Alaska news

• AK: Running the Klondike Relay from Skagway to Whitehorse

  18-09-2015 23:47
  
  
  Last weekend (Sept. 11-12), nearly 1,600 people ran a 10-part race from Skagway over the Coast Mountains and into Whitehorse, Yukon. It’s part endurance trial, part road trip and part party. For many on both sides of the border, running the 110-mile Klondike Road Relay is an annual tradition.
  This year, I joined a team and ran the Klondike for my first time.
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  Wolf Taco teammates run Sarah Kugel into the chute at the end of leg nine. (Photo by Jeremy Hsieh/KTOO)
  The race
  
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• 49 Voices: Sean Neilson of Gustavus

  18-09-2015 23:37
  
  
  This week, we hear from Sean Neilson who lives in Gustavus. He works part-time as a park ranger in Glacier Bay National Park, boarding cruise ships a few times a week to talk with tourists:Download Audio:Sean Neilson lives in Gustavus. 49 voices is AK’s attempt to put every Alaskan on the radio. And we want to hear from you. If you’d like to share your story, send an email to [email protected]
  
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• Anchorage Charter Schools: What are they and who goes?

  18-09-2015 23:00
  From Mediatrackers.org
  A few weeks ago on Hometown Alaska, hosts Kathleen McCoy and Charles Wohlforth invited listeners to suggest show topics. Many great ideas came in by phone and email. One we’ll pick up today is the request for a discussion on charter schools. Our goal in today’s show is to explain what the schools are, how they are funded, how they perform, how families get into the information loop.
  The Anchorage School District website lists 10 charters schools. They range bro
  
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• In the scheme of all matters Inupiaq

  18-09-2015 22:30
  Edna Ahgeak MacLean, Ph.D.
  According to Inupiaq scholar Edna Ahgeak MacLean, Ph.D., “Courses of change to the Inupiaq people of the North Slope will require strong programs for the retention of our identity as Inupiat.” In this lecture, part of the Anchorage Museum’s Smithsonian Spotlight lecture series, she discusses how her recently published North Slope Inupiaq dictionary plays a part in this process.
  MacLean served as president of the northernmost college in the United Stat
  
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• Growing a new generation of fishers and farmers

  18-09-2015 21:30
  
  Driftnet vessels in the Dillingham Harbor wait on another push of sockeye.
  (Photo by Mike Mason, KDLG – Dillingham)
  The maritime workforce is Alaska’s largest private sector employer. From harvesters to processors, ship builders, maintenance and fisheries researchers and industry suppliers, a report compiled by the state, university and industry groups says the workforce represents 70,000 jobs. The aging of many in the maritime trade is of concern for the future of the
  
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• Infant mortality and sleep environment

  18-09-2015 21:00
  © Milan Nykodym, Czech Republic, Wikimedia Creative Commons license
  Putting infants to sleep on their backs has halved Sudden Infant Death Syndrome but co-sleeping, another risk for infant death during sleep is increasing. For the last 20 years, two infants each month die in their sleep environment in Alaska. This program looks at what we know about these deaths, what sleep environments are associated with heightened risk of infant death, and suggestions to improve the safety of infant slee
  
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• The Winter Bear is back

  18-09-2015 18:30
  
  Anne Hanley’s The Winter Bear
  Fairbanks playwright Anne Hanley’s moving drama The Winter Bear about a young Alaskan Native’s struggle with suicide and his relationship with real-life Sydney Huntington of Galena has been touring around the state and makes a stop this weekend at Alaska Pacific University’s E. R. Brown Auditorium in Grant Hall. Anne, along with actors David Leslie (Wolf) and Cynthia Jones (Raven) stop by the studio this week on Stage Talk.
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• Districts prepare for student tests to evaluate teachers

  18-09-2015 16:52
  
  While this school year is newly under way, district officials across Alaska are turning their attention to additional standardized tests students will take next year to help rank teachers.
  KTVA-TV reports that starting next school year, students will take additional tests to see how they are performing in class. Those results will be linked to teacher evaluations as part of new state guidelines known as Student Growth Objectives.
  Students will take the test at the beginning of the school year an
  
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• Sealaska looks to diversify revenue stream

  18-09-2015 16:51
  
  As Sealaska Corp. reduces its timber program, the company says it is exploring new revenue streams, including a possible acquisition of a natural foods business.
  The Ketchikan Daily News reports that Sealaska Natural Resources Manager Brian Kleinhenz told the Daily News on Wednesday during Southeast Conference that the Alaska Native corporation is switching to a permanently sustainable timber harvesting program, which will mean a reduction in harvests.
  Kleinhenz says the change will maintain the
  
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• Art, 'elites' and honeybuckets in old Alaska - Alaska Dispatch News

  18-09-2015 05:38
  Alaska Dispatch News
  Art, 'elites' and honeybuckets in old Alaska
  Alaska Dispatch News
  At the Aug. 28 reception for National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu at the Anchorage Museum, I was struck by comments from some parties who claimed that before the establishment of the NEA, 50 years ago, “art was only for the elite.” Now the ...and more »
  

• Of $1B settlement, $125M earmarked for Alaska tribes - Alaska Public Radio Network

  18-09-2015 04:03
  Of $1B settlement, $125M earmarked for Alaska tribes
  Alaska Public Radio Network
  Attorneys for Indian tribes and the Interior Department announced today an agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit for $940 million. It's a case that dates back to 1994. Since then, until 2013, the department short-changed some 640 tribes that had ...and more »
  

• Of $1B settlement, $125M earmarked for Alaska tribes

  18-09-2015 03:58
  
  
  Attorneys for Indian tribes and the Interior Department announced today an agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit for $940 million. It’s a case that dates back to 1994. Since then, until 2013, the department short-changed some 640 tribes that had federal contracts to provide services to their people. Alaska tribes are among those owed money.
  Download Audio
  One the one hand, this case is about the mundane overhead costs a tribe incurs when it takes over a federal program. To run a housi
  
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• Smaller trophies. Why are some Alaska salmon, halibut getting dinkier? - Alaska Dispatch News

  18-09-2015 03:56
  Alaska Dispatch News
  Smaller trophies. Why are some Alaska salmon, halibut getting dinkier?
  Alaska Dispatch News
  Jerry Bixby who became the second two-time winner of the Seward Silver Salmon Derby holds his 16.2 about two hours before the noon deadline on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015. Cindy Clock. With the end of Alaska's biggest fish derby earlier this week, salmon ...and more »
  

• Alaska News Nightly: Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015

  18-09-2015 03:42
  
  
  Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn.Download Audio
   
  Feds settle class-action lawsuit with tribes for $940M
  Liz Ruskin, APRN – Washington, D.C.
  Attorneys for Indian tribes and the Interior Department announced today an agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit for $940 million.
  Bethel attor
  
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• Bethel attorneys add Outside muscle to class-action suit against GCI

  18-09-2015 03:36
  
  
  GCI network coverage, western Alaska. Photo shared via KYUK.org.
  A San Francisco-based law firm is now working with two Bethel attorneys who filed a class-action lawsuit against GCI for their marketing practices in the YK Delta.
  Download Audio
  “We’re hoping that we can have some resolution or go to try within the next year,” says Bethel Attorney Dave Henderson. He, and fellow attorney Jim Valcarce, filed the lawsuit.
  “GCI sold wireless services for voice and data plans, a
  
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• Anchorage anti-discrimination ordinance up for revision

  18-09-2015 03:34
  
  
  Public testimony is closed on a controversial Anchorage ordinance that could extend legal protections to residents on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
  But the measure’s final form isn’t yet clear.
  Download Audio
  Members of the public line up to testify before the Anchorage Assembly on an anti-discrimination ordinance. Public testimony will continue Wednesday night, Sept. 16. Photo: Zachariah Hughes/KSKA.
  After extending the public comment period to accommodate ove
  
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• Money in hand, Denali Commission looks where to spend

  18-09-2015 03:33
  
  
  The village of Kivalina is one of several Alaska locales threatened by eroding coastlines and rising sea levels. APRN file photo: Joaqlin Estus KNBA
  The profile of the Denali Commission was elevated earlier this month, after President Obama announced during his visit to Alaska that the commission would coordinate the flow of resources to communities threatened by erosion, flooding and permafrost melt.
  Download Audio
  The president also announced that the Denali Commission would receive $2 million
  
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• Too close for comfort? Chilkoot bears lure tourists

  18-09-2015 03:31
  
  
  A bear cub on the Chilkoot River in 2010. (Ray Morris/Flickr Creative Commons)
  The brown bears that frequent the Chilkoot River in Haines have continued to garner attention, good and bad, from tourists and locals alike. Authorities and local bear experts agree that human-bear interactions are getting too close for comfort.
  Download Audio
  “We’re watching pink salmon in the stream, the water level is really low right now and so we can really see the fish really well. And if we look dow
  
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• Study: Climate helps skeeters grow faster; Caribou feel the added bite

  18-09-2015 03:30
  
  
  The Arctic is already known for having impressive swarms of mosquitoes in the summer. And climate change could boost mosquito population numbers, according to a new study from a Dartmouth researcher.
  Download Audio
  Lauren Culler studied mosquitoes as they emerged from ponds in Greenland two years in a row. She found the insects are growing faster and maturing earlier, threatening caribou populations who have their calves at the same time.
  Culler says warmer winters and spring affect mosquito dev
  
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• In the arms race of internet speed, GCI pulls ahead

  18-09-2015 02:36
  
  GCI unveiled their new “red” internet in Anchorage’s Rogers Park neighborhood on Wednesday.
  The new system offers internet speeds of up to 1-gigabit-per-second… which is four times faster than anything previously offered in Alaska. GCI company spokesperson David Morris says most current household technology won’t be able to take full advantage of the speed:
  “What people can do with that is going to, I think, be determined by the human mind. It’s importa
  
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• Pacific Ocean 'blob' hints at warm winter ahead for Alaska - KTUU.com

  18-09-2015 02:13
  KTUU.com
  Pacific Ocean 'blob' hints at warm winter ahead for Alaska
  KTUU.com
  It's another indicator for a warm winter ahead ... the blob! No, not the creature from horror movies. More from KTUU. Shell could pull out of Arctic if off-shore exploration... Funny or Die, Greenpeace team up to highlight Arctic... Dozens of ...
  

• Agency nixes proposed rafts where walrus can rest off Alaska - Journal Gazette and Times-Courier

  18-09-2015 01:31
  Agency nixes proposed rafts where walrus can rest off Alaska
  Journal Gazette and Times-Courier
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declined for now to create artificial floating platforms for Pacific walrus that come ashore in Alaska because they lack summer sea ice. The agency's decision came in response to a ...
  

• More than ink: traditional tattoos roar back in Alaska - Alaska Public Radio Network

  18-09-2015 01:15
  Alaska Public Radio Network
  More than ink: traditional tattoos roar back in Alaska
  Alaska Public Radio Network
  Maya Sialuk Jacobsen of Greenland gives a henna tattoo to a friend's chin during an event at the Anchorage Museum, part of the Polar Lab's Tupik-Mi series on traditional tattoos. (Photo: Zachariah Hughes, KSKA). More and more Alaska Native women are ...
  

• Mat-Su Borough trail plan sparks rancor

  18-09-2015 01:01
  A plan to build new all terrain vehicle trials accessible by the Knik River Public Use area sparked contention at Tuesday night’s Matanuska Susitna Borough Assembly meeting. At stake is a balance between paying for maintenance, or paying for safety, in two Borough recreational projects.
  Fishing at Jim Creek. Photo: Mat Su Borough
  If you live in the Matanuska Susitna Borough, the two words “Jim Creek” evoke a reaction, whether joy or anger. Jim Creek, located in the Borough&rsqu
  
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• Borough Trail Plan Sparks Rancor

  18-09-2015 01:01
  A plan to build new all terrain vehicle trials accessible by the Knik River Public Use area sparked contention at Tuesday night’s Matanuska Susitna Borough Assembly meeting. At stake is a balance between paying for maintenance, or paying for safety, in two Borough recreational projects.
  If you live in the Matanuska Susitna Borough, the two words “Jim Creek” evoke a reaction, whether joy or anger. Jim Creek, located in the Borough’s Butte area, is the scene of campfires, h
  
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• More than ink: traditional tattoos roar back in Alaska

  18-09-2015 00:35
  
  Maya Sialuk Jacobsen of Greenland gives a henna tattoo to a friend’s chin during an event at the Anchorage Museum, part of the Polar Lab’s Tupik-Mi series on traditional tattoos. (Photo: Zachariah Hughes, KSKA)
  More and more Alaska Native women are getting face tattoos.
  The traditional practice dates back centuries, but was banned by 19th and 20th century missionaries. Now it’s coming back. Though the techniques and customs were nearly lost, a new generation is using tattoos to
  
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• BIA settles with 640 tribes for $940M

  18-09-2015 00:19
  
  The U.S. Justice Department today announced the settlement of a large class-action lawsuit brought by 640 tribes and tribal groups against the Bureau of Indian Affairs over payment of contract support costs. The contracts between tribes and the federal government are for numerous services including education and in some states, tribal law enforcement.
  The case was first filed in 1990. The total payout amount is $940 million, although court and attorney fees will have to be de
  
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• New Alaska prison phone system will charge prisoners for local calls - Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

  18-09-2015 00:11
  New Alaska prison phone system will charge prisoners for local calls
  Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
  FAIRBANKS - Starting this month, prisoners in Alaska jails including Fairbanks Correctional Center will be able to call cell phones, but will have to pay to make local calls. They will only be able to call people who have specifically signed up to ...and more »
  

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