Alaska steambath culture predates Western contact. Steambaths were a place for healing. Many rural cabins still have saunas.
Chilkat blanket weaving is an important part of northwest coast culture. The stylized designs broadcast the wearer’s kin-group and social identity.
Rika Mouw is a Homer-based sculptor and studio jeweler whose work explores climate change, ocean acidification, and the connectivity of wild places.
A fiddlehead fern recipe for hot giardiniera, a Chicago-style relish good on hot dogs and franks. PIck fresh Alaskan fiddleheads for the key ingredient.
Athabascan fiddle music is a staple in interior Alaska. Each November, the Athabascan Fiddle Festival and Gwich’in Fiddle Dance draw fans to Fairbanks.
Though reaching the best spots for rockhounding Alaska may not be easy, the state’s geological riches rival its scenery in thrills and diversity.
Alaska Native clothing expressed the wearers skills, wealth and ethnic identity.
Salmon caviar is all the rage because of its availability, healthy nutrients, and taste. Taste salmon roe at its best in this traditional Russian dish.
Stinkweed has been used by Alaska Natives as a medicine to heal various ailments, but it can be harmful if consumed incorrectly.
Parade on Nome’s Front Street, 1916. Courtesy Library of Congress Loving liberty, Americans honored their nation’s birth in Alaska when it was still foreign soil. Two years before the United States bought the territory from Russia, the Western Union Telegraph Expedition’s Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Henry P. Fisher arranged its first July Fourth bash in the capital New Archangel, present-day Sitka. As guest of the Russian governor, Fisher had tired of the outpost’s routine and diet. The Brooklyn exile decided to celebrate Independence Day stylishly, helped by two supply vessel captains anchored in port. He requested the customary gun salutes and received Russian-American Company officials and their wives and daughters for a light meal on Clara Bell’s quarterdeck. Before music and dancing commenced, they all toasted Lincoln and the Tsar. Elegant shipboard dining continued to mark the anniversary: a Depression-era feast-day menu for the Inside Passage on SS Aleutian—a steamer considered “palatial”—boasted…
