For Alaska Writer Laureate Vera Starbard, Alaskan lands have always inspired and shaped her creative work. Starbard is a Tlingit and Dena’ina playwright, magazine editor, and Emmy-nominated television writer (Molly of Denali) who has been telling stories since she was young. As she wraps up her two-year stint as Writer Laureate, she took a few [...]

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What do humpback whales do with the energy they gain from feeding in Alaska’s rich waters all summer? Turns out they use some of it to belt out epically long songs in their breeding grounds in Hawai’i. Some songs, researchers recently found, exceed a whopping 16 hours in length. To put that in human terms, [...]

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Longtime Alaska mycologist Kate Mohatt and two co-authors have written an unmatched guidebook on Alaska’s vast realm of mushrooms. At over 550 pages, yet still compact enough to fit in a daypack, it offers detailed descriptions and beautiful photos of the state’s most common fungi. “We have really comprehensive coverage for areas across the state,” [...]

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The Siege at the Kroschel Wildlife Center

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Alaskans and their visitors can enjoy a new travel companion this summer. The Alaska Literary Field Guide, published in March by Mountaineers Books, brings a unique and artistic approach to describing over 90 species of wildlife, plants, and other features of Alaska. The book is written and compiled by Nancy Lord, Marybeth Holleman, and Shaelene [...]

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Congratulations to all!!! GRAND PRIZE WINNER Skating on Wild Ice Web — Utkan Kokaturk Last winter I explored Big Lake on Nordic skates. The snow-free surface revealed spiderweb-like giant cracks etched by vehicle/human traffic and shifting winter pressures under the ice. From above, it became a scene of both calm and motion; me gliding across [...]

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When the Iditarod teams bound out of Willow this month, their odyssey across the Alaskan wilderness will be more than a race. Rising and falling across a frozen landscape – stitching together far-flung rural communities as they go – they will help preserve an arctic sled dog culture that stretches back thousands of years.

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April 2024 April is birch syrup season in the boreal forest of Alaska’s interior. It’s a busy time for the Alaska-owned Kahiltna Birchworks, one of the world’s largest birch syrup makers. Company founders Michael and Dulce East started the business over 30 years ago from their remote homestead near Talkeetna, and in 2023 they sold [...]

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  Since 1969, the Oomingmak cooperative has been keeping Alaskans warm with qiviut hats, scarves, and other accessories that are handknit in remote Arctic villages. Qiviut is the famously soft underwool that muskox shed in spring. “It has a great insulating quality,” says Marie Texter, executive director of the cooperative. Speaking from co-op headquarters in [...]

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by Tim Lydon It’s been over twenty years, but Lauren Padawer still remembers the moment she fell in love with Copper River mud. While visiting Alaska for a rafting trip, her group stopped for lunch and a midday dip in the river’s cold-water eddies. She was mesmerized when her bare feet sank into the river’s soothing mud, which consists of fine silt that glaciers grind from the surrounding mountains.  “I left that trip wanting to know where that mud came [...]

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