WELCOME TO CASCADIA WILDLIFE PARK.
The Cascadia Wildlife Park (formerly The Cascadia Children’s Zoo) opened to the public in August of 1969. The zoo’s story of origin is very uniquely Alaskan.
It all began back in 1966 with the arrival of a baby circus elephant named Annabelle. A grocer in Fairbanks had won a Crown Zellerbach tissue sales contest and the company was offering a prize of “$3,000 or a baby elephant”. While this was likely a gimmick by the company at the time, the grocer surprised everyone when he chose the elephant. So Annabelle the Asian elephant was brought from her life as a young circus elephant to the Last Frontier of Alaska. The grocer quickly realized that he was lacking the ability and facilities to care for a baby elephant in the wilds of Alaska.
With winter approaching, he decided to reach out to people who might have a warm place for Annabelle to live. He landed on the doorstep of Sammye Seawell, then owner of the Diamond H Horse Ranch in Anchorage. She had horse sense, was great with animals and most importantly – she had a heated horse stall. So Annabelle came to live with Sammye and the two developed a close and special relationship. She was known for taking Annie for walks near her horse ranch property and many neighbors would later recall seeing her with Annie walking down the wooded roads.
It didn’t take long for word to get out that Sammye had an elephant in town. People were contacting her and stopping by night and day to see Annie. As time went on, Sammye started to consider a better way to let the public interact with Annie while also pursuing her interest in providing care and homes for orphaned and injured wildlife. She quickly saw the need for this as she was approached by wildlife officials who had an orphaned black bear, later named Tuffy, and an orphaned Arctic fox, later named Sally. In 1968, the Cascadia Children's Zoo was incorporated as a nonprofit, opening its gates on August 2nd, 1969.
Source: https://youtu.be/R_Mw9As8OzQ