Information copied from the Musk Ox Farm website: (
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"The non-profit Musk Ox Farm is dedicated to the domestication of the musk ox, an Ice Age mammal that once roamed the earth alongside saber tooth tigers and woolly mammoths.
Known to native Alaskans as “Oomingmak”, which means “The Bearded One”, this once-endangered animal produces an annual harvest of qiviut, the finest wool in the world.
We welcome visitors to the farm for a close up experience of these magnificent Paleolithic ruminants with guided tours, engaging exhibits, a gift shop featuring hand-knit qiviut items, and community events throughout the year.
Our historic 1930s-era Colony farm is located just 45 miles north of Anchorage in the spectacular Matanuska Valley, the heart of Alaskan agriculture.
The Musk Ox Farm is nestled in the Matanuska Valley just outside of Palmer, Alaska, a scenic fifty-minute drive from downtown Anchorage. Our picturesque Colony farm, where we continue a unique domestication project begun sixty years ago, is home to a lively herd of sixty musk ox, from powerful bulls to frolicking calves.
Come observe, photograph and interact with these Ice Age animals at close range, as you learn from our guides and educational exhibits about their fascinating natural history, the domestication project, and how their fine underwool, called qiviut, is the basis of an Arctic native textile industry which provides an economic supplement to subsistence communities throughout Alaska.
Musk ox were extinct within Alaska by the late 1800's and were reintroduced from wild herds in eastern Greenland in the 1930's by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Although it is sometimes claimed that their die-off was caused by hunting, research suggests it was more likely due to fluctuations in the climate at the southern extreme of their range. Native Alaskans did hunt the muskoxen prior to their disappearance, but the number of people was small enough that their hunting alone could not have been enough to extirpate musk oxen, and their numbers declined during that period throughout their range even in areas where there was no hunting."
Once in danger of disappearing completely, musk ox populations have made a dramatic comeback with a current worldwide population of about 150,000 animals."