Alaska's Mother's Day tradition with Musk Oxen and Ice Age connection
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In Palmer, Alaska which is just an hour north of Anchorage, Mother's Day isn't marked by brunch reservations or department store deals. Instead, it comes with daisies, baby musk oxen , and a brush with the Ice Age.Each year, the Musk Ox Farm opens its gates to moms for free, offering flowers and front-row access to a herd of 75 musk oxen, including newly born calves wobbling on fresh legs. The star of the show this year is Trebek, an old bull named after the late 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek, one of the farm's generous supporters.'Who wouldn't want to spend Mother's Day with a musk ox mom and a calf that could melt your heart?' said Mark Austin, executive director of the nonprofit farm to ABC News.Mother's Day has long been the symbolic start of the summer season for the farm, whose history goes back to 1964. The current location in Palmer, where the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges loom like gentle giants, became home in 1986, offering better grazing grounds and easier access via Alaska's sparse road network. It also allowed the team to expand into educational programs for visitors.Since settling here, the farm has treated every Mother's Day like a grand opening. 'It made perfect sense—mothers, newborn oxen, spring. The story tells itself,' Austin said.This year, three calves have already arrived, and more are expected. The event now draws crowds of over 1,500 people and has become a generational tradition. 'It's a rite of passage,' Austin added. 'We joke that if we ever canceled it, we'd probably have a riot on our hands.'Musk oxen are no ordinary animals. These shaggy, stocky mammals date back to prehistoric times, having survived while saber-toothed tigers and mastodons faded into extinction. Today's musk oxen, relatives of Arctic goats, are smart, curious, and tough. Bulls can reach five feet tall and weigh up to 800 pounds; females top out around four feet and 500 pounds.Known to Alaska's Inupiat people as itomingmak—"the animal with skin like a beard"—their long hair drapes nearly to the ground, giving them a mythical look.Once widespread across northern Europe, Asia, Greenland, and North America, musk oxen nearly vanished by the 1920s. Only Greenland and parts of Canada held on to their dwindling populations. A recovery effort began in 1934, when 34 musk oxen were shipped from Greenland to Fairbanks. Since then, their numbers have rebounded, with around 5,000 now living in the wild across Alaska.
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