This Day in Alaskan History-July 9th, 1958
A Half Century in a Difficult, Dynamic Place
A CLIFF NORTH OF LITUYA BAY — Dan Mann hands me a clump of orange dirt the size of an almond. He instructs me to put it in my mouth. “What’s it taste like? Does it crunch? Ash crunches because there’s glass fragments in it.” “It crunches.” “It’s from Mount Edgecumbe,” he says, referring to […]
Bonsai trees tell of winters long past
A GREEN PLATEAU NORTH OF LITUYA BAY — “These are museum-class bonsais,” Ben Gaglioti says as we walk through an elfin forest. Gaglioti, a University of Alaska Fairbanks ecologist, has led me into another landscape I have never seen in Alaska. This terrace of spongy ground above the rainforest is home to trees that Dr. […]
Rugged Science on the Southeast Coast
OVER THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN — To the woman wearing earbuds and sitting next to me in seat 7E: I’m sorry; I did not get to shower before boarding the plane after 12 days of accompanying four scientists in the hills north of Lituya Bay. I will try to keep my arms pinned to my […]