Our beloved Alaska blueberry seems to have a bad reputation in parts of Europe and Scandinavia. There, people have called it the “mad berry,” “intoxicating berry” and “vomit berry.” Zuzana Vaneková, a pharmacology researcher at the University of Vienna in Austria, recently visited Alaska to gather blueberries in order to help solve a mystery regarding […]
FIREWEED ROCK GLACIER — “I’ve been thinking of this stuff for the last 20 years,” says Adam Bucki. My friend, soon to be 50, was in his 20s the last time he stood on this massive pile of pointy rocks that oozes slowly downhill. Adam has returned to Alaska from his home in suburban Texas […]
The grizzly hadn’t seen my dog or me, so I yelled and waved my arms. The bear stood, looked in our direction for three unforgettable seconds, then trotted up the valley. Late for a meeting with scientists, I kept hiking in the direction of the bear. A few minutes later, as I clung to a […]
I was sad to learn recently that Craig George was missing and presumed dead when a raft he was floating upon hit a logjam in the Chulitna River on July 5, 2023. The Chulitna flows south from Broad Pass in the Alaska Range. George had run that river many times. George, 70 at the time […]