We have wanted to go to the U of A Museum for some time. But, we have always been in class with only Sunday off and the museum is closed on Sundays during the winter.
Today we got out of training at 1:00pm so a group of us went to the museum. Turns out they were having an open house and admission was free. Free is good.
A very nice building with a modern design. Rumor has it that Bill Gates was visiting a few years ago, heard they were wanting to expand the museum so he pulled out his check book and wrote them a check for $3 million on the spot!
Anyway here are some pictures of what we saw.
A Polar Bear
Mother Brown Bear and her cubs. Brown bears live in many places in the world. In Alaska they are known as the Kodiak Bear or Grizzly Bear. The Polar Bear is larger.
Bottom center and middle and top center...really big gold nuggets
A piece of solid Jade.
A really big copper nugget. Over 1000 pounds.
Fish traps made from strips of birch trees. Put them in the river, the fish swim in but cannot get out.
A kayak and an open boat made with animal skins
An Alaskan Brown Bear (The one in the back...in the back!). Eight feet nine inches tall , weighing over 1200 pounds and can run as fast as 35MPH for short distances, like when they are chasing a tourist. This is the closest I ever want to get to one
The mandible (jaw bone) of a Mastadon. Note the teeth are big and sharp. See the Wooly Mammoth below.
Skull and tusks of a Mastadon and tusks of a Wooly Mammoth.
Mandible (jaw bone) of a Wooly Mammoth. See the Mastadon jaw bone above. Neither the Mastadon or Wooly Mammoth were meat eaters but the mastadon ate trees thus the big sharp teeth for crushing and breaking. The Wooly Mammoth ate grasses like a cow, and had flat teeth to mash the grasses into pulp. Both went through six sets of teeth in a lifetime.
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