The battle over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain has dragged on for decades. And now, the Trump administration is close to auctioning off drilling rights for the land in northeast Alaska — potentially just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. But there’s a big, unanswered question looming over the idea of a sale: To what degree would the industry actually participate? Oil and gas companies aren’t talking publicly about whether they’d

A group of Alaskans has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the recently passed Ballot Measure 2 , the elections overhaul initiative. Members of the Republican, Libertarian and Alaskan Independence parties filed the lawsuit in Anchorage Superior Court. “It harms individual rights to free political association, so we can get our candidates elected,” said Attorney Kenneth Jacobus, one of the plaintiffs. Other plaintiffs include Anchorage resident Scott Kohlhaas, who recently ran as a Libertarian for

An Alaska-based theater company is putting a Tlingit twist on a holiday classic. From the opening carol, viewers will notice a particular Southeast Alaska flavor to “ A Tlingit Christmas Carol .” Vera Starbard (Tlingit and Dena’ina) is the playwrite-in-residence for Perseverance Theatre and adapted the story. “If you enjoy a “Christmas Carol” like I do … you'll recognize the story,” Starbard said. “It definitely plot wise has a lot of the things -- obviously not exactly the same, but you'll

In 2018, the Alutiiq Museum began a two-year project dedicated to documenting and awakening beading arts in Alutiiq culture . In the final weeks of the project, the museum is producing instructional videos to share a piece of Alutiiq culture with the world. The Pinguat, the Alutiiq word for beads, project began in 2018 when the Alutiiq Museum borrowed from a museum in France a rare set of beaded garments, collected nearly 150 years ago from Kodiak. But this wasn’t just a case of one museum

Repairs have wrapped, for now, on one of Alaska’s oldest standing Orthodox churches. The Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Old Town Kenai has shed its scaffold to reveal an updated roof, cupolas and crosses . Any building with the superlative of “oldest” is going to need an upgrade once in a while. Especially when that building is made of wood and sits on a blustery bluff. “If you've ever owned an old house, you know what it’s like. You fix one thing and then something else

The New Polaris Gold Mine lies in a roadless area in British Columbia near the confluence of the Tulsequah and Taku rivers just a few miles upstream from the border. Canarc Resources said it had received a permit from provincial regulators to resume exploratory work next spring. The Vancouver-based company’s long-term vision for the British Columbia mine involves using the Taku River as its supply corridor, says Canarc President Garry Biles. “If we did build a mine, and that’s some time in the

The artwork of a Tlingit artist from Juneau will be featured on a new postage stamp set for distribution next year. Rico Lanáat’ Worl is the founder of Trickster Company, a design shop based in Juneau that incorporates traditional Northwest Coast Art into everything from T-shirts and stickers to skateboard decks and basketballs. He said that an art director with the U.S. Postal Service named Antonio Alcala called him up one day. “He had apparently discovered some of Trickster Company’s artwork

A judge ruled the feds were within their rights to allow a Southeast Alaska tribe to organize a hunt out-of-season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dunleavy administration has sued to block future hunts arguing that Kake’s special moose and deer harvest this summer was federal overreach. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic a federally recognized tribe on Kupreanof Island was alarmed by the low supply and high price of fresh meat. The Organized Village of Kake petitioned the

The City of Fairbanks is challenging a decision that’s allowed a federal civil rights suit filed by the Fairbanks Four against the city to proceed. The city announced that it has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The four Native men, who spent decades in prison for a murder that evidence later showed others were likely responsible for, are suing the city for racially biased and malicious prosecution. Their convictions were vacated under

Alaska voters elected 13 new members to the state Legislature. The first-time lawmakers are a heavily Republican group ; the only Democrat is also the only woman. Ron Gillham is one of the new members joining the House. The Soldotna Republican said the new members from his party have a lot in common, including many of the same principles. “We want a smaller budget, we want a smaller government,” he said. “You know, we all want to prosper. So we’re all looking at ways that we can put more people