A moose wearing a Mexican charro sombrero appears on a bright yellow wildlife-crossing sign, combining two distinctly different images: an Alaska icon and a symbol of Mexican tradition. The image is the logo of The Mexican Moose, a family business located near the end of Main Street in downtown Talkeetna, where the Talkeetna and Chulitna rivers meet the Susitna River. The setting is fitting for a business that brings together two worlds: Alaska and Mexico.
Located in an open-air market just a couple of blocks from the rivers, The Mexican Moose offers an eclectic collection of Mexican craftsmanship beneath a covered roof but open to the surrounding town. Wooden toys, handcrafted leather bags, Mexican sandals, wallets and other traditional crafts share space with knives forged by the family and birch-bark baskets made in Alaska. The business is the work of the Owens family, whose life and work stretch across three places: Alaska, Mexico and North Carolina.
“We first started out with cinnamon roasted almonds,” said Landon Owens, one of five family members who work in the business. “That’s the first thing we had.”
The Owens moved to Alaska about 15 years ago after Landon’s father, Jeff Owens, had an opportunity to visit friends in Talkeetna. He had always wanted to move north and try something different, and Alaska was inspiring.
The family’s first venture in Talkeetna was a taco truck. It operated for about a year and a half before the family decided to change direction.
“It’s hard, it’s expensive to make tacos, and people weren’t paying what they really cost,” Landon said. “Then the family decided to move on, ‘Let’s sell something else.’”
They began looking for products that interested visitors, eventually developing The Mexican Moose into a marketplace of handmade goods. Much of the merchandise comes directly from Mexico, where the family travels for two or three weeks at a time to find crafts and build relationships with artisans.
“We go and get to know all the people that do it. It’s all handmade,” Landon said. “It’s super good quality stuff.”
But not everything at The Mexican Moose comes from Mexico.
The family forges its own knives, and Landon works alongside his father and brother to make them by hand. His mother, Isabel, makes another distinctly Alaskan product: baskets from birch bark.
“We do that from start to finish,” Landon said of the baskets. “We go out, cut the trees down, get the birch, use the wood for firewood and all that kind of stuff.”
Isabel, who is from Guadalajara, Mexico, met Jeff while he was visiting Mexico with a Christian youth group from North Carolina. She moved to the United States at age 20 and has lived in the United States for the past 27 years.
Landon was born in North Carolina, but the family moved to Alaska when he was two. For him, the business is more than a summer job. He speaks Spanish, which he learned from his mother, and said he is proud of his Mexican heritage. When asked what he likes most about Mexico, his answer was simple: “La comida.”
The family spends much of the year together. They operate The Mexican Moose from the first week of May through the first week of September, then travel to North Carolina to visit family and to Mexico.
For visitors looking specifically for Alaska-made products, the Mexican crafts might seem unexpected. But Landon said customers often recognize the quality and enjoy finding items they have encountered in Mexico.
“I bought one of these in Baja, and I haven’t found them anywhere else,” customers sometimes tell him.
That, he said, is part of what makes the business worthwhile: bringing a little piece of Mexico to a small Alaska town while maintaining the family’s connection to both cultures.
This article was made possible by a grant from the 2025 ACEJ: Alaska Arts Reporting Initiative at the Alaska Community Foundation.
