Alaska. The word tumbles out like a wild stream, carrying a cascade of images: grizzly bears, glaciers, vast mountains, Native villages. It’s the Alaska we believe in, an American Eden for lovers of wilderness. But as change sweeps the state, the veneer is cracking. In the southeastern panhandle, the famed Inside Passage bordering British Columbia, […]
Alaska
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Living close to the bone in modern Alaska: A review of Bear Down, Bear North
Bear Down, Bear North Melinda Moustakis144 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of Georgia Press, September. Bear Down, Bear North plunges its reader deep into tangled relations and beautiful places. This small craft of 13 linked stories holds everything necessary to survive the frigid Alaskan waters. Washington writer Melinda Moustakis works words attentively and playfully, slipping like a […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Craig Medred on predator-prey science
Both proponents and opponents of predator control claim to have science on their side. But as Alaskan journalist Craig Medred tells us in this episode of High Country Views, the actual science — and all of its complexities — is often lost in the debate. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
What was and what is
Joan Kane’s work aims to bridge the gap between past and present
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
The wild home of hope
Rock Water Wild: An Alaskan LifeNancy Lord248 pages,hardcover: $24.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Alaska writer laureate Nancy Lord’s infatuation with that state dates back to a fourth-grade school project. Like so many transplants, she moved to the Far North to reinvent herself. Alaska’s remoteness, its low population density, natural wealth and often-harsh living conditions recall […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
When reverence isn’t enough
A visit with philosopher and writer Kathleen Dean Moore
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Saving fisheries — and taking the edge off the dangerous derby of the sea.
Posted inWotr
Pushed to the wall, we can power down
We seem to learn hard lessons about energy scarcity only when something big and unexpected happens. That was definitely the case this summer in Juneau, Alaska, when avalanches suddenly destroyed our power supply and threw our community headlong into an experiment in conservation. The avalanches, released 40 miles south of Juneau on April 16, were […]
Posted inWotr
A wolf tale that’s all too true
Here’s a news item you might recall, though it never got much play in the Lower 48: Alaska wildlife officials targeted more than 600 wolves for death by aerial gunning during the 2006-2007 season. In just a few months, they’d gotten close, killing 560. And as an inducement to hunters, state officials said they’d pay […]
Posted inApril 30, 2007: Rural Education 2.0
Heard around the West
COLORADO A ski instructor at Powderhorn Ski Resort near Grand Junction, Colo., was riding a lift some 30 feet above the Red Eye trail when he looked down and saw a wide-awake black bear. It was standing at the mouth of a cave no longer blocked by snow. Rick Rodd took a quick photo, but […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Getting out of the office, and into hot water
NAME Jeff Mount VOCATION Geology professor AGE 52 HOME BASE Davis, California KNOWN FOR Pointing out that building houses below sea level and surrounding them with weak levees is a recipe for disaster MOST RECENT EXPLOIT On a dare from his son, giving up his raft to kayak the Grand Canyon this summer: “I saw […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
The Latest Bounce
There’s gold in them thar hills — and tailings in that thar lake. The Army Corps of Engineers confirmed its decision to let a mining company dump millions of tons of mine waste into an Alaskan lake (HCN, 7/25/05: Mining waste dumped in streams — and now lakes). Last fall, environmentalists sued the agency to […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
An honest take on a tough land
In his debut novel, Ordinary Wolves, Seth Kantner has woven a world where hunger, death and beauty go hand-in-hand. The book is set almost entirely on Kantner’s native Alaskan tundra, but don’t expect naturalist hyperbole. There are no splendid sweeping landscapes, big animals are either food or a threat, and cold is a given. Consider […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Perspectives on change — climate change
On the northern edge of Alaska, says journalist Charles Wohlforth, the impacts of human-caused climate change have become part of daily life. Spring is coming earlier, and Iñupiaq whaling crews are making ever-narrower escapes from cracking sea ice. In The Whale and the Supercomputer, Wohlforth looks at such changes from the perspectives of two very […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Follow-up
The Forest Service is selling its final management plan for California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument as a compromise, but not all environmentalists are buying it (HCN, 6/9/03: Giant sequoias could get the ax). The plan would allow logging on 10,000 of the monument’s 327,000 acres in order to control future wildfires. Chad Hanson of the […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Like Paul on the road to Damascus
The fact that cynicism and irony are deeply entrenched in popular culture is hardly headline news; most of us indulge in them from time to time, slide into a detached stance if for no other reason than self-defense. Harmless enough, probably, in small doses. But as I was walking past the Toyota dealership some weeks […]