Published Feb 5, 2024 by Josh Reed

The last time Demarcus Hall-Scriven walked off the basketball court at the Alaska Airlines Center victorious and with his head held high was as a senior in high school. He helped lead the boys varsity team formerly known as Anchorage Christian School to the 3A state championship in 2019.

Since Anchorage’s premier sports venue opened up in 2014, the University of Alaska Fairbanks men’s basketball team had yet to record a road victory against University of Alaska Anchorage there, and it had been more than 20 years since the Nanooks beat the Seawolves on their home court altogether. The last time that happened was Feb. 22, 2003.

Hall-Scriven is now a senior guard and on Saturday night, with over 100 family members, friends and people from his church community in attendance, he took the court at the arena for the last time and helped the Nanooks make history by ending their respective droughts in a commanding 65-49 victory over UAA.

“This is my last time playing in the city and this was a must-win,” he said. “Win or lose, I had to have a big game because it was my last time playing in front of the hometown and home crowd.”

Not only did it mark his team’s biggest win of the season so far, but Hall-Scriven had his best game of the year to date. He tied his season-high in points with 14 that included knocking down a pair of three pointers and tied for the team lead in rebounds with 10 to record his first double-double of the season.

Published Feb 5, 2024 by Josh Reed

For Connor Marritt and the rest of his fellow seniors on the University of Alaska Anchorage men’s hockey team, their Saturday night game against instate rivals was more than just the fifth and final matchup of the annual Alaska Airlines Governor’s Cup series.

It was a chance for them to do something the program had yet to do since being reinstated two years ago. Beat the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Prior to this triumph, UAA had lost 10 of its last 11 games against the Nanooks and played the Nanooks to a 2-2 tie the last time they took the ice against each other on Jan. 13. The win marked the Seawolves’ first in the series in nearly five years since they won 4-0 at home on Oct. 26, 2019.

“Fairbanks is one of the better teams in the country and it took us 12 games to get here but I’m happy for the guys and thought they played a good third period to close it out,” UAA head coach Matt Shasby said.

Published Feb 5, 2024 by Tim Lydon

The Upper Tanana Dene, People of this Land (University of Alaska Press), offers a portrait of an Alaska Native people both before and during the transformative changes of the 20th century. It centers around oral accounts from Dene elders born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Additional historical and anthropological information provides context. 

The upper Tanana region of eastern Alaska is bordered on the south by the Wrangell Mountains and on the north by the rolling Yukon-Tanana uplands. It’s a boreal forest landscape with broad river valleys, expansive wetlands, and abundant fish and wildlife that includes migrating herds of caribou. 

“It is a landscape lived in and lived with,” writes author and anthropologist William E. Simeone, who has lived there for 50 years.

Published Feb 4, 2024 by Lex Treinen - Chilkat Valley News

The University of Alaska is looking to gain title to thousands of acres of land in the Upper Chilkat Valley as part of its ongoing land grant initiative, raising questions and concerns among some locals.

“We’re always open to hearing discussion, but at first look here, it is another transfer of public lands into private hands,” said Kim Strong, the president of the Klukwan village council. “With BLM we have more input to what they’re doing than the university.”

As a “land grant” institution, the University of Alaska system was given a 500,000-acre entitlement when it was founded in 1917 as the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines. The university has only received about 150,000 acres of that land, and in 2022 federal legislation laid the groundwork for the remaining land to be conveyed. 

The land is used to earn money to pay for university programs. 

The university recently published maps showing land it wants to transferred from the Bureau of Land Management. They include 4,406 acres in the rugged Upper Chilkat Valley as well as two smaller parcels of about 30 acres each along the Haines Highway near the Klehini River. 

The university already owns parcels around the valley, which can be used for industrial development like timber, carbon credit sales, and mining. 

The university hasn’t said what it would use the lands for, and Kirsten Henning, a spokesperson for the UA Land Grant Initiative, referred CVN to its website, which states the university “is committed to listening to all who have an interest in our final Land Grant initiative and potential selections.”

Published Feb 4, 2024 by Chris Bieri

The two Alaskans who perhaps played the biggest and most longstanding roles in “True Detective” are Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Cathy Tagnak Rexford.

Early on, the show’s creative team was introduced to Johnson and Rexford through IllumiNative, a Native woman-led social justice organization. They were a key part of an Iñupiaq Advisory Council that was formed in the early stages of the process, and came on as show producers.

Johnson, a relative veteran of TV and film, is a creative producer and writer for the PBS show “Molly of Denali.” Rexford is best known as an author, poet and playwright but has also worked on short films.

The role was an opportunity but also a major responsibility. Johnson said it was to help educate the show’s creative team and also to advocate in some instances. She also said the council was important to reach consensus opinions when it came to providing input and recommendations.

“Night Country” creator Lopez said that Rexford and Johnson were deeply involved in the process, going through each episode’s script and providing feedback. That led to some spirited discussions, Lopez said, and she believes the result was a story that was accurate and representative as well as compelling.

“While the series is based on a fictional story, there were cultural elements that we wanted to collectively address which ranged from singing, drumming, food, and dialogue,” Rexford and Johnson said in an email response. “Based on the input of the advisers, a lot of elements changed in the scripts.”

Johnson and Rexford said there’s no shortage of Alaska Native filmmaking talent in the state, pointing to artists who have worked in the Native Movement Filmmakers Intensive program in coordination with UAF, the Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program and the Nia Tero Storytelling Fellowship.

“That’s one of the most exciting aspects of this production, is that the world gets to see what incredible talent we have not only from Alaska, but also Canada and Greenland,” they said in an email. “We have experienced Alaska Native writers, directors, producers, actors, and cinematographers right here in Alaska with solid credits under their belts who are ready to work and it’s critical that we tell our own stories.”

Published Feb 4, 2024

When it comes to a discussion of winter weather, the topic is never complete without recognizing the enduring contributions of the great Carl Benson, who ventured into the cold in the early 1960s in Fairbanks and began to unlock the secrets of ice fog.

Benson, 96, is still pursuing his scholarly studies, thanks to a good constitution and an unending sense of curiosity about the world around him. I can’t tell you how much I admire him.

“Ice fog is a special case for two reasons,” he wrote nearly 60 years ago. It is largely made by humans and it forms when injecting large amounts of warm water vapor into the atmosphere when the air is so cold it cannot handle it. The ice crystals become more numerous the longer the cold stagnant air remains.

He says now he made some errors in that study. The scientists who have followed his lead into the field, studying ice, snow and the atmosphere say his report remains both useful and informative.

Ice fog “becomes a nuisance whenever temperatures go below minus 35 C (minus 31 F) in the Fairbanks-Fort Wainwright area of Interior Alaska,” he wrote.

Published Feb 4, 2024 by Amy Bushatz

A new Mat-Su College course is intended to remedy a statewide shortage of veterinary technicians through Alaska’s first degree program, scheduled to start in September.

Like the rest of the country, the state is grappling with too few animal care workers, including veterinarians, veterinary technicians and veterinary assistants. Veterinary technicians work as animal nurses, providing skilled care on issues that, for humans, would require help from a combination of lab, radiology and pharmacy technicians.

Nationwide, the shortage of vet techs sits at about 59,000, according to one study, with demand projected to grow 21% by 2032. In Alaska, even densely populated regions like Mat-Su struggle to find workers.

The new University of Alaska Anchorage program at the Mat-Su College campus will run 2 1/2 years or six semesters and is open to 16 students, said professor Dr. Judith Montalbano, who has worked at private clinics in the Mat-Su and helps oversee the college’s current veterinary assisting certification program. 

There are currently no vet tech or veterinary degree programs held in-person completely in Alaska. The University of Alaska Fairbanks runs a four-year veterinary medicine program in which students split time with Colorado State University. And while some vet tech programs are available online, they lack the hands-on experience Montalbano said is critical to learning animal care.

State officials hope increasing the number of available trained vet techs will help clinics run smoothly and give customers — both human and animal — the best veterinary experiences possible.



Published Feb 3, 2024 by Gavin Struve

Just as it did in Thursday’s road loss to Western Washington, the University of Alaska Fairbanks women’s basketball team held pace with its opponent for much of the first half before falling behind swiftly in the third quarter.

This time, the Nanooks lost at Simon Fraser, going 0-for-2 in the season series against Canada’s only NCAA team and remaining winless on the road this season as they dropped to 4-17 overall (2-9 GNAC).

The Nanooks are back home for a three-game stand beginning next Saturday against Alaska Anchorage.



Published Feb 3, 2024 by Georgina Fernandez

Around 300 students gathered inside the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) building on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus Friday afternoon, as part of the kick-off event for the 29th annual ANSEP Celebration.

“We hold the celebrations each year to recognize the successes we’ve had over the past year, and also recognize the partners that have provided money for us to make this program happen,” said Matt Calhoun, the interim executive directive of ANSEP.

The event featured keynote speaker John Herrington, the first Native American to go to space.

For January, who wants to be a neurosurgeon, hearing Herrington’s story is inspiring.

“It gave me a lot of hope to see somebody that successful,” January said.

Kalani Makaneole-Bragg,16, agreed with January. For him, it’s the representation that matters.

“I’m Native-Hawaiian, I’m a quarter Hawaiian, and it’s very rare that you find people of minorities inside of STEM or taking these great strides throughout history and it’s very motivating as a minority,” Makaneole-Bragg said.

Published Feb 3, 2024 by Ned Rozell

“Residents should prepare as needed for yet another old-fashioned Interior Alaska cold snap.”

This frigid situation is not unusual, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist for the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.

“This is not record cold,” he said after passing on a graphic he made showing impressive minuses all over Alaska during the past week, ending Jan. 29. “Not a single climate station with at least 30 years of observations set even one daily record low.”

Where does this cold air come from in this time when our planet seems to be in an extreme warming phase?

“We manufactured (this cold air) right here in Alaska,” Thoman wrote in an email. “Very cold low pressure aloft moved from west to east across the Beaufort Sea January 23-24, but as it did some of the energy of that system broke off and moved out over mainland Alaska.”

Published Feb 3, 2024 by BBCW

So this time I'm carrying on my journey through Alaska to see how people here continue to adapt to the natural world around them even when it is changing at pace.

I'm in Alaska state capital of Juneau, it's a place dominated by nature, which can have a big impact here as I'm about to find out.

I am meeting up with University of Alaska Southeast scientists Eran Hood and Abby What's so exciting, they've invited me to tag along as they conduct their research on the changing environment here.