The size of king salmon returning to Western Alaska rivers to spawn has decreased over the past few decades . Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks think that they’re closer to understanding why. Peter Westley and Andrew Seitz are fisheries scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped publish new research on king salmon in February. To answer why these salmon are getting smaller, researchers attached tags to the fish that can record the depth and temperature of the

A year ago, as the pandemic drove everybody inside, Delaney Thiele turned her focus to earrings. She owns a business called Cloudberry , selling Indigenous beaded earrings, mostly on Instagram . “I just had such a good time just like beading and doing all of these fun designs," Thiele said. "Most of them I never sold, or it never came to anything, but it was so fun to explore that side of things.” But soon sales started picking up online, far more than she’d expected. Her social media following

The beginning of the herring spawn in Sitka Sound signals the wind-down of commercial fishing, and the start of the subsistence harvest: The millennia-old tradition of submerging hemlock branches along the shoreline, and waiting for herring to coat them in a thick layer of eggs. And one subsistence advocate who’s determined to see this tradition continue — by working to protect herring stocks, and by teaching kids how to harvest eggs . “This was their first time seeing what subsistence herring

Contractors plan to break ground on a multimillion dollar airport project in Gustavus this month. But newly discovered toxic chemicals at the site make the state-run project more complicated, and some residents don’t think the environmental oversight goes far enough to keep them safe. The upgrade at Gustavus’ state-run airport is a decade in the making, but in 2018 contaminants were discovered at the airport — and in water, soil and wells around the Southeast community. The contaminants are

Gov. Mike Dunleavy says, after 62 years of Alaska statehood, he’s finally asserting the state’s right to control submerged lands under navigable lakes and rivers . “We’re now at the point where we will be physically exerting our sovereignty,” he said during a news conference. Dunleavy sent a letter to President Biden announcing his stance. His position has implications for commercial guiding permits and wilderness access on 800,000 miles of river, but Dunleavy’s message is equally about

New research reaffirms the t emperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska’s global importance for combating the effects of climate change . That’s according to data released Tuesday by a coalition of environmentalists and Tribes opposed to old growth logging in Tongass National Forest. Oregon-based researcher Dominick DellaSala says protecting forests is key to maintaining their function as a carbon sink. “There’s no magic wand, we only have a big vacuum cleaner that we can (use to) just suck CO2 out

The state constitution does not recognize hundreds of Tribes in Alaska. House Bill 123 would amend state law to officially recognize Tribes that the federal government already does. The House Special Committee on Tribal Affairs moved the measure out of committee and to the House State Affairs committee. During Tribal Affairs meeting (April 1, 2021), committee members held the second hearing on House Bill 123 and took testimony from invited speakers and the public. Vivian Korthuis (Yup’ik,

Alaska lawmakers are considering sending a message to the federal government urging it to allow ships to bypass Canada on Alaska cruises this year. Earlier this year, Canadian officials extended the country’s ban on large cruise ships in the country’s waters. That put the 2021 Alaska cruise season in doubt, because U.S. law doesn’t allow the foreign-flagged cruise ships that typically sail the Inside Passage to run domestic routes. “The Alaska visitors’ industry, particularly cruise tourism, is

In a House Finance Committee meeting at the state capitol in Juneau, a Department of Transportation official suggested some cost-saving measures, including ridding the fleet of one of its unused vessels, the MV Malaspina. It’s one of the fleet’s oldest ships, built in the 1960s, and it has been moored at Ward Cove in Ketchikan since 2019. It costs about $450,000 annually just to store the ship. The state is currently considering a variety of options to remove that red line from its budget. They

Last year’s salmon harvest across all species in Southeast Alaska was one of the worst in 50 years. Here’s what Southeast’s regional commercial fishery supervisor had to say about the terrible season, and about his hopes for the coming year. A special report released in March paints a stark picture of 2020’s salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska. “Overall, it was one of the lowest harvests we’d seen, I think since the '70s,” says Lowell Fair. He’s the Southeast regional supervisor for the