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Lucy Pitka McCormick's relatives cooked salmon, moose, beaver and muskrat over an earthen firepit on the banks of the Chena River, just outside Fairbanks, as they honored her life. They whipped whitefish, blueberries and lard into a traditional Alaska Native dessert, and dolloped servings onto a paper plate, setting it in the flames to feed her spirit. The family prayed as McCormick's great-grandson built a small plywood coffin that was filled with gifts and necessities for the next world, such...
Alaska fishermen will be able to harvest red king crab, the largest and most lucrative of all the Bering Sea crab species, for the first time in two years, offering a slight reprieve to the beleaguered fishery beset by low numbers likely exacerbated by climate change. There was no such rebound for snow crab, however, and that fishery will remain closed for a second straight year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Oct. 6. “The Bristol Bay red king crab fishery for the prior two seasons were closed based on low abundance and par...
A pair of Juneau teachers needed good news after they lost nearly all their possessions when their house collapsed last month into the Mendenhall River swollen by a glacial-outburst flood and their cat went missing. Elizabeth Wilkins was holding onto hope that if any animal would survive the house falling into the river on Aug. 5, it would be Leo, the couple's resilient big-eyed, black-and-white cat who shows no fear of bears. "I knew that he's pretty smart, and so I felt pretty confident that h...
The destruction came as a glacial dam burst in Alaska’s capital city on Aug. 5, swelling the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. The bursting of such snow-and-ice dams is a phenomenon called a jökuhlaup, and while it’s relatively little-known in the U.S., researchers say such glacial floods could threaten about 15 million people around the world. “We sat down there and were just watching it, and all of a sudden trees started to fall in,” said Amanda Arra, whose house still hung precariously over the riverbank two days after the floodin...
The cruise ship with about 1,000 passengers anchored off Nome, too big to squeeze into the city’s tiny port. Its well-heeled tourists had to shimmy into small boats for another ride to shore. It was 2016, and at the time, the cruise ship Serenity was the largest vessel ever to sail through the Northwest Passage. But as the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome — a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sle...
Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment in Western Alaska. The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The Biden administration’s approval last week of the biggest oil drilling project in Alaska in decades promises to widen a rift among Alaska Natives, with some saying that oil money can’t counter the damages caused by climate change and others defending the project as economically vital. Two lawsuits filed almost immediately by environmentalists and one Alaska Native group are likely to exacerbate tensions that have built up over years of debate about ConocoPhillips’ Willow project. Many communities on Alaska’s North Slope cel...
Alaska's rugged and frigid Interior, where it can get as cold as minus 50 Fahrenheit, is not the place you'd expect to find an electric school bus. But here is Bus No. 50, quietly traversing about 40 miles of snowy and icy roads each day in Tok, shuttling students to school not far from the Canadian border. It works OK on the daily route. But cold temperatures rob electric vehicle batteries of traveling range, so No. 50 can't go on longer field trips, or to Anchorage or Fairbanks. It's a...
Alaska’s largest school district repeatedly and inappropriately secluded and restrained students with disabilities, the U.S. Department of Justice said last Thursday following an investigation into alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to an agreement reached between the Justice Department and Anchorage schools, the district will eliminate the use of seclusion at all schools and ensure that students are only restrained when there is imminent danger of “serious physical harm to the student to another per...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — After tidal surges and high winds from the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive damage to homes along Alaska’s western coast in September, the federal government stepped in to help residents — largely Alaska Natives — repair property damage. Residents who opened Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork expecting to find instructions on how to file for aid in Alaska Native languages like Yup’ik or Inupiaq instead were reading bizarre phrases. “Tomorrow he will go hunting very early, and will (bring) nothing,” r...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Dec. 1 proposed restrictions that would block plans for a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region that is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run. A statement from the regional EPA office said discharges of dredged or fill material into the waters of the U.S. within the proposed Pebble Mine footprint in southwest Alaska would “result in unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.” The rarely employed agency action would effectively veto the project b...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A little-known candidate for the U.S. Senate race in Alaska has suspended his campaign, hoping not to divide the GOP vote during the general election by throwing his support to a fellow Republican backed by former President Donald Trump. Buzz Kelley, who finished fourth in the primary race, said his motivation for suspending the campaign on Sept. 12 came after Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich lost to Democrat Mary Peltola in the special general election for the state’s U.S. House seat left vacant with the death in Mar...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in a typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of blazes that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category. As of late July, more than 530 wildfires had burned an area the size of Connecticut — and the usual worst of the fire season is ahead. While little property has burned, some res...
The U.S. government on July 11 agreed to a request from environmental groups to study increasing critical habitat designations in Alaska waters for North Pacific right whales, one of the rarest whale species in the world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries estimates there are about 30 of the whales left after centuries of hunting, ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements have devastated the species. The agency in 2008 designated about 1,175 square miles in the Gulf of Alaska and approximately 35,460 square miles in...
The Alaska Supreme Court on Saturday upheld a lower court ruling that will keep Republican Tara Sweeney off the ballot for the August special election in Alaska’s U.S. House race. In a brief written order, the high court on an appeal affirmed the decision of Superior Court Judge William Morse, who agreed on Friday with a decision by Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai to not advance Sweeney, the fifth-place finisher in the June 11 primary, to the special election ballot after the third-place finisher suddenly dropped out. The o...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter has taken the unusual step of weighing in on a federal court case involving his landmark 1980 lands conservation act and a remote refuge in Alaska, arguing against a road through the area. Carter filed a brief on May 9 in the longstanding legal dispute over efforts to build a road through the refuge at the western end of the Alaska Peninsula, worried that a recent ruling in favor of a proposed land exchange for the road across the Izembek National...
SEWARD (AP) — In the cold, choppy waters of Alaska’s Resurrection Bay, all eyes were on the gray water, looking for one thing only. It wasn’t a spout from humpback whales that power through this scenic fjord in front of Seward, or a sea otter lazing on its back, munching a king crab. Instead, everyone aboard the Nanuq, a University of Alaska Fairbanks research vessel, was looking where a 5-foot long, bright pink underwater sea glider surfaced. The glider — believed to be the first configured with a large sensor to measure carbon dioxide...
Efforts were underway Monday to clear a road where a 300-foot-wide slide — taking down dozens of fully grown evergreen trees as well as rocks and dirt — toppled into the bay in front of Seward, covering the narrow roadway and cutting off road access for about 200 people. There were no injuries in the Saturday evening landslide about a half-mile south of downtown Seward, City Manager Janette Bower said. A private contractor was handling the removal process and planned to use heavy equipment to clear the debris at the top first, working down to...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski continues to have a substantial cash advantage over her opponent backed by former President Donald Trump. Murkowski, in office since 2002, brought in more than $1.5 million in the three-month period ending March 31, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. Murkowski ended the quarter with $5.2 million on hand with no debt, the records show. Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is challenging Murkowski, raised $673,383 during the last...
A Delta Junction man who threatened to assassinate both of Alaska’s U.S. senators in a series of profane messages left at their congressional offices was sentenced last Friday to 32 months in prison. Jay Allen Johnson was also fined $5,000, ordered to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence, and is barred by a protective order from contacting Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, their family and staff members for three years. “Nothing excuses this conduct, threatening our elected officials, an act that attacks our...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A former police dispatcher in the Bering Sea coastal community of Nome has settled with the city after officers failed to investigate her report of being sexually assaulted in 2017. Under terms of the agreement, Clarice “Bun” Hardy, an Alaska Native woman now living in Shaktoolik, will drop her lawsuit in exchange for $750,000 and an apology from the city, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska said March 22. “The mayor and common council wish to apologize to Clarice ‘Bun’ Hardy for the fact that the Nome Police Departmen...
FAIRBANKS (AP) — In the pristine expanse of Alaska’s Interior lies a dirty secret: Some of the most polluted winter air in the United States can be found in and around Fairbanks. The Fairbanks North Star Borough, which includes Alaska’s second-largest city, routinely exceeds limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for particle pollution that can be inhaled and cause myriad health problems. Over seven weeks this winter, nearly 50 scientists from the U.S. and Europe descended on Fairbanks to study the sources of air pollu...
ANCHORAGE — A federal appeals court panel on March 16 reversed a decision that had rejected a land swap aimed at allowing construction of a road through an Alaska national wildlife refuge which is an internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the decision back to U.S. District Judge John Sedwick in Alaska for further consideration. Nine environmental groups had sued to stop the land swap on the Alaska Peninsula. Sedwick blocked an agreement that would have allowed the I...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A federal agency tasked with investigating plane crashes is recommending that all pilots be required to communicate their positions on a designated radio frequency when entering and exiting areas not managed by air traffic control towers throughout Alaska. The recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration are included in a report from the National Transportation Safety Board following a mid-air collision that killed seven people, including an Alaska state lawmaker, near Soldotna on July 31, 2020. The report was p...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A Homer man whose home was mistakenly raided by FBI agents searching for a laptop stolen from the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has been chosen as the running mate for conservative Alaska Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Kurka. Paul Hueper, 59, wearing a T-shirt that said, “We the People are Pissed,” was introduced as the lieutenant governor candidate by Kurka at a rally Jan. 31 in Wasilla. Kurka, a freshman in the Alaska House, said he chose a running mate that has the same vision he has, and...