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Alaska Magazine
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Tim Lydon

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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…

Alaska’s gray whales
30-Second Reads

Alaska’s Gray Whales

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Species Spotlight Gray whales begin their return to Alaska each March. After wintering in their breeding grounds along Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, they swim alongside Alaska’s outer coast on their way to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. In late March, they are often seen near coastal communities including Sitka and Seward. Gray whales roll onto their sides to stir up sediments on the ocean floor, which they then filter through their baleen to trap the small invertebrates that comprise the bulk of their diets. Each summer they eat enough to build fat reserves that last them through the winter months when they typically do not feed. Alaska’s gray whales were hunted nearly to extinction by 1900 but had recently rebounded to about 26,000 animals. However, since 2019 NOAA Fisheries has tracked an “unusual mortality event” involving the deaths of potentially thousands of gray whales. Surveys in 2022 showed low birth rates…

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