On a February day long ago, a family living in a sod hut near the Arctic Ocean saw blocks of sea ice bulldozing their way onto shore. Winds shoved more ice until the mass towered above them and started dripping water through a ventilation hole. The father urged his family outside just before a slab […]
Satellite data has confirmed that the amount of freshwater released into the Gulf of Alaska from streams and rivers in Alaska and northern Canada is about 1.5 times what the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico each year. That astounding flow of water is from rainfalls that soak Southeast Alaska and the south […]
Cikuq – Ice Nanwat cikumaut. – The lakes are frozen over. Kodiak may lie south of the frozen arctic regions of Alaska, but from 1852 to 1870, it was a known for its ice. In the 1850s the California gold rush was in full swing, and the west coast needed ice to preserve food. Russian […]
Imagine a shallow lake north of Hughes, in the cold heart of Alaska. In frigid, sluggish water, dim blue light penetrates two feet of ice. The ice has a quarter-size hole, maintained by a stream of methane bubbles. Every few minutes, a brutish little fish swims up, sips air, and peels back to the dank. […]