Here is an interesting site about using quills, including a picture. I had no idea there was so much involved! If you want some, I'll see if I can get some already cleaned. No country or customs should object to cleaned quills.

http://home.flash.net/~mjtafoya/projects/quill/quill.htm

JennieG, those tall cylindrical objects are oil storage tanks. They used to be alongside one of our streets but in recent years they've been installed on the 'rock dump', our manmade peninsula that forms our harbor.

Keep in mind that everything is barged or ferried up the Gastineau channel. From my window high up the hill I once watched with binoculars as a huge forklift trundled onto a barge, lifted a school bus off the third tier, brought it to land and deposited it in the parking lot.

Alaska Mike, I spent a couple of weeks in Anchorage last June and had a great time. I had never been on the road system up there and there's a lot to see and do. It is hard to go indoors with those surroundings.

We went as far south as Homer and then up and back down to Seward (on the way we stopped and watched a brown bear eating dandelions); as far north as Denali (my favorite spot on the trip was Talkeetna, followed in order by Seward); we went to Girdwood and Alyeska and Whittier and points between. The Old Seward highway is a notoriously dangerous one- it is a gorgeous drive alongside the Inlet, its beauty allegedly one of the factors in causing accidents.

We also went to the Portage Glacier (ah, here I can point out pronunciation. In the US we say "GLAYshurr", not "glassier" as one might in French-English.) I was astonished at what had happened to the Portage. I knew that over the years it had receded dramatically - it sometimes lost 300 feet in a month - but I had no idea that it had practically vanished as far as the view from the road goes. There is an excursion boat that carries people to a viewing spot but it was after hours and it was closed.

We did go to the Visitors Center and spent a couple of hours there.

Oh, yes, and everywhere we went we saw moose. Not on the highways, luckily, but on the vrrges and in the meadows.