Snow buntings are the planet’s northernmost passerine and are adapted to cold weather. The birds have even been spotted at the north pole.
Tales bear encounters, moose, and beautiful country from a father and son who are sheep hunting in the Chugach.
Beavers are found throughout Alaska, except in the far north, but biologists are finding more beaver dams in the north as the climate warms.
Nick Jans writes about the air service that connects Ambler, and other Bush communities, to the outside world.
Mammoth remains discovered in the Pribilof Islands may belong to what was the last mammoth alive in Alaska.
Nick Jans returns to Alaska for the first time since the pandemic began. He couldn’t travel to Ambler, but was able to visit home on the Haines Highway.
COVID kept Nick Jans away from Alaska for the longest absence he’s experienced in 40 years. Luckily, he writes, “Alaska is a state of mind.”
MULTI-USE TRAILS CONNECT ALASKANS On the North side of the Alaska Range, I skidded and bounced down the Dalzell Gorge struggling to keep my expedition-loaded fat-tire bike upright. Mounds of frozen dirt and icy roots flung me sideways and I squeezed both brake levers, trying to stay on two wheels and not wrap myself around a tree. Suddenly, the decline steepened; I spotted a glimpse of bare ice ahead, and let off the brakes to avoid skidding out. After a while, the trail leveled out into a meadow blanketed in crusty snow. The frosty branches on the black spruce trees glistened in the morning light. I lowered my bike and yanked out my camera. A dog team was behind me, coming fast, and I wanted a photo. Through the forest above me, could hear the dog driver gently encouraging his team to slow down. “Wooo. Easy…easy. Good girl.” I flipped…
Wolf of the north
Photos by Serine Reeves