Actually, they are. The mountains are their namesakes. The Chugach can refer to: People, a mountain range, a state park, a national forest, and probably some other things I’m forgetting….

It is no surprise that an Alaskan would be studying pot. There’s a big marijuana-legalization movement here. Yep, I’ve got a digital camera….

Have you got a digital camera? I would love to see pix of your world now and then.

My only contact with Alaska was a trashily over-made-up voluptuous co-student when I was an undergrad. She had gotten her wrists ruined by the cold in a fish cannery. Her thesis was originally supposed to treat the possibility that Vikings smoked pot, but then she switched to the Out Of Africa issue.

Bear spray is essentially mace; it is high-concentration pepper spray in a large spray bottle, about the size of a can of hair spray. When you pull the trigger, all the contents come out in a big fan-shaped cloud in about five seconds.

The Chugach are a local range of mountains; the nearby Kenai Mountains were formed in the same orogeny. The Chugach mountains near Anchorage are part of a popular state park, where a lot of people do their hiking.

Thanks for the reminder that my readership is global - I’ll work on that!