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Homer: Elaborately Decorated Coffee Shop Is Pretty Typical For This Seaside Town

Coffee cups, spoons, forks on outside of building.

Huge multi-colored coffee cups decorate this Homer expresso shop. Actually, many places in Homer look kind of funky, like this!

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Hot Tang: Instead Of Juice, Alaskans Got Their Vitamin C In An Orange Powder

Ray Genet advertised Hot Tang. Alaskans Have Always Struggled With Finding Easily Transported Foods Tang, a sugary orange juice-flavored drink powder, was very popular all over rural Alaska during the 1970's. Mixed with water, Tang provided 100% of the government-recommended amount of Vitamin C. It was pioneered as a beverage on manned space shuttles. In Alaska, where fruits were hard to import, and to carry crosscountry without freezing, Tang became a common solution to the problem of providing a source of Vitamin C to children. The lack of Vitamin C in rural Alaska was a serious concern, and local people's interest in using Tang grew from the Gold Rush, when miners -- unaware of the need to pick and preserve berries during the summer months -- died of scurvy, a gruesome Vitamin C deficiency disease. In the 1970's, almost 100 years after the Gold Rush, Alaskans were encouraged to drink their Tang heated up. Ray Genet, shown here, was a well-known Talkeetna mou

Alaska's Black Spruce Trees: The Template For Dr. Seuss

Twisted black spruce on the Glenn Highway. Black spruce trees are a symbol of the boreal forest and taiga of the great north. There are more acres of taiga than any other type of ecological forest in the world. Even though most people have never seen the taiga. Black spruce grow in poor soil, with an underlayment of permanently frozen ground -- or "permafrost." These spruce are tiny; they're twisted, and thin, and don't seem to follow the rules that trees should follow.

Healy, Alaska: Hauling Drinking Water From A Local Pump House

Hauling water in a truck in rural Alaska. For A Place With So Many Rivers, Getting Drinking Water In Alaska Is Not Easy Water hauling is a huge problem in rural Alaska. It doesn't matter where you live; many people don't have running water. This is true even in the city of Fairbanks, where "dry" (i.e. waterless) cabins are rented out to college students who are going to school at the nearby University of Alaska. In many parts of the state along the road system, entrepreneurs set up small pump houses over their wells, and charge by the gallon, with coin-operated timers. The simplest system is to load 5-gallon jugs. This large plastic container is especially designed for hauling water. It fits into the back of a pickup, and is made so the water won't splash out when it's transported back home. On arriving home, the water is pumped back out of the container and into another container, inside the warm house. Hauling water is an arduous task, often done

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