Biologist Susan Sharbaugh, formerly of the Alaska Bird Observatory, once spoke about the strategies birds employ to survive in our season of darkness and cold. She talked about the flighty birds that split, and the hardy few that stay. I thought I knew something about birds, but she kept delivering facts that were new to […]
On a recent river trip down the Porcupine River, my friend Garrett Jones and I nosed into a few townsites we saw on the map. Old Camp, Canyon Village and Shuman House were all silent places with no people but the same unique regional touch: Decorative stamped-metal ceiling panels tacked up as outhouse walls. […]
YUKON FLATS — Out here, in a smooth plain stretching over Alaska’s wrinkled face, water and tree and mud dissolve to fuzz at each horizon. No hills or bumps. An ocean of sky. An observer once said Yukon Flats looks like a place where God forgot to put something. Garrett Jones and I are camped […]
Rabies is a death sentence for any animal. Experts have wondered how a virus survives when it kills all the creatures it infects. “We don’t have a really good answer to that,” said UAF’s Karsten Hueffer. “It probably has to do with the long incubation time of the virus, which can be months.” Hueffer and […]