Background Articles

Some residents in Fort Smith, N.W.T., say they're seeing more bears in and around town this year, and it's not clear why.

Amid the collapse of chum and chinook salmon on the river, the Smokehouse Collective is trying to build sustainable, resilient food systems for Native communities.

Satellite images from NASA show the alarming and above-average ice loss in Greenland due to rising temperatures, with significant melting and a transformation of the snow cover observed during the 2023 melting season.

The R/V Sikuliaq is a familiar sight in the Port of Nome. The ice-breaking research vessel is owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This year, while the vessel is out at sea it will be collecting water that could signal whether a bloom is occurring.

The "whale pump hypothesis" claims nutrient-rich whale excrement feeds phytoplankton, a key producer of Earth's oxygen.

The temperature of asphalt and pavement and concrete and sidewalks in Arizona on a warm sunny day or summer afternoon is 180 degrees sometimes.

North Slope experts think Indigenous experts should take the lead on wildlife management. When it comes to belugas, caribou and ice seals, managing agencies and researchers are often in charge of setting hunting regulations and analyzing the animals.

The forces of climate change that are reducing ice cover and opening up the Arctic to more activity are making Alaska more important in regards to Homeland Security. For the Department, which has a combination of public safety, emergency response and law-enforcement functions, climate change is creating new challenges for which old responses are no longer adequate.

Electric heat pumps help homeowners swap fossil fuel for renewable energy. To spread heat pumps across the region, Allen Marine is collecting small donations from thousands of visitors that pass through Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan on their whale watching and glacier tours each year.

Anchorage is cool and wet this summer as the rest of the world bakes in the sun and heat.

Clean, fresh air can be part of the draw for tourists to Canada's North — but they won't find it this week in Yellowknife due to wildfire smoke.

Extreme heat around the nation is affecting some flights departing from airports including Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Phoenix, which have had triple-digit temperatures this week.

A Kodiak woman died in a hit-and-run collision during Saturday’s tsunami warning and evacuation,

An entomologist who works with the N.W.T. government said mosquito populations throughout the territory are lower than average. That’s because most types of mosquitoes "love water," and conditions in parts of the territory have been hot and dry instead. 

Wildfire smoke has been blasting much of the N.W.T. lately, with air quality advisories in nearly every community Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, much of the territory is also coping with record-breaking heat.

Graphite One is developing a plan for an open-pit graphite mine and is still in its exploration phase.

The damage wrought to the park’s road by melting permafrost is creating a new reality affecting visitors, park staff, local businesses and potentially wildlife.

No one knows how many birds are infected with avian influenza along the coast of Finnmark. In Vadsø, seagulls sit next to dozens of dead birds.

A low-pressure front that’s stuck over the southern part of the Bering Sea has formed clouds, which the jet stream carries east into southern Alaska.

People in Southeast Alaska are starting to see smoke from Canada's record-breaking wildfire season — and there’s more to come. The air quality levels are still fair: hovering around 17, on a scale that goes up to 300.