Animals

Owls, naturally. Had their nest right next to the road. This was in Denali National Park.

Spot the moose. Saw this huge moose on our way to McCarthy and Kennicott.

Caribou, Denali.

Fox in denali.

Look, the Yeti! Or is it an outcast caribou?

A Coyote right in front of our bus.

Uhmm... this is actually a porcupine... and yes, this was the best picture. And yes, it was like really really close to the bus. And yes, Joakim took the photo. And yes, he knows he failed. But they are sooooo fast these porcupines... hrmmppf... I swear.

A grizzly bear. Difference between a grizzly bear and a regular brown bear is that grizzlies are smaller, and live inland (and thus eats no fish). Brown bears are larger, and live closer to water, eats fish and thus gets bigger. We also saw a black bear (on our way to Kennicott) no photo though), and the difference there is that the brown bear/grizzly, has a lump on the back of its neck, not that one of them is brown and the other is black. Grizzlies can also be blackish in colour. This was taken in Denali National Park, prime, i repeat, PRIME grizzly bear habitat :)

Moose and two mooslings.

Ooooh say can you seeeee... the bald eagle. Taken on the Denali highway. It was right next to the road, no more than 5 meters away from us.

Sophie and a moose getting funky.

And finally, the bird that is Alaskas state bird (next to the mosquito): Ptarmigan (prounounced Tarmigan). There is a huge town in Alaska called Chicken (population 21... not 21 000... 21). Why you ask? Well, let me tell you. When people first started living there, they ate almost exclusively Ptarmigan meat, and so, when it got time to name the town they wanted to name it Ptarmigan. However, no one knew how to spell Ptarmigan and disputes arose. They resolved the issue by naming the town chicken because the Ptarmigan meat tasted like chicken. And no, we are not making this up. True story.