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Wildlife & Nature

Roadside Attractions

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A Wildlife Sighting Primer from a Pro I’m often asked how I managed to get a particular shot of a wolf or a bear or some other wild creature in Alaska. People imagine I know of secret locations up trails that can only be accessed by ATV, snowmachine, or packraft, or that require weeks of primitive camping and sewing a coat out of leaves, fur, and pine needles to blend into the environment. That’s rarely the case. I do have a yeti costume, but that’s a different story for another day. In fact, none of my images required me to slather myself in salmon oil or bellow like a moose in heat. At this point in my life, I’m old and lazy, and I prefer to work smart, not hard, to get an image, if I can help it. What I’ve found out? Animals also prefer the path of least…

Famed Alaska photographer Michio Hoshino at work on the upper Kobuk.
Authentic Alaska

Michio’s Trail

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A photographic journey of the heart I knelt behind my camera tripod, gazing from the edge of a sandy knoll, northward up the Nuna valley. A few yards away, a fortyish Japanese man did the same. Before us, a weathered caribou skull lay in a blood-red swath of bearberry; beyond, an immense sweep of autumn tundra glowed beneath a furling expanse of clouds, squalls, and sun. Occasionally moving his lips without speaking, my companion seemed adrift in a trance as he studied land and sky, making adjustments and squeezing the shutter release. I divided my time between scanning the country for caribou and studying him—emulating lens choice and angle, trying and failing to mimic both his technical command and his absolute-in-the-moment absorption. At last, he turned toward me with a smile that seemed to mirror the land’s radiance. Oh look, Neek, look! It is all so beautiful. The man was…

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…

Tour operators at the brink
Activities

Inside the Madness

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Tour operators at the brink Booking and canceling and rebooking travel during the pandemic was not for the faint of heart. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Oh, who am I kidding? It was the worst of times. If you worked in the travel industry over the last few years and are reading this, you’ve either been released from the looney bin or are allowed to have this magazine as one of your institutional privileges. Tour operators at the brink. The pandemic hit all of us hard, but it sent most travel-related workers over the edge. If we’ve recovered at all in 2022, we remain shell-shocked. Our “long-COVID” is a special kind of PTSD that has us duck for cover at the words: rollover, rebooking, cancelation, vaccination, testing protocol. My hands still shake before I send a non-refundable deposit to hold six spots at…

Careful composition, camera management, and attention to detail result in better pictures.
Authentic Alaska

Photographing Alaska

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The challenges of capturing your Alaskan story A line of folks leaned against the cruise ship railing, staring toward Harvard Glacier. An all-day blanket of fog and drizzle had dissolved; shafts of sun cast the glacier, the surrounding mountains, the water, even the air itself in magical, silver-tinged tones—the sort of scene that would stop anyone in their tracks. You could practically hear a whispered, collective wow hanging over the fjord. Naturally, pretty much everyone in the crowd held cameras—mostly cell phones and compacts, with a few advanced amateur and pro-grade rigs mixed in. Some took careless-seeming, rapid-fire snapshots; others worked on selfies and group stuff with the glacier as a backdrop; a few studied the scene, composed careful images, then stood, lips pursed, staring into their screens, then tried again. And again. I didn’t have to peer over shoulders to know that the more serious photographers were struggling to…

Ice Bear
Alaska Photo Contest

2022 Alaska Photo Contest Winners

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Congratulations to our 2022 photo contest winners. Each image tells a story or captures a slice of Alaska’s unique beauty, adventure, or way of life. This year, we’ve included photographers’ Instagram names so you can follow them online to see even more of their explorations around Alaska and beyond. We hope you enjoy these colorful images from around the Great Land. Grand Prize Winner JENNIFER SMITH @jfogle02 Look for this image on the cover of our February Issue of Alaska Magazine. Ice Bear: “Blessed with an early winter and a late salmon run, a Kodiak brown bear finds itself encased in ice. The ice around this young sow’s face makes the perfect heart shape.” Categories Alaska Life: Representing Alaskans and/or their way of life, traditions, culture, or authentic “only in Alaska” moments. CLOSE-UPS: Showing the close-up details of anything Alaskan, from nature to people to urban constructs. Scenic: Emphasizing the…

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