CANWELL GLACIER — This summer, Sam Herreid has slept for 12 nights on these rocks that ride slowly downhill on a mass of ice. For a few days at a time during the last six summers, the 28-year-old has lived on this ephemeral landscape in the eastern Alaska Range. From his regal perch, he is […]
Using the tiniest of clues, scientists have determined what probably killed the woolly mammoths of St. Paul Island — thirst. “It looks like climate did them in,” said Matthew Wooller, the UAF scientist who in 2013 went to St. Paul as part of a diverse team and brought back lake cores for analysis. “The smoking […]
OUTSIDE THE UA MUSEUM OF THE NORTH — “Look, it’s a crab spider eating a moth!” says Declan Griswold, an 8-year-old who points to a rose bush. “You’re right, it’s a true spider, an orb weaver, just like the kind in Charlotte’s Web,” says Derek Sikes, head of the entomology collection at the UA Museum […]
COS JACKET — On a canoe trip down the lower Tanana River, we’ve scrambled up a sandy bank to explore a place that is less populated now than it was a century ago. No one, in fact, lives at Cos Jacket anymore. There is a cabin-size cache with a tin roof. A few sagging log […]