Haines may be remote, but it’s an eclectic and welcoming community, and Michelle Theall feels at home there.
The bears noticed our absence during the pandemic and took the opportunity to throw a party, with some bruins behaving better than others.
Senior Editor Michelle Theall shares her journey of buying a home in Alaska and photos of the places she considered.
Nick Jans writes that Alaskans have Alaska to ourselves during the pandemic, but it comes at the cost of losing the tourism economy.
Alaska magazine asked a few prominent Alaskans from various segments of our community to weigh in on their favorite
activities, libations, and destinations in the state.
Nick Jans encountered more bears than usual during his three week stay at home out the Haines Highway. And he wasn’t alone.
Katie Ione Craney is an artist based in Haines who primarily works with scrap material and found objects.
Alaska Senior Editor Michelle Theall shares Alaskan portraits from her time traveling and meeting people around the state. For this photo Theall writes, “When you live in Utqiagvik at the edge of the world, you make your own fun. Three kids sit atop a roof to rest after a day of biking along the Arctic Ocean. In typical Inupiat villages, seal pelts hang off ATVs and meat dries on sawhorses in front of homes. Gas is $7.00 a gallon and a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola will cost you $10. However, bike riding and climbing on a neighbor’s shed remain free for now.” If you live or work in Alaska, you know that life here is different: simultaneously slower, harder, and more adventurous than in the Lower 48. People are fiercely independent, yet friendly. Communities possess unique personalities, defined in large part by their denizens or tourist offerings. Climbing and mining…
Pickled veggies. Photo courtesy Foundroot. Leah Wagner and Nick Schlosstein are a husband and wife team who run Foundroot, an online business selling seeds proven for Alaskan growing conditions that are open-pollinated, which allows for home gardeners to save their own seeds. Foundroot sources most of its seeds from farms and other ethical companies in the U.S., and in 2017 they started a small farm in Haines where they grow seeds and produce for the local market. Foundroot has sent more than 16,000 seed packets to over 65 Alaskan communities and throughout the Lower 48. What does Foundroot mean? Leah: We were playing with a bunch of different ideas for the name when we started. Ultimately, we felt like we found the root of the food security problem, and also the root of the solution. In breeding those seeds we found the ability to really do something beyond meeting basic…
I just landed in Sitka after leaving Haines, where I spent two lovely weeks in the Valley of Eagles. While bald eagles are everywhere in Haines, they’re also everywhere in Southeast, including Sitka. Still, there’s a difference between them: we’ll call it the lazy factor. Haines eagles are spoiled. I visit them in November during the end of the chum run. The chubby birds wait for a salmon to flop close to shore, and then they drag it up onto the rocks and feast on it. Or, they steal a fish from another eagle already dining on one. Their young also have easy access to meals, and don’t need to rely on mom and dad to bring food back to the nest as they mature. The eaglets don’t have to learn to dive into the water to fly off with a struggling fish in their talons. They just have to…
