Published Oct 23, 2023 by Julie Stricker

The 2022 detection of the invasive European green crab in Southeast Alaska and the effect of climate change on the prevalence and impacts of species invasions will be highlighted at the 2023 Alaska Invasive Species Workshop.

The workshop, themed “Invaders on the Edge,” is scheduled for Nov. 7-9 at Harrigan Centennial Hall in Sitka, with sessions each day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A virtual option also is offered, said Gino Graziano, an agent with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service.

The service is coordinating the workshop with the Alaska Invasive Species Partnership, an informal statewide group of agencies, organizations and individuals.

“The annual workshop helps coordinate invasive species management efforts and promotes awareness of new concerns, particularly those that could cause economic or environmental damage,” Graziano said.

Speakers will highlight invasive species science, management and planning, while identifying emerging issues statewide. Topics include European green crab detection in Alaska, invasive plants and wildfire, early detection and rapid response efforts, biocontrol research, citizen science, community-driven stewardship and more.

Published Oct 23, 2023 by Charles Wohlforth

Vic Fischer, a father of Alaska statehood who as a child escaped both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, died Sunday evening. He was 99.

Fischer served in Alaska’s territorial and state legislatures; guided the creation and growth of various Alaska communities, including Anchorage; served high in President John F. Kennedy’s administration; developed university research in Alaska; and avidly participated in civic affairs as an unapologetic liberal — as he continued to do until not long before his death.

From 1966 to 1976, he was director of the University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research, in Fairbanks, where he helped procure funding for the nascent Alaska Federation of Natives and participated in writing the Environmental Impact Statement for the trans-Alaska pipeline.

Fischer was elected to the Alaska state Senate in 1980, representing downtown Anchorage, and served two terms. In the late 1980s, he began building links with the Russian Far East and channeling American support there, working at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Fischer died at his home in Anchorage after a long period of declining health. 

Published Oct 22, 2023 by Alaska Native News

Human-caused climate change is shortening the snow cover period in the Arctic. But according to U.S. National Science Foundation-supported research led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine, some parts of the Arctic are getting deeper snowpack than normal, and that deep snow is driving the thawing of long-frozen permafrost carbon reserves. That’s leading to increased emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.

“It is the first long-term experiment where we directly measure the mobilization of ancient carbon year-round to show that deeper snow has the possibility to rather quickly mobilize carbon deep in the soil,” said Claudia Czimczik, lead author of the study, which appears in AGU Advances. “Unfortunately, it supports the notion that permafrost carbon emissions will be contributing to already-rising atmospheric CO2 levels.” 

Fieldwork for the study took place at the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) at Toolik Field Station in Alaska, an experiment started in 1994 by study co-lead author Jeff Welker of the University of Alaska Anchorage. The original goal of the experiment, Welker explained, was to understand how deeper snow would affect Arctic tundra ecosystems.

Over the last several years, the joint UCI and Alaska team conducted fieldwork at the ITEX site and found that a common Arctic biome — tussock tundra — had turned into a year-round source of ancient carbon dioxide. This is a result of thawing permafrost buried under snow where the snow has been three to four times deeper than the average long-term snow depth since 1994. 

When the research started, neither Welker’s team nor climate scientists thought that the deeper snow experimental treatment would lead to such a rapid thawing of the permafrost.  

“These findings suggest that the stability of permafrost in Arctic Alaska, and possibly globally, can respond rather rapidly to changes in Arctic winter snow conditions, where winter can be up to eight months long,” said Welker. “Winter climate feedbacks like this are a tundra characteristic not previously recognized and fully appreciated.” 

Published Oct 22, 2023

At the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Nord University and the University of Alaska Anchorage signed an agreement to strengthen the cooperation between the two Arctic educational institutions.

The agreement is recognising the mutual benefits to be gained through cooperative programmes promoting scholarly activities and international understanding.

The agreement was signed by Vice Chancellor Aaron Dotson at the University of Alaska, and Director at High North Center, Nord University, Frode Mellemvik.

The two acted on behalf of Chancellor Sean Parnell at University of Alaska Anchorage and Rector Hanne Solheim Hansen at Nord University.

Vice Chancellor Dotson points out the huge potential for cooperation that this agreement opens for.

“We are excited to expand from individual faculty and student connections to institutional collaborative opportunities in research projects, scientific activities, and student exchanges”, says Dotson.

Published Oct 22, 2023 by Alex Johnson

When the fans strolled into the Patty Center for a volleyball game Thursday night, no one guessed the game would turn into a historic one for the Nanooks, as a 15 year streak was broken.

In the first set, the Nooks came out and dominated, shutting down Western Washington with heavy team blocks, and handcuffing them with excellent serves.

The Nooks took the third and final set 25 to 15, ending the 15 year winless streak against Western Washington players, and fans were ecstatic after the game.

Published Oct 22, 2023 by Chris Bieri

Kendall Kramer didn’t need any extra advantages.

The junior at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was already a strong contender to earn a repeat victory at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference cross country championships.

But Saturday at Kincaid Park, Kramer ran on a familiar course in personally ideal conditions with plenty of friends and family cheering her on.

Kramer cruised to a win Saturday in a time of 20 minutes, 47 seconds, outpacing fellow UAF junior Rosie Fordham to win a second consecutive GNAC title.

Temperatures hovered in the low 20s on Saturday morning, but that was hardly a deterrent for Kramer, who grew up in Fairbanks and attended West Valley.

“I love the cold,” she said. “Obviously I’m from Fairbanks, so I feel really relaxed in the cold.”

Published Oct 22, 2023 by Ned Rozell

Alaska scientists are studying salmon in the state’s northernmost waters

Brown’s funding enabled UAF’s Peter Westley, Andy Seitz and others to study whether Pacific salmon are colonizing rivers of Alaska’s Arctic or whether fish seen there are just adventurous strays whose offspring have never survived because it’s just too cold up there.

Brown’s donation of his $50,000 award allowed Westley and Seitz to contract a helicopter pilot in September 2023 to hover over two Arctic rivers, the Itkillik and the Anaktuvuk. There, they searched for spawning chum salmon they suspected were there.

During what Westley called “the most satisfying fieldwork of my life,” the biologists found seemingly dead-end channels entering both braided rivers. At the heads of those fingers were dark torpedoes — chum salmon that had laid eggs in the gravel.

The scientists landed and noticed fresh springwater was flowing upward from the gravel.

They captured a few of the spawned-out fish and collected their otoliths — bones in the head that can tell them a fish’s age and what waters it has lived in. They also collected tissue samples that might tell what stock a salmon had come from — for example, if its ancestors had lived in the Yukon River drainage.

And — most importantly — they pounded conduit into the gravel where salmon had laid their eggs and inserted temperature loggers into the pipes.

They will return next fall to retrieve the sensors. If the springwater stayed above freezing despite the minus-40-degree air temperatures just above, the biologists would know that the survival of eggs was feasible.

Published Oct 22, 2023 by Josh Reed

The University of Alaska Anchorage men’s hockey team was back on its home ice on Friday night at the Avis Alaska Sports Complex, and with a 3-1 win over visiting Air Force in front of a lively crowd, the Seawolves had a pair of firsts come to fruition.

It marked the first time they’ve won back-to-back games since their regular season schedule got underway. And the first goal of the night was also the first in the collegiate career of Anchorage’s Aiden Westin.

“It felt good and definitely relieves a little pressure,” he said. “I like to score goals, so it felt good to get the first one.”

The freshman forward spent the last two years starring for his hometown’s junior hockey franchise, the Anchorage Wolverines. Westin was playing in his first game back from injury and was able to give the Seawolves the initial lead at the 13:23 mark in the first period following assists from Carson Kosobud and Davis Goukler.

“I was very happy to see Aiden get his first career goal and it was a big one for us,” UAA head coach Matt Shasby said.

Published Oct 21, 2023 by Isaac Schultz

Archaeologists working in central Alaska have found over 1,000 fish specimens that potentially indicate the early presence of subsistence farming among Ice Age North Americans.

By studying the remains of fish found at six archaeological sites across eastern Beringia (eastern Alaska), the archaeological team identified salmon, burbot, whitefish, and northern pike that appears to have been harvested between 13,000 and 11,800 years ago. The team’s research was published in Science Advances.

“It’s not hyperbole to say we really know next to nothing about Paleoindian use of freshwater fish. The very few early examples we have derive from non-anthropogenic contexts,” explained Ben Potter, an archaeologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the study’s lead author, in an email to Gizmodo. “Our research sheds much needed light on these ancient subsistence behaviours.”

Potter said that direct evidence for freshwater fishing in the region is a few thousand years old at most, and evidence for maritime fishing off the continent dates to about 11,800 years ago.

Published Oct 21, 2023 by Suzanne Downing

Now, three others are eyeing the Republican nomination.

One of them, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, has strong ties to Alaska. He has not formally announced he will seek the role as Speaker, but is rumored to be making calls about it.

Emmer is a former chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee and is the current majority whip. He is considered the most likely frontrunner if he does decide to run, and he has former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s endorsement.

Emmer went to college at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he also played collegiate hockey. He graduated with a B.A. in political science and went on to earn his law degree from the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn.

After practicing law for several years, he opened his own law firm. The next 20 years were spent balancing family, business, coaching hockey, and serving on the city councils and in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Published Oct 21, 2023 by Adrian Peterson Adrian Peterson

Current data projections and analysis show that 93 percent of near-surface permafrost will disappear by 2100. The impacts of that loss will be immense in the arctic and the consequences will extend to a global stage.“

For Alaskans of course, the first thing we worry about is impact on our infrastructure, our houses, our roads,” said Dr. Vladimir Romanovsky, a researcher and professor at UAF’s Geophysical Institute.

Infrastructure will remain a top concern for those of us in the great north, but we won’t be the only folks with an eye on permafrost as it continues to melt with rising temperatures.

That’s the beginning of the problems waiting in the near decades. As temperatures have been increasing, the Arctic regions are now warm enough that residual heat from buildings is increasing the rate at which permafrost melts. “Permafrost became much more vulnerable and exactly the same engineering solutions which worked 20 or 30 years ago are not working any more now and definitely will not work in the future,” said Romanovsky.

Published Oct 21, 2023 by Jeff Richardson, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Analysis of a massive database of pink salmon DNA has revealed unexpected details about the abundant salmon species, including its ability to return to spawn at nearly the same spot within streams as their parents.

Samuel May, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, led a project that reviewed genetic data from over 30,000 pink salmon. The effort taps into an ongoing study in Prince William Sound that has collected DNA samples from pink salmon carcasses since 2011. The Alaska Hatchery Research Program samples pink salmon in 30 streams, including five where they attempt to collect samples from every salmon returning to spawn.

The AHRP is a collaboration between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, nonprofit hatcheries, the fishing industry and academia, including UAF. It is largely focused on the impact of hatchery fish on wild salmon populations. Beyond that topic, the database provides a trove of information for researchers exploring other questions.

“We can connect the parents and offspring from multiple populations, along with body size, when they were sampled and where they were sampled,” May said. “There’s all this fine-scale diversity that we didn’t really appreciate before.”

One of the most striking findings was the salmon’s ability to detect the specific location where it hatched. Pinks don’t just return to a home stream or tideland: After traveling thousands of kilometers, they generally spawn within 100 meters of the point where their parents spawned.

Genetic analysis also highlighted distinctions between areas within the streams where pinks spawn. About 75 percent of the salmon spawn in intertidal areas, a zone affected by regular saltwater intrusion and apparently preferred by wild pinks. Hatchery-origin pink salmon tend to travel into freshwater areas of those streams to reproduce. There they may be more likely to mate with other fish that also were stocked by hatcheries in those locations. Their origins are also associated with a variety of biological differences, including body size and reproductive success.

Pink salmon haven’t received the same attention from researchers as other salmon species because they’re often viewed as homogenous – spawning pinks are all two years old and roughly the same size. Through DNA analysis, researchers are revealing a more diverse species, which should help its ability to adapt as the climate changes, May said.

Published Oct 20, 2023 by Bethany Doudna

The National Science Foundation is funding a $13.9 million program spearheaded by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The Alaska Coastal Cooperative for Co-Producing Transformative Ideas and Opportunities in the North, known by the acronym ACTION, aims to study and help coastal communities respond to the effects of climate change.

“About five years ago or so there were numerous gaps across the coastline of Alaska with regards to mapping,” explained Dr. Chris Maio, an associate professor of coastal geography and the director of the Alaska Coastal Cooperative. “Things like pathimetry and arial imaging and things like that, and a lot of that is now being done through the state. But the community and local scale level data sets is what’s off and missing, and this project really focuses on that place-based environmental monitoring.”

Maio explained that the ACTION committee members have been seeking funding and building their plans for the past five years, and says their plans include placing equipment such as wave buoys and water level gauges across the coast.

The Alaska Coastal Cooperative’s three main goals are to enhance communication by means of a knowledge exchange network; to advance applied science in rural communities; and to build technical capacity in these communities to make them increasingly self-sustaining.

Published Oct 20, 2023

Kenai Peninsula College purchased Young’s Downtown Inn and Restaurant in Homer last Friday, marking an important step forward for the school's long term goals.

The college purchased the property—which is next to the Kachemak Bay Campus—at an undisclosed price through its own funding. Kachemak Bay Campus director Reid Brewer said the purchase was a long time coming.

“The potential for the space was recognized a long time ago, and so when we start doing things like master planning, and start thinking about building capacity, this was a very natural potential for that,” he said

The college’s current master plan is a document laying out long term goals for the University of Alaska Anchorage and its associated colleges. It details numerous objectives for the campus. Kenai Peninsula College director Cheryl Siemers said that the focus for the new property has been narrowed down to four areas, which are housing, a new lecture hall, a center for career and technical education and additional outdoor space.

Published Oct 20, 2023 by Alaska Native News

The Denali Award recognizes the contributions of a non-Native person who has demonstrated strong commitment, dedication, and service to the Alaska Native community and to rural Alaska. The 2023 Denali Award winner is:

• Courtney Carothers, Anchorage, Alaska

Courtney Carothers is a Professor of Fisheries in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in environmental anthropology from the University of Washington (2008) and a B.A. in Biology and Society, summa cum laude, from Cornell University (2000). Dr. Carothers has devoted her career to working with fishing communities across Alaska to better understand the social and cultural dimensions of fishery systems and to improve education, research, and policy processes to better include these dimensions. She partners with Indigenous communities to promote social and environmental justice goals. Her work has advanced several disciplines in the study of human-environment relationships, cultural values, equity, and well-being.