Published Jan 18, 2024 by Staff report

Thirty local poets will each share one poem at the first Solstice Poetry Cycle event at 7 p.m. Friday at Schaible Auditorium on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

The evening will feature rapid-fire poetry — no introductions, explanation or small talk. The evening is hosted by the Midnight Sun Visiting Writers Series and is intended to showcase the depth and diversity of our literary community.

Participating poets will have books available for purchase after the readings. They include Chelsea Anderson, Jean Anderson, Mary Ballard, Tayton Brice, Susan Campbell Olivia Cole, Lucy Evans, Daryl Farmer, Elyse Guttenberg, Cindy Hardy, Tiumaluali’i Jody Hassel, Carrie Heimer, KJ Janeschek, Curtis Jensen, Raif Johnson-Kennedy, Susheila Khera, Jacob Knuth, Carolyn Kremers, Rosemary McGuire, Manuel A. Melendez, Noah Meierotto, Christopher Lee Miles, John Morgan, Ned Rozell, Linda Schandelmeier, Zeke Shomler, Susan Sugai, Margaret Swart, Cyndie Warbelow and Annie Wenstrup.

Published Jan 18, 2024 by Tom Hale

Using little more than a tusk, scientists have pieced together the lifetime travels of a single woolly mammoth that wandered North America more than 14,000 years ago.

Starting life in the western Yukon, the mammoth traveled hundreds of kilometers through northwestern Canada before arriving at her final resting place, an early human settlement in present-day Alaska. It seems there’s little doubt that this venturing mammoth was slaughtered by a hungry group of hunter-gatherers. 

The international team of researchers from McMaster University, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the University of Ottawa chronicled the epic journey by studying a mammoth tusk using ancient DNA and isotopic analyses. 

Isotope analysis relies on the principle of “you are what you eat.” The technique is capable of providing precise insights into an animal's life – such as their diet, geographic origin, and migration patterns – by looking at the concentration of certain stable isotopes within their tissues that were picked up from their surrounding environment.

The complete tusk belonged to a woolly mammoth that was recently named “Élmayuujey’eh”. It was unearthed alongside remains of a juvenile and a baby mammoth at Swan Point, an archaeological site that’s home to the earliest evidence of humans in Alaska. 

The analysis of the tusk showed that the mammoth was an adult female who was around 20 years old when she died some 14,000 years ago. This was a critical window of time when the last remaining woolly mammoths lived alongside the region’s first human inhabitants for at least 1,000 years