"Reindeer heads all over town. Moose heads. Walrus heads. All kinds of heads around here," Hooper Bay resident Robert Giaculli said over the phone in a craggy New York accent.
Born in the Bronx, Giaculli met a Hooper Bay woman while on vacation in Anchorage and has lived off and on in the Yup'ik hunting and fishing village ever since. They have box seats to scenes like the pic on today's front page, a scene that Giaculli photographed while walking the family dog, Squidward.
His daughter, Concetta, 9, spotted the walruses first.
"That's a staple of food here," he said.
The photo is one of more than 5,000 shared in recent years by Daily News readers, a collection that lives in more than 50 galleries on our website and tells the story of life in Alaska from every angle.
Your dogs. Your cats. The fish you catch and the moose you shoot. Your sons and daughters and moms and guns and vacations.
Today we're celebrating the New Year with a few of our favorites.
Like the bird's-eye cockpit shot of retired fighter pilot R.C. Cline flying the Aviat Husky he won in 2009 after buying a $50 ticket at an aviation trade show.
Cline, who flies 747s for Atlas Air, was using the plane that day to take air-to-air photos of a friend's Cessna 180 and Piper PA-14 flying in formation above the Mat-Su.
Then there's the street-level shot of a moose strolling amid traffic on Northern Lights Boulevard in Midtown as if he'd just left the Burger King drive-through.
The photographer, Charles Tice, saw the animal from his office at Alaska Club West, where he works as a membership director.
The 29-year-old said he nearly passed on the shot -- did Anchorage need another urban moose pic? --- but soon grabbed his Nikon and raced through the parking lot, adjusting the settings as he ran.
Traffic froze. Bystanders aimed their phone cameras at the moose, which would eventually wander out of the road and into the REI parking lot.
"My plan was, if the moose decided to get a little crazy and start charging me, to jump on one of the cars," he said.
Among the 99 snapshots readers uploaded of their far-flung Alaska cabins is one alarming photo of a 20-by-12-foot fisherman's shelter suspended high above a rocky beach on the east side of Cook Inlet.
A tall boulder supports one end of the cabin. The other clings to a receding shore. The middle straddles the air.
Bill Field of Nikiski said he built the place with his wife, Lola May, in their garage nearly 30 years ago and hauled it to a salmon fishing site just north of Captain Cook State Recreation Area.
Every year a little more of the bank washes away.
Now the cabin, made of plywood and two-by-fours, bounces when you walk inside, said Field, who is 89. "When the wind blows hard, we get out of there because we don't know if it's going to tip over or not."
And those heads in the sled? Where are the Bering Sea walruses that Giaculli photographed today?
The hunter is a neighbor who shared the meat with the village, he said. "We probably still have some in the freezer."
Thank you, Alaska, for sharing your photos.
Keep them coming.
MORE: Find more of our favorite reader photos and full caption information in a special year-end reader gallery. Also find your own favorites in our many reader galleries. Oh, and keep sharing your own shots with ADN readers. adn.com/readerphotosYour Alaska We love your photos, Alaska. From your airplanes to the bears in your yard, from your babies to your tattoos, you've shared photos by the thousands at adn.com. Today we celebrate some of our favorites. Read the stories behind some of them, and find more reader photos, on the Back Page.
Best of 2010: ADN and reader video
Best of 2010: Most-read stories and photo galleries
By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com