Rural Alaska

With a little help from a chartered flight, a whaling crew from Nuiqsut shared bowhead with the inland community of Anaktuvuk Pass.

Alaskans who lost property or incurred costs from the fall storm have until Dec. 6 to file a claim with the state.

After a pandemic hiatus, the annual tradition spreading festive cheer around the state traveled up to the North Slope with presents, ice cream and trombones.

Newtok and Napakiak will receive $25 million each to move core infrastructure to safer ground.

President Biden on Wednesday pledged to give Native Americans a stronger voice in federal affairs and foster “respect for Indigenous knowledge and tribal consultations” in government decision-making.

The grocery store and main fuel console in the Western Alaska community were destroyed in an early morning fire. The city still has access to fuel and officials are planning to open a temporary grocery store, a state emergency official said.

Alaska Native artifacts taken from Kake in the early 1900s were brought home from a university in Oregon this month. “When I looked at them, it was like looking at my past and my elders,” said Lincoln Bean, vice chairman for the Organized Village of Kake.

The Alaska Federation of Natives wants the Indian Health Service to help alleviate widespread problems with diseases like rabies that are taking a human toll and pose an ongoing threat in rural communities.

The lawsuit follows an unsuccessful attempt in 2020 to convince NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service to delist ringed seals administratively.

Starlink’s service is one of several efforts underway that could help close the state’s digital divide. The federal government has also committed to spending more than $700 million in a separate effort.

Snowmachiners shuttled seven people from the wreck to a plane on a nearby lake so they could continue to Bethel, Yute Commuter Service said.

A local pilot spotted Timothy Snyder, 41, and Jane Kaiser, 20 waving at a spot northwest of Selawik Lake.

Residents in the Yukon-Kuskokwim area should avoid traveling on ice, a spokesman for the troopers said.

Starlink was successfully tested on a moving ground vehicle in Alaska, and an equally difficult demonstration on an airborne U.S. aircraft will occur in the spring, a military spokesman said.

The Northwest Arctic Borough Search and Rescue Coordinator notified Alaska State Troopers on Sunday evening that two Selawik residents were overdue.

Two other people lived at the home but were not there when the fire started, Alaska State Troopers said.

The remains, buried in the 1800s, were excavated and brought to Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History in the late 1950s. Anaktuvuk Pass residents recently traveled to Connecticut to bring their ancestor home.

Volunteers stepped up to open voting sites in Teller and Nuiqsut, with just a few hours left for Alaskans to cast their ballots, after problems with securing poll workers to staff the two polling locations.

A week after teachers and a principal were flown out of the Southwest Alaska village by the Lower Kuskokwim School District, questions remain about what happened and how to move forward.

Biologists struggle to single out a leading cause of the caribou population’s decline. “It’s going to be another rough winter again this year without caribou,” Selawik resident Norma Ballot said.

Kaktovik students created a counting system that is a direct reflection of the way one counts in Iñupiaq. “It’d be hard to come up with anything as clear and easy to use as the ones that the kids came up with.”

The principal and several school staff members left Kipnuk in Southwest Alaska over the weekend in two chartered planes following reports of a banishment order, occupation of a school building and a brief blockade during a visit by Alaska State Troopers.

So much has been lost over time that residents have voted twice to relocate. But Shishmaref remains in the same place. The relocation is costly. But some also fear that if they move, they’d lose that traditional way of life that they’ve carried on from their ancestors.