If you visit a national park in the U.S., do not abandon your hiking companion or companions to a bear to save yourself. That is the rather odd advice now being offered […]
No sacrifices
Economic doomsday?
A newly released report on the “Blue Economy” from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development contains nary a mention of Alaska, but it is stuffed full of bad news […]
Forgotten sex
Back in a brief and long-ago stint as an assistant press secretary in Washington, D.C., a sex scandal involving then-Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, taught me an important lesson about U.S. Senate staff, […]
That time
The chilliest winter in some years has come to an end in Alaska’s largest city with April looking to be the first month since December to end with the monthly average temperature […]
To live and die
Along a rough gravel road that follows the bed of a long-abandoned railway deep into one of the last great wilderness areas in North America, coronavirus COVID-19 has brought to the fore […]
Mountain closed
Two months before the serious start to the mountaineering season in the Alaska Range mountains, the National Park Service has decided Covid-19 is more dangerous than climbing North America’s tallest mountain. The […]
Just say no
Leave it to Alaska’s neighbors to the south to figure out the simple way to end the need for costly rescues in the remote Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains: Just ban the mountaineers most […]
Gone guy
Just as the short Alaska summer was beginning its slide into fall in the latter half of August 2018, 41-year-old Russian immigrant Vladimir Kostenko slipped into a backpack and hiked off into […]
Deadly crash
This story has been updated A highly experienced Alaska small-plane pilot and former Alaska State Trooper now working for the Alaska Region of the National Park Service died Monday along with the […]
Cash cows
Almost 3 million people visited Alaska’s national parks and preserves last year, and if a new study out from the National Park Service can be believed, they were worth $678.02 per head […]
