ED STANG’S, pictured here in his GK Hall room, walls and floor of Stang’s room are decorated with various animals. Photo: Sarah Andrews

Alaskans supposedly live in igloos, can see Russia from their homes and are abducted by aliens.

While there are many real differences between Alaska and the continental U.S., there are also many myths. Edward Stang, a 20-year-old Drake University student originally from Nome, Alaska, can separate fact from fiction.

The most recent myth is portrayed in Universal Picture’s “The Fourth Kind.” The movie blames alien abductions for suspicious disappearances in Nome, a coastal town in northwest Alaska.

Stang called the movie “bogus.” He said that, while people do go missing, alcohol is more to blame than aliens. Stang described Nome as “a soaking-wet town” with 12 bars and a population of 3,500. He said people from the surrounding 15 dry towns come to Nome to drink. Stang said, under the influence of alcohol, people are more likely to jump off the jetty (a manmade stone or wooden structure extending into the ocean to break the current) and die.

Nome is about 500 miles from Anchorage and a major road system. Stang said three planes, filled with mostly cargo, fly in each day. Because of transportation costs, things in Alaska are more expensive. Stang said fresh food costs about twice as much as it does in the continental U.S., such as milk costing about $7.50.

Alaska may get cold, but not cold enough for people to live in igloos. Stang said the warmest day this summer was 75 degrees.

Although he has slept in an igloo twice, Stang’s family has a house in Nome and a cabin in Council – an abandoned mining town, about 75 miles from Nome.

Education and not aliens pulled Stang from his hometown. After 8th grade, he moved in with his aunt and uncle in Milwaukee, Wis. to attend Marquette University High School.

Drake’s pharmacy program brought Stang to Des Moines. However, his career goals have changed. Stang said after he hated working as a pharmacy technician, he decided he wanted to become a dentist. His decision to change career paths also comes down to money.

His dad is a dentist and owns a successful private practice in Nome. This creates an opportunity for Stang.

“If I became a dentist, I would walk right in to his building with the whole customer base and everything,” Stang said. He is now in the process of interviewing at dental schools.

An education is not the only thing Stang wants to bring back to Nome. He said he hopes to find a girl while he is in school because men outnumber the women in Alaska, and the few women there are not attractive.

“There’s no beautiful women,” he said. “Like that poster (points to poster on his wall of two seductive blondes), you won’t find any women like that in Alaska.”

One Alaskan he does find attractive is former governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

ED STANG, took down a 62-inch moose in Goldbottom Crick just outside of Council, Alaska. The 62-inches indicates the spread between the antlers. Stang shot this moose, his second, when he was 13. photo courtesy of ED STANG

Whether he becomes a dentist or not, Stang plans to return to Alaska.

“I’m going back to Nome as soon as I’m out of school. That’s guaranteed,” he said.

His main reason for going back is Nome’s recreation. Nowhere else offers the same hunting and fishing, he said.

Stang said his father got him hunting at a young age. He shot his first bear when he was eight years old. He has continued to hunt and fish, and this past summer he worked as a fishing guide.

One glance into his Goodwin-Kirk Residence Hall room and it’s obvious hunting and fishing are very important to Stang. Pictures of the game he has caught taped to the wall and flash by on his computer’s screen saver. Animal furs cover the floor, wall and a chair.

The types of fur in Stang’s room are uncommon for Iowa. Other Iowans may have a deer head mounted on their wall like he does, but they probably don’t have a musk ox hide on the floor or a grizzly pelt on the wall.

“Ed’s room is purely his own,” said Tom Lehn, one of Stang’s sophomore residents. “Additionally, Ed is very proud and knowledgeable about each and every animal he has in his room, and is always looking to add to his already impressive collection.”

A beaver pelt, a caribou’s shed antlers, duck and mallard feathers, furs from a red fox, swan feet, a bear skull and a snapping turtle’s shell also decorate Stang’s room. Up on a shelf is an otter hat. It is not only made from an otter’s fur, but the otter’s face makes up the front of the hat. Stang said he doesn’t wear the hat around Drake too much.

“Its gets a lot of weird looks,” he said.

It’s not just the hat that Drake students can’t understand. Stang’s hunting stories can be hard for others to relate to.

“It’s hard to explain to somebody what it is like to shoot a 62-inch bull moose or have one charging you at 75 feet with its horns down,” he said.

Despite these differences, Stang seems to have no problem interacting with people at Drake. People often stop by to talk, and he is friendly to those walking past his open door.

Lehn said he has had no problem getting to know Stang.

“Although Ed lives almost a world away, he is one of the most personable and welcoming people I have ever met,” Lehn said.

Even though Stang prefers Alaska’s hunting and fishing to Iowa’s, he has still managed to find adventures on Drake’s campus. Last year, Stang said he chased a fawn out of GK’s lobby after it snuck through the plexiglass windows.

This year outside of GK, Stang said he noticed a squirrel that was missing a lot of hair and bleeding a little, a possible sign of rabies. He chased the squirrel over to a tree and eventually caught the animal by swiping at it and preventing it from climbing the tree.

“That was really, really stupid of me,” Stang said.

The squirrel bit him on the thumb, and he has a scar to prove it. After a trip to the emergency room, he said doctors assured him that he didn’t have rabies.