Musk Ox

Fathers' Day Fishing

Gunsight Mountain (can you see the notch in the center, like the sight on a gun - you may have to click on the photo to magnify it)

If they called the previous one Gunsight, this one should be called Breast Mountain...

A mature female Musk Ox loosing her qiviut

Younger Musk Ox that has had the qiviut combed off recently

After an enjoyable 6 days in Valdez (did you know that town was created when the Klondike gold seekers landed there on arrival in boats from Seattle etc heading for the goldfields?), we drove up the Alaska Highway to Palmer, about 40 miles out of Anchorage (largest city in Alaska). It was Sunday, Fathers' Day here in the USA when we set out - we saw many families out fishing the rivers en route. I almost had to put a collar on Murray to keep him driving - the fish were calling! On the way to Palmer, we called in to pay a visit to a Musk Ox Farm.

MUSK OX: If you are anything like me, you won't know too much about a musk ox. But you may be interested to know that they were roaming the world alongside the woolly mammoth in prehistoric times and throughout the last ice age. Probably due to hunting and changes in climate, they became extinct in Alaska in the late 1800's. The USA imported some from Greenland in the 1930's and now numbers are slowly increasing. They look more like a bison, but are more closely related to goats! The farm we visited is 50 years into a program of domesticating these animals, and while they are never killed or processed for their meat (the indiginious Indians can hunt it for meat), the qiviut (fine, soft underwool) is harvested and sold. The qiviut sells at the moment for about $35 an oz, but the price will most likely be closer to $50 per oz before too long. A mature male is lucky to provide 80 oz of qiviut a year. Every musk ox, whether young or old, sheds this underwool each spring/summer. It works its way through the tougher main hair pelt of the beast and eventually falls off or gets caught on trees and bushes as they walk past. On the farm, it is combed from the animals each week, sold to the indiginous population, who then process it manually and knit it into scarves, gloves etc. It is very light, warmer & softer than cashmere, not itchy, and can go in the washing machine. The garments at the farm were only knitted in the original wool colour, which is a variety of shades between beige, brown & grey. The scarcity of the qiviut means it commands a high price - for instance, a short scarf is around $200 and a sweater would be over $1000. However, some upmarket processors are mixing the qiviut with merino wool and dying it, and asking $425 for a scarf. Yikes, out of my price range!