Alaska Man Monday - Moose Births, Martial Arts, and a New Shootin' Iron

When the birch leaf out in spring up here, they leaf out fast. One day, there is a faint pale-green flush in the trees, then the next day, there are leaves, fully formed, with that beautiful pale green of spring. It’s a great time of year, but then, every time of year is a great time of year in the Great Land. In a few more months, those same leaves will take on the dark green of summer, then the yellows and browns of fall, and then the blanket of white will return for another long Alaska winter. And we love every day of it.

Here’s an interesting thing you may not have expected: Martial arts may be saving a small Alaska school.

Tucked into the northeast side of Prince of Wales Island, Whale Pass is among the most remote towns in Alaska. It’s home to fewer than 100 year-round residents, and the nearest grocery store is an hour and a half drive away. Jesse is one of only seven students who currently attend its school. That low count is an existential threat to the school — the state will cut off funding if they don’t get more students soon.
All but one of the school’s students participate in taekwondo. Their low blocks and high kicks could be the school’s salvation. Starting next year it will become a magnet school, attracting temporary students from the Lower 48, using taekwondo as a selling point.
That only works because Whale Pass has the unlikely distinction of being the nation’s first and only school offering Songahm Taekwondo as a school sport. And as the first ATA Martial Arts certified taekwondo dojo in Alaska, the students have literally put Alaska on the taekwondo world’s map.

Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets. The martial arts can be great for kids; they teach respect, discipline, and physical fitness. And if they save a school, so much the better.

And, only in Alaska: A moose gave birth right outside an Anchorage hospital.

While Providence Hospital often serves as the place of birth for many human babies in Anchorage, it also provides the perfect setting for wildlife births on rare occasions.
That was the scene Thursday morning on a patch of grass outside Providence, where a mama moose gave birth to the city’s newest calf.
The moment was captured on video by onlookers who were watching safely from behind glass panels on the building’s exterior.

This is a beautiful scene, and one that you won’t find in many places. But Anchorage is home to a pretty good population of moose right in the city, and the town is also frequented by bears, both black bears and grizzlies. There are also several wolf packs in the woods just outside the city limits. It’s one of those things that makes Alaska what it is.

Alaska Man score: 4 of 5 moose nuggets. An interesting and compelling scene, but the moose would have been better off choosing a place with more privacy.

But you want to be careful around moose, with or without calves.

A woman and a dog were injured in a moose attack Friday evening at Kincaid Park, an Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman said Saturday.
The incident reportedly involving a cow moose with a calf nearby happened around 5 p.m. Friday, APD spokeswoman Tess Hagensieker said.
Hagensieker said the woman was taken to the hospital with injuries described as not life-threatening, and one dog was hurt as well. Another person in the woman’s party called police after the attack occurred, according to Hagensieker.

Moose generally don’t react well to people turning them into the cops. There’s probably a saying in moose-ese – “snitches get trampled,” or something of that sort.

During the calving season this time of year, cow moose in particular may be aggressive, according to Fish and Game’s webpage on “What to Do About Aggressive Moose.” People can be injured when the animals charge, stomp and kick as a result of feeling threatened.
“In late spring and summer, cow moose with young calves are very protective and will attack humans who come too close,” Fish and Game says on its website. “If you see a calf on its own, be very careful because you may have walked between it and its mother — a very dangerous place to be."

Large animals are dangerous. It’s unclear whether this woman had any idea the moose was in the area, but this is a park, and not the willow brush along, say, parts of the Chulitna River, where you can sometimes only see for a few feet. So we can’t assign any opprobrium for carelessness; sometimes these things happen.

No score for this one. It’s enough that everyone came out of it all right.

Finally, let’s look at an interesting new shooting iron from our gun safe.

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