Published Apr 6, 2023 by New Yorker

At the midnight Sun Golf Course in Fairbanks, Alaska, they say you never get the same shot twice. That’s because the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet, and as the underground permafrost thaws, it deforms the course’s fairways. This express defrost unlocks ancient organic matter—a lot of it. (The world’s permafrost holds twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.) Microbes feed on that liberated matter and fart out plumes of methane, a gas that’s 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. And as thawing permafrost releases more methane, it raises global temperatures—which thaws more permafrost, which releases more methane. It’s the dreaded climate feedback loop, and scientists are using an array of tech to better understand it.

Nearby lurks a site of particular interest—or dread, depending on how you look at it. Big Trail Lake is the product of a violent thermokarst event, in which permafrost thaws so rapidly that the ground collapses. The resulting craters, filled with water, represent ideal conditions for microbes to produce methane. Indeed, Big Trail Lake may be one of the highest-emitting lakes in Alaska, so the team collects methane data from a floating instrument tower there. “This is probably one of the most sophisticated science experiments happening in the Arctic, because of the different types of instruments,” says Nicholas Hasson, a geophysicist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “We’re kind of like methane detectives.”



Published Apr 6, 2023 by Kade Mendelowitz

The recent filming of a TV pilot included a very special guest star: Fairbanks.

The Fairbanks community played the part of a live studio audience for the pilot of the TV show “Tumyaraq-qaa,” which was shot in Salisbury Theatre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on March 31, April 1 and April 2.

“This has been 10 years in the making,” director and writer Kavelina Torres said of the project, which features an all-Indigenous cast.

“Tumyaraq-qaa” is an hour-long sci-fi comedy that centers around an Indigenous group of space travelers preparing to journey to a distant star. “They must come together to stall the federated Earth’s countries and kings government while their missing crew member races to the ship with the last part for near light speed travel,” is how the pilot is described.

“It is the privilege of a lifetime to be here and with an all Indigenous cast,” Torres said. “It’s been my dream for a very long time.”

Published Apr 6, 2023 by Haley Lehman

The University of Alaska Fairbanks honored 18 students graduating Wednesday from the Rural Human Services program.

Rural Human Services is a program that prepares students for social work in rural Alaska. The students met in Fairbanks one week a month for 18 months to learn about crisis intervention, community development, counseling in mental health and substance abuse, grief counseling, and personal and community healing and well-being.

Interior Alaska Campus Director Julia Biddle said their mission is to integrate lifelong educational opportunities with rural Alaska and Alaska Native communities, cultures and ways of life.

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During the ceremony, Henry honored elder Elizabeth Fleagle as she retires from the program, with Henry calling Fleagle the program’s foundation. Fleagle has been with the program since it started in 2001 and has worked with more than 350 students and taught more than 5,280 hours, Henry said. However, Henry said, her influence has been measured in love through her inspiring stories, hugs, words of encouragement, daily readings and prayers.

The students gave Fleagle a handmade drum, signed by each student and painted with a heart, forget-me-not flowers, and the title to Fleagle’s favorite song, “Amazing Grace.”

Published Apr 6, 2023 by Scott Rhode

More than 1,000 participants from twenty-two countries converged in Anchorage last week for Arctic Encounter Symposium 2023. Now a decade old, the annual conference brings together policy experts and business leaders to discuss science, technology, and commerce from a polar perspective.

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Gwen Holdmann, UAF associate vice chancellor of research for innovation and industry partnerships, spent time in Iceland as a Fulbright fellow studying geothermal energy. “They’re using affordable energy, based on local resources that they have available, to really drive local economic development. A lot of that is around innovative small businesses or processes that feed into a broader global economy,” Holdmann said.

What Alaska can contribute, Holdmann suggested, is pioneering work in distributed isolated electrical microgrids. “I think there’s opportunities to learn and look at what Alaska is doing to see the applications for other markets as well,” she said.

Published Apr 6, 2023

With permafrost thaw in the Arctic rapidly outpacing previous projections, researchers are racing to understand the impacts of an increasingly unstable future.

After growing up in Sweden, Anna Liljedahl moved to Alaska to study hydrology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She now lives in Homer, where she conducts research as an associate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, focusing on how climate change is impacting water in Arctic ecosystems.

Liljedahl is now leading a team to create more accurate, interactive maps of Alaska’s permafrost. Their project, called the Permafrost Discovery Gateway, is a novel effort to make Arctic research quicker to share and easier to access. That’s critical as the climate crisis accelerates thaw, impacting Alaskan communities and global carbon and methane emissions.

Liljedahl is now leading a team to create more accurate, interactive maps of Alaska’s permafrost. Their project, called the Permafrost Discovery Gateway, is a novel effort to make Arctic research quicker to share and easier to access. That’s critical as the climate crisis accelerates thaw, impacting Alaskan communities and global carbon and methane emissions.

Published Apr 6, 2023 by Joaqlin Estus

Arctic educators say too many Alaska Native and American Indian students are not well served by Western school systems. The solution lies in self-determination, said panelists speaking at the Arctic Encounter Symposium on March 31 in Anchorage.

As it is now, a fact sheet from the National Congress of American Indians states:

• American Indian and Alaska Native students are less likely to graduate high school or continue to college.
• In 2009, 13 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native 16-24 year olds were not enrolled in high school and have not earned a high school credential, compared to 8 percent of the total population.
• The national graduation rate for American Indian high school students was 50.6 percent in the 2004–05 school year, compared to 77.6 percent for white students.

Diane Hirshberg is director and professor of education policy at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage.

She shared data showing a high school graduation rate of 64 percent for Alaska Native and American Indian students compared to 78 percent for non-Native Alaskans. And the dropout rate for Alaska Native and American Indian students was 7 percent compared to 4 percent for non-Natives.

Panelists pointed to numerous factors that contribute to the low success rates. Those include high teacher turnover, language barriers, curriculum that doesn’t reflect community values, and a lack of Native role models as teachers and in school administration and other positions. At the college level, success rates are affected by unfamiliarity and culture shock upon entering college, and distance from home communities to attend college.

These are well-known, long-standing issues, said Hirshberg.

Published Apr 5, 2023

The University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) publication Tidal Echoes 2023 launch event is this Friday, Apr. 7 in the Egan Lecture Hall.

Doors open at 6:00 and the launch begins at 6:30.

Light refreshments will be served and books will be sold for $5.

The event will also be live streamed through the UAS YouTube channel for anyone who would like to watch from home.

Artist Chloey Klawk Shaa Cavanaugh will talk about her work and writer Lin Davis will read a few poems followed by a Q&A.

UAS student Dylan Wood, who won this year's MacBehrend's Prize, will also read his prize-winning poem.

Professor Emily Wall, the advisor for the publication, noted, “We are delighted to be back in person for this year’s launch; sitting in a room with so many members of our community has been a real treat in the past. We can’t wait to share the book with everyone!”

Tidal Echoes submissions come from writers and artists from Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan.