Published Apr 5, 2023 by Malte Humpert

Following the release of the National Strategy for the Arctic last year and updated Arctic language in the 2022 National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, US officials are now engaged in revising the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Arctic Strategy.

The current version was released in June 2019.

“Alaska is the reason that the United States can call itself an Arctic country, and the Arctic is critical for US security. The Arctic is critical to the defense of the US homeland. We will be updating the United States’ Arctic strategy which has not been updated since 2019,” explained Melissa Dalton, Assistant Sec. of Defense during public remarks at last week’s Arctic Encounter’s conference in Anchorage, Alaska.

The existing DoD Arctic Strategy described an increasingly uncertain region with “deepening and intensifying problematic strategic trends.”

It highlighted the Arctic’s increasingly complex security environment in a new “era of strategic competition” and “an avenue for great power competition and aggression.”

“The new DoD Arctic Strategy should emphasize the increased importance in the role of Arctic allies and U.S. defense commitment to Arctic partner nations. This is not just a default talking point,” explains Troy Bouffard, Director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at University of Alaska Fairbanks, to High North News.

In recent months the US has signed or is working on bilateral defense agreements with several Nordic countries, including Norway, and participated in a number of exercises in the region including Arctic Forge and Joint Viking.

Published Apr 5, 2023 by Josh Reed

The University of Alaska Anchorage men’s basketball team made its second and most notable addition to its 2023 recruiting class Tuesday after announcing Grace Christian High School standout Sloan Lentfer has signed his national letter of intent to play for his hometown team.

“It’s definitely pretty exciting and a super cool opportunity for sure,” Lentfer said. “I’ve been talking to them for about a month and signed about a week ago.”

Lentfer said he had offers from other programs outside the state, including one in Oregon, but he had his heart set on joining the Seawolves.

“It’s pretty cool to be able to still be a part of Alaska basketball and show what it stands for,” Lentfer said. “I’m also excited to be able to give back to Alaska basketball and do stuff with a bunch of kids who probably dream of doing it some day.”

The 6-foot-7 forward was named the Alaska 3A Boys Player of the Year by the Alaska Association of Basketball Coaches after leading the Grizzlies to their first state championship since 2017.

Published Apr 5, 2023 by Greg Knight

A LOOK AT THE TOPIC OF WEATHER IN THE BERING STRAIT REGION, WITH A SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON SEA ICE, was the item of discussion during a recent installment of the Strait Science lecture series, sponsored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Northwest Campus.

The discussion featured Alaska Climate Specialist Rick Thoman of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has been generating and studying climate models for Alaska communities for years.

He said Western Alaska never fails to surprise him when it comes to weather.

“Weather in Nome matters, but what’s happening in communities all around Western Alaska matters a lot to Nome,” Thoman said. “It has the advantage of being a hub community that has a long climate record, but that shouldn’t make us lose sight of the fact that we got a whole lot of communities in very different environments in this region. That’s one of the things I love about western Alaska, the environment is so varied over very short distances.”

In 2022, Thoman related that the maximum arctic sea ice extent for the 2021-22 winter was reached on Feb. 25. That was very early in the season for the annual max to occur, as the average is March 12, according to Thoman.

The winter solstice last year, which fell on Dec. 21, was also quite revealing, he added.

“Something I certainly thought I would never say, a winter solstice in Nome, just ice-free seas from the beach. And that was followed, you might remember, Christmas morning with strong north winds continuing and we had the lowest observed ocean level on the known tide gauge, almost six feet below the mean low lower water. That was the lowest observed sea level since that gauge was installed in the late ’80s,” Thoman said.

Claudia Ihl is an associate professor at the University of Alaska’s Northwest Campus in Nome, where she teaches and conducts research as a faculty member. She commented during the lecture on how her research has revealed a troubling fact about our Nome’s local musk oxen population.

“I research musk oxen and one of the fascinating aspects of this winter was that, because of the extreme iciness of the snow, they changed the way they forage,” Ihl said. “They can’t forage in the spaces they usually go to because it’s too icy.”

Published Apr 4, 2023

A Boeing 727 cargo jet will be making an overnight commute out to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough sometime in the coming days.

The plane, donated by FedEx to the University of Alaska’s Aviation Technology Division, made headlines for its 2013 landing at Merrill Field in Downtown Anchorage.

Jon Kotwicki, the owner of FLY8MA Flight Training in Big Lake, purchased the airliner as part of a housing project for students who attend the training facility. The 727 will join a DC-6 and DC-9 already parked at his property, and has big plans in store for it.

“That is our flight school that we are building there off of Hawk Lane and Big Lake,” Kotwicki said. “[The planes] will serve as student housing for students who are coming to do flight training with us from afar as well as an Airbnb.”

Published Apr 4, 2023 by Jerry and Janet George

Today, we read about the hockey coach promoting a $50-$75 million sports complex at the university as something that will elevate life in this community. It prompts the question, “What’s wrong with our university?” As a University of Alaska graduate, in my opinion, our university system is broken because of thinkers like this. Promoting $50-$75 million to have a place to play when we have no place to house our homeless. When we have a Medicare and general health crisis. The largest population growth rate in Alaska is among seniors, yet there is no plan for dealing with their needs. Yet our university is not producing anywhere near the number of health care workers necessary to even meet current needs. When our port is in danger of failing and such a failure would be a disaster of unprecedented proportions.

We have a school system that is failing and student competency scores below anyone’s acceptable level. We have a study that shows that the poor ratings for our schools is one of the largest deterrents that recruiters face when trying to fill job vacancies in Alaska. People don’t want to move here if they don’t have good schools for their children. I imagine adult playgrounds are further down the list of prerequisites. We have a state government that can’t even staff an office to disperse available funds for food stamps and other support funds to Alaskans in need. We have dwindling gas reserves in Cook Inlet to supply power and heat to Anchorage for the long term yet have no plan to develop alternative energy sources on a timeline to match the gas depletion.

That is what is wrong with our university. We have no rational big-picture thinkers stepping up to deal with real issues. What our best and brightest minds from our university think is best for Anchorage is an adult playground.