News

In April, residents of Diomede relied on melting snow and run-off as drinking water for 11 days. The community’s running water was restored, but local experts say they aren’t out of the woods yet, as the system still is not fully functioning.

According to Laura Achee, a spokesperson with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, or ADEC, part of the limited information ADEC received was that the water tank was inoperable, and the system was having issues.

An Anchorage singer-songwriter is the winner of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert contest. Quinn Christopherson beat out 6,000 entries from around the world with a song called “Erase Me”, recorded in front of the huge, famous Sydney Laurence painting at the Anchorage Museum.

Christopherson sat down with Alaska Public Media’s Casey Grove earlier this week.

Maybe you’ve heard of a “land acknowledgment.” It’s a statement of respect at the beginning of an event acknowledging the Indigenous inhabitants of a place and their claim to the land. In some countries they have been happening for decades, even incorporated into official protocols. In Alaska, the conversation around land acknowledgment is relatively new. But, it’s picking up.

On the North Slope of Alaska, the Iñupiat tradition of hunting bowhead whales has an ancestry more than 1,500 years old.

Today in Utqiaġvik there are two annual hunts when the whales pass by on their migration. The fall hunt has historically been done on open water, and the spring hunt from the ice that attaches to the coast each winter.

On a warm, sunny day in the village of Tuntutuliak, a group of children run around each other on a boardwalk outside of the bright blue building that houses the village’s K-12 school.

Their shouting is a blend of Yugtun and English.

That blend of languages is mirrored inside the school. Small, flippable signs hang on the outside of each classroom door. They designate the language of the day. Some days it is English. Others it’s Yugtun.

In Alice Fitka’s class, it’s always Yugtun.

A humpback whale died after it beached in Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage near Girdwood. Biologists say it is an uncommon location for a humpback and they are now studying its death.

The whale became stranded twice early last week. It appeared to free itself but its body washed ashore Tuesday a few miles away from where it had first beached. Researchers carefully took measurements and samples, and subsistence users harvested blubber for food.

The Arctic Domain Awareness Center came to Nome looking to know specifically how rural Alaskans, particularly Alaska Natives, felt they were prepared to handle a major, weather-related crisis.

They invited residents from the Bering Strait region to gather at the University of Alaska–Fairbanks Northwest Campus in Nome for an event they called Arctic-focused Incidents of National Significance, or Arctic-IONS.