Things I learned this week- Nanook edition

Yesterday, Madison and I and some friends from ESA went to the Jensen Arctic Museum in Monmouth, Oregon. It's a funny little museum on the campus of Western Oregon Univeristy that houses a collection of arctic artifacts that belongs to professor Paul Jensen, a WOU education professor who fathered a program to send student teachers to remote Alaskan villages.
The collection of Alaskan treasures is impressive, as is the interactive taxidermy display.

Here's what I learned this week:
* I learned that Nanook is the native Alaskan word for polar bear. I thought Nanook was just some guy of the North.

* I learned that the Alaskans use seal skins, whole, as floats for their harpoons. I didn't learn how they do it, but they decapitate and skin seals, then somehow hollow out the skin, leaving a sealskin balloon, which they over-inflate and fasten off at the neck. I probably am not describing it right, but it's cool.

* I learned about "dead peasant" insurance. Dead peasant insurance is life insurance paid for by large corporations on their peon employees, who likely don't know about it. Wal Mart has admitted to it. When the peon dies, Wal Mart receives a death benefit, tax-free. And the premiums are tax-free. It's a big yucky tax dodge, and I guess it's pretty much common knowledge, but I didn't know about it until this week.

* I learned that the Olympics are going to be in Rio, which I think is terrific.

* I learned that "philomath" is a synonym for "mastermind". I thought it was an Indian word for "West of Corvallis".

* I learned that my grandma, who is 89, can still turn heads... but she isn't quite up-to-speed on the TSAs toothpaste tube size regulations.

* I learned that it's worth getting up before dawn sometimes, especially when this is what you get to see when the sun comes up: