me to pass on their thanks. When I told the story to my Friday night God Behind Bars guys, it really touched them. Being in jail, it's easy to feel like the world has forgotten you. This showed them that people still care, and more importantly; God still cares about them.
Oh, and if you are wondering what 288 bibles look like, it's something like this:

Bibles Behind Bars

Last Sunday morning, I was covering the God Behind Bars service for the pre-trial/unsentenced inmates at Goose Creek Correctional Center. Normally I'm just at the Friday night God Behind Bars, which is a service for the inmates in the general population mods. But the regular Sunday morning volunteer was sick, so I made the trip out.
After service, an inmate came up to me looking for a bible in the NLT version. Each service, we usually have some bibles and devotional books available for the guys. We had a few bibles on hand, but no NLT's. The guys in the pre-trial/unsentenced mods come in with nothing and generally have nothing. So these bibles and books are a big key in ministering to the inmates.
So on the drive home, I got to thinkin'... Surely there has to be some cheap bibles on Amazon... And orders over $35 have free shipping. When I got home, sure enough; I found an NLT bible for just $3.47! Cheap, right?
So then I had a thought... It's Christmas season. People are ordering gifts on Amazon. What's an other couple of bucks? For less than the price of a foo-foo coffee, people could add a bible onto their order. So I threw the challenge out on Facebook. I was hoping to maybe get a dozen or so bibles. And right away, I had a few people step up and buy some.
But then someone posted a link to an offer on the CBD website. They had a case of 32 bibles for just $55. Next thing I know, I've got people ordering CASES of bibles. At last count I've got about 150 bibles on the way.
And as awesome as that is, there's 1,400 inmates at Goose Creek. And sure, there's a couple of hundred of them that already have bibles... But there's lots that don't. So I'm going to throw it out there again. If you are ordering from Amazon and want to tack a bible on, or if you want to go big and order a bunch; I'll take 'em!
Here's the Amazon link for the NLT. And here's the link for a the case of bibles from CBD.
To keep with institutional policy, the bibles need to be new,  in their original packaging, with nothing written in them.
If you need my mailing address or if you need to meet up to hand off some bibles, just shoot me an email. I know not everyone that reads this is going to do it, but I'm thankful for those of you who will. Bottom line, 94% of everyone inmate in prison today will eventually be released. Do you want them coming back out like they went in, or should we make an effort to help them become the man God created them to be?

Update: and just like that, the first two bibles have shown up. Perfect timing, since I'm on my way out to the prison for the Friday night service!

Another Update:
After stopping by the Post Office this morning, I'm up to 94 bibles... Yay God and thanks to all who have bought!