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In Alaska, you don’t have to do everything Alaskans do, but knowing what is important and predominant in the lives of Alaskans will certainly enhance and enrich your experience.
Sourdough
All over Alaska, café and restaurant menus feature sourdough foods such as bread, pastries, and pancakes. This love for the sourdough is a tradition that dates back to the gold-rush days, when food was sometimes hard to come by, particularly in the winter months. In many places, supplies only arrived twice a year, and orders had to be placed a year in advance. Wise prospectors and pioneers in those areas carried a stash of sourdough starter—it was both a staple and a precious possession. Ordinary yeast didn’t fare well in Alaska, it was too sensitive to the cold and would not grow. Thus, experienced miners and those who survived the harsh winter became known as sourdoughs, a title that later came to define old-timers, which—depending on who you talk to—is anyone who has lived in Alaska for either five consecutive winters or at least 20 years. Either way, eat enough sourdough pancakes for breakfast, smoked salmon spread on sourdough bread for lunch, and a dinner of fresh halibut and wild-berry and rhubarb cobbler, and you can consider yourself an honorary Alaskan sourdough.
Subsistence Living
Subsistence is a very important way of life for Alaskans, not only for those living in remote parts of the state, but for urban dwellers as well; a freezer filled with moose, reindeer, halibut, and salmon is quite common. For many who live in remote parts of the state, however, subsistence is essential for survival. Seal, whale, duck, fish, caribou, musk ox, polar bear, and goat—some of which can only be hunted by Alaska Natives—provide fat, fur, hides, and meat for sustenance, shelter, and warmth. Salmon fishing is the most common subsistence catch all over the state. During the summer months, Alaskans take to their boats and their shorelines to catch their year’s supply. Though many people stock their freezers with fillets, many more pull out their smokers. Smoked salmon is not like lox, it is steeped first in brine and a variety of different spices or sugars and comes out as a moist, oily jerky. It is either air packed or jarred and can be found in shops everywhere.
Native Arts
Alaska’s rich Native culture is reflected in its abundance of craft traditions, from totem poles to intricate baskets and detailed carvings. Many of the Native crafts you’ll see across the state are the result of generations of traditions passed down among tribes; the craft process is usually labor intensive, using local resources such as rye grasses or fragrant cedar trees. Each of Alaska’s Native groups is noted for particular skills and visual-art styles. Inuit art includes ivory carvings, spirit masks, dance fans, baleen baskets, and jewelry. Also be on the lookout for mukluks (seal- or reindeer-skin boots). The Tlingit and Haida of Southeast Alaska are known for their totem poles and elaborate clan houses as well as baskets and hats woven from spruce root and cedar bark. Tsimshian Indians also work with spruce root and cedar bark. Athabascans specialize in birch-bark creations, decorated fur garments, and beadwork. The Aleut make grass basketry that is considered among the best in the world.
Alaska Native culture is also evident in music and dance. The mukluks, kuspuks (Yup’ik overshirts), robes, and headdresses worn are embedded with rich stories and symbolism, and you may hear young men cry out during a song—listen carefully: they are imitating the sound of the seal, the walrus, or the whale.