Mike Taras has worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for many years, but this is the first time he has said the words “nuisance lynx.” Taras, a wildlife education and outreach specialist, said people are seeing a lot of lynx in Alaska’s Interior. “I don’t remember people calling in telling us about […]
Alaska went big on New Year’s. First, on New Year’s Eve 2020, a superstorm spun its way through the North Pacific Ocean and into the Aleutian Islands. The twirling mass of gases surrounding Earth was more than 5,000 miles wide, its boundaries stretching from northern Japan to middle Alaska. That’s about 10 times the width […]
On Dec. 21 at 1:02 a.m. Alaska time, this big round head of a planet will tip back, pause, then slowly nod toward the sun. That breathless moment of stillness is the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice. Solstice is a combination of a few Latin words, meaning “sun stands still.” That is somewhat true from this […]
Will Harrison, who knew the world’s bumpy plains of ice as well as his old neighborhood in Saint John, New Brunswick, has died. He was 84. From his arrival at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in January 1972, the Canada-born Harrison mapped out and executed studies of glaciers from Antarctica […]
Within their bulbous bodies, Steller sea lions of the western Aleutian Islands seem to carry more mercury than sea lions closer to mainland Alaska. By looking at tiny bits of fish and squid, a graduate student is trying to find out where that mercury is coming from. Steller sea lions drape their chocolate bodies […]
This message once came from the grandfather of 5-year-old Ben, who lived near Inverness, Scotland: “Even in winter he will rapidly strip off and often plays in a sleeveless vest while others still have a shirt and woolly jumper on. He appears to be always warm.” Ben, it seemed, had a remarkable tolerance for […]
Ben Jones recently returned to the tundra site of a plane crash that in May took the life of the pilot, and left Jones bloodied and broken. Jones is a do-it-all scientist with the Institute of Northern Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is inventive and opportunistic, pursuing curiosities of northern Alaska […]