Despite a disappointing salmon season and continuous ecosystem-wide change in the Bering Sea region, recent pink salmon runs across the region have been much larger than ever before . In what is considered a “climate change success story,” pink salmon in the Norton Sound region have been thriving after dropping to severely low numbers in the early 2000s. Ed Farley, Program Manager for the Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, presented decades of

Warming rivers play an increasingly important role in melting sea ice and rising air temperatures in the Arctic , according to a new study published in the journal Science Advances . Using complex modeling techniques, a team of international researchers found that heat from rivers melted as much as 10 percent of Arctic sea ice between 1980 and 2015. University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Igor Polyakov is one of the study’s authors. “Because of increase of surface area temperature over

The eastern Interior town of Tok has Alaska’s first and only electric-powered school bus . The vehicle has in use since mid-October, and it was put to the test earlier this month, when it transported students without any problem after the temperature had dropped to 35 below. Gerald "Stretch" Blackard bought the electric bus earlier this year with a nearly $400,000 state grant and $50,000 of his own money that he used to buy a solar-powered battery-recharging system. All because he wanted to find

It’s no secret that many television shows, movies, and video games inaccurately represent Indigenous communities, if they portray them at all. Realistic depictions of life in rural Alaska are also rare. But a new video game set in Southeast Alaska seeks to turn back the tide on that history. It’s a familiar scene for Southeast Alaskans. Two people stand on a small ferry as it cruises down a protected channel between walls of snow-capped peaks and evergreen forests. Suddenly, they hear a noise

It’s mid-November, and there are a few bears still active in the Juneau area. That may seem unusual, but it’s not . Gloria Soto Llauger checked out her security camera footage just after this month’s first big snow storm. There they were, after 1 o’clock in the morning, slowly ambling across the front of her house and parking area. A big mama black bear trailed by two new cubs of the year. “The other day they come and they are big bears,” Soto Llauger said. “Mama was super big. The cubs are so

Late Tlingit scholars Nora Ḵeixwnéi Marks and Richard Xwaayeenák̲ Dauenhauer once dedicated the first volume of their book “Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature” to Tlingit orators. They co-edited the four-volume series and were two-time winners of the American Book Award. The couple carried the knowledge of Southeast Alaska’s Native languages into the 21st century. Recently, the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded Sealaska Heritage Institute a two-year grant to process and

The campaign circulated a victory video featuring the jobs and hobbies of Americans from coast to coast. Set to Ray Charles’s rendition of “America the Beautiful,” the video portrayed Biden’s promise to be a president for all Americans. Across various social media platforms, it was viewed over 60 million times. About 27 seconds in, 28-year-old Jacqui Lambert fills the frame, performing an Iñupiaq dance with Cook Inlet behind her . Lambert had posted one of her dances on Instagram shortly after

The Hooper Bay Charter School opened its doors this fall to students in grades 4 through 8. Last month, the U.S. Department of Education selected HBCS to receive over $500,000 in federal grant funding . Hooper Bay Charter School’s mission is to provide culturally relevant education through a unique, place-based science curriculum. Several school districts across Alaska, including the Bering Strait, Lower Yukon, and Nome, have integrated culturally responsive learning into their schools. Even

Opponents of the Pebble Mine are underwhelmed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s latest bill to fund federal resource agencies . Murkowski has an opportunity to erect hurdles for Pebble, as chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that writes the annual bills to sustain Interior and environmental agencies. She released the bill Tuesday, and included a 240-word passage on Pebble in the report that interprets the spending bill. “I just hope that there’s more to come from the senator,” SalmonState director

Around October every year for the last 19 years, Unalaska High School students have been wading into the Iliuliuk River, under science teacher Steven Gregory's guidance, to collect pairs of spawning salmon . Last week, students in Gregory's fisheries class stretched a seine net from bank to bank, while another group waded upstream, rhythmically slapping large dip nets on the surface of the water. "Two people go down and they scare the fish into the net and then a bunch of people stand on the net