A former mayor of Kotzebue has been promoted to a top regional job within the National Park Service. 

Maija Katak Lukin has been selected to be the Native relations program manager for the Park Service’s Alaska region. 

She’s been superintendent of the Western Arctic Parklands since 2016, overseeing operations in 9 million acres that include Noatak National Preserve, Kobuk Valley National Park and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument. 

  In Inupiaq communities, more than any other food, seal oil is a fixture. 

“I had it for lunch today,” Cyrus Harris said. “I’ll have it for supper tomorrow.”

Like many Inupiaq people in the Northwest Arctic, Harris grew up eating traditional foods like seal oil, caribou and musk ox. When his relatives moved into Maniilaq’s Utuqqanaat Inaat long-term care, he found they weren’t able to eat the same food they’d lived off for years. 

A federal lawsuit arguing that Tribal members of the state’s sole Native reservation shouldn’t need state permits to fish outside the reserve’s marine boundaries was dismissed Wednesday.