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Alaska Magazine
Author

Tim Lydon

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An old locomotive boiler sits along the Chilkoot Trail.
30-Second Reads

Chilkoot Trail becomes a National Historic Trail

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Omnibus bill brought the designation The Chilkoot Trail—made famous by the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush that lured over 100,000 miners north to Skagway and the Yukon—is now a National Historic Trail. Congress has given this unique distinction to only 19 other trails, including the Oregon Trail, the Iditarod, and the Pony Express Trail. The 33-mile trail connects Dyea, near Skagway, to Lake Bennett, British Columbia. The U.S. side is within Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, where visitors can take in museum exhibits, ranger-led hikes, or the abandoned boomtown of Dyea. The trail itself is popular among day-hikers and backpackers, who can see numerous artifacts left behind by prospectors. In a statement, Angela Wetz of the National Park Service said the new designation will help the park tell the story of the gold rush and the area’s natural and cultural landscapes. The park also celebrates the Alaska Native history of…

Glaciers are alive by Debbie Miller
30-Second Reads

Author Releases 15th Children’s Book

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Glaciers are Alive connects young audiences to wonders In her latest book, released in May 2023, Alaskan author Debbie Miller introduces young readers to the fascinating world of glaciers. Aimed at readers between four and eight years old, it is her 12th collaboration with long-time Alaskan illustrator Jon Van Zyle. Glaciers Are Alive is a journey down an Alaskan glacier, from its source high in the mountains to its terminus in the ocean. Along the way, readers meet the goats, bears, birds, and even the ice worms who thrive in glacial landscapes. Where the ice meets the ocean, Miller highlights the rich habitat it creates for seals and other marine life. And she describes how glacial ice keeps Earth cool. “Glaciers build habitat as much as they carve their way through it,” says Miller, who found inspiration for the story while writing her 2018 nonfiction book, A Wild Promise, about…

The Hog Butte Fire burns in interior Alaska last summer.
30-Second Reads

Elements Fire Season

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July brings the height of Alaska’s busy wildfire season. At this time, lightning, dry vegetation, long hours of warm daylight, and human activities all conspire to light new fires and keep old ones going. Wildfire is a natural part of most Alaskan ecosystems. As elsewhere, it contributes to forest health, nutrient cycling, and wildlife habitat. It occurs most frequently in the state’s interior and least in the south-coastal rainforests. But climate change is altering fire’s dynamics. First, Alaska’s snow season is arriving later and ending earlier, leaving more time for fire to burn. Summertime temperatures are also rising, leading to more dryness, heat, and expansion of fire northward. Lightning is also increasing. And warming nighttime temperatures help fires retain more energy overnight. Many Alaskan fires are allowed to burn in remote areas to maintain natural processes, but wildfires threatening communities are suppressed. Fighting fire is an important career in Alaska,…

Ketchikan Native Tours
30-Second Reads

Alaskan Voices

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Kevin Johnson of Ketchikan Native Tours Kevin Johnson loves his hometown. He and his wife, Melissa, own and operate Ketchikan Native Tours, which offers hiking, sightseeing, and more, all while sharing insight into southeast Alaska’s Indigenous cultures. “We love sharing our Alaska Native heritage and our connection to the land and ocean. We’re Ketchikanites too, so we know all the little intricacies of our beautiful community. Ketchikan has a tremendous Indigenous history with our Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people, and our Aleut community and World War II internment camp history. There’s Norwegian influence, too. So we have this diversity of art, religion, and industries. It’s fascinating how it all forms the community of Kichxáan, as the original Tlingit inhabitants called Ketchikan. One of my favorite spots is Totem Bight State Historical Park. It’s a collection of restored totem poles from neighboring villages and it sits right on the water with…

Alaska Solar Energy
30-Second Reads

Alaskans Warming up to Solar Energy

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A surge in both residential, utility scale development continues. A growing number of Alaskans are turning to solar energy. “In the last seven years there’s been a huge uptick in grid-tied solar in homes and businesses,” says Chris Pike, research engineer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Energy and Power (ACEP), which studies solar energy at high latitudes. Pike says that solar panels were once limited to cabins or other remote sites in Alaska but have now become mainstream. He gives Alaska’s high energy costs as one reason. “People are always looking to save money,” he says, explaining that solar is increasingly competitive with other energy sources. Pike adds that while a state like Arizona can produce more solar energy, the savings on Alaska’s high energy costs can add up quicker. A well-placed solar array can pay off installation costs in a decade and the 20-year return on…

Denali Park Road
30-Second Reads

Work Begins to Reopen the Denali Park Road

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A landslide has blocked travel since 2021 Work has started on a $100 million steel truss bridge that will bypass the Pretty Rocks landslide in Denali National Park. The slide has closed roughly half of the park’s 92-mile road since August 2021. Granite Construction is leading the project. For decades, National Park Service geologists have monitored the Pretty Rocks landslide at mile 43 of Denali’s sole access road. Its typical movement of a few inches per year caused regular but often minor road repair. But the slide accelerated in 2017, reaching nearly an inch per hour and eventually destroying the road. Scientists say dramatically warming air temperatures and increasingly heavy rainfall have deteriorated the ice and permafrost that once glued the slope together. Similar events are happening across Alaska and other high-latitude areas affected by rapid climate warming. Park superintendent Brooke Merrell says the road closure impacts work at the…

Into the Wild
30-Second Reads

Into the Wild Bus Heads to the Museum

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Museum of the North will use Bus 142 to tell Broader Story of Alaskan Lands The Museum of the North in Fairbanks has received $500,000 to preserve the bus made famous in the book Into the Wild. The funding comes from the National Park Service and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and will help prepare the bus for public exhibit. Angela Lin, senior collections manager at the museum, acknowledges that the bus can be polarizing in Alaska and says that the exhibit will address more than Into the Wild. “We’re excited to tell a more complete story,” says Lin. Bus 142 is a 1946 International Harvester that served as a school bus, a Fairbanks transit bus, and eventually as remote housing for mine workers near the end of the Stampede Trail west of Healy. When its axle broke, the bus was abandoned on site. The bus gained global…

Alaska Native Artist
30-Second Reads

Re-Indigenize It

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Two Alaska Native artists bring new color to the Anchorage streetscape This summer, Anchorage visitors can seek out two new public murals created by forerunners in Alaska Native art. The first is located on G Street on the east side of the RIM Architecture building and was painted by Crystal Worl, a Tlingit, Athabaskan, Yup’ik, and Filipino artist based in Juneau. Worl has emerged as a prominent Alaskan artist whose work is featured in public spaces in Juneau and has appeared as a Doodle on Google’s homepage. Her new mural, completed in August 2022, honors several Alaska Native groups and highlights Anchorage as a cultural gathering place. The second mural graces the The Kobuk building on the corner of 5th Avenue and E Street. Painted by Yup’ik and Inupiaq artist Drew Michael, its vivid colors recreate a mask he carved in 2019 and celebrate the rich cultural traditions of the…

Alaska Shorebird
30-Second Reads

The Epic Flight of an Alaskan Shorebird

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Species Profile Whatever adventure you’re planning this summer, it’s not likely to match the recent journey of godwit #234684. Nicknamed B-6 and weighing less than half a pound, this juvenile shorebird gained fame last October when it flew 8,925 miles nonstop from Alaska to Tasmania in 11 days. The odyssey, which occurred largely over open ocean, was tracked via a five-gram satellite tag attached to the bird’s rump. Audubon’s online field guide describes the bar-tailed godwit as “big, noisy, and cinnamon-colored.” It is a wading shorebird that feeds along shallow waters and nests among tussocks on Alaska’s tundra. According to Dan Ruthrauff, the U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist who helped tag B-6, the godwit is among 37 shorebird species that regularly breed in Alaska. Ruthrauff’s crew captured B-6 last summer on the tundra outside of Nome as part of a study to better understand shorebird migrations, which are tied to…

Epic Aurora Displays
Activities

Get Ready for Epic Aurora Displays

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Next Few Years Could be Hard to Beat The sun is on fire these days. Ahead of an expected spike in solar activity, it is hurling massive blobs of hot plasma toward Earth. And while this may disrupt civilization, the flipside is that it will likely bring awesome aurora. According to Don Hampton of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, approximately every 11 years our sun’s magnetic poles switch. South becomes north, and vice versa. The years preceding this are called the solar maximum. Hampton expects the next maximum to peak in 2025 or 2026. As a solar maximum approaches, violent events unfold across the sun’s surface—including fierce solar winds, collapsing filaments of electrified gas, distortions in the sun’s magnetic field, and massive ejections of plasma—which send geomagnetic storms hurtling toward Earth. In space, it can damage satellites and threaten astronaut safety. On Earth, it can disrupt…

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