A few years before it burnt down someone stole the big blue bird effigy mounted on the roof. The cops put out a States-wide alert for it's recovery and iirc it was discovered somewhere in the lower 48, whence it was returned to its rightful place.
One day we went skiing in nearby Alyeska and, unusually, some of the Japanese FA's joined us (they normally hung out with all the other airlines' japanese FA's in Benihana on 5th Ave in Anchorage). Afterwards we arranged to meet at the Bird. One of these girls asked the barmaid - the well-built one alluded to in an earlier post - whether they sold soft drinks or not. "No" came the reply. "What
do you sell?" asked our Japanese girl. Whereupon the barmaid, hands on hips, displayed her enormous assets in tactical mode and stated "we sell BOOZE, lady!"
The only food available there was a basket of hard boiled eggs, labelled "boneless chicken dinners".
I was a frequent visitor to ANC in the 1980's and we had to do a very basic polar nav course before being let loose, which included a mere brush with Grid Nav. Years later I found myself operating these routes again and we had a reversionary procedure to Grid Nav if the INS's failed. As I was the only one on the fleet who had an inkling of what it entailed I was nominated the instructor! Blind leading the blind, etc.
Blind Pew - you do exaggerate.....