Interior Alaska’s hot and dry summer of 2013, coupled with an invasion of insect pests, has taken a steep toll on the region’s birch trees, experts say.

A terrible year for berry harvest in the Upper Nushagak River.

A great year for harvesting mossberries.

11-11-13 Weather effects caribou migration and season - Barrow, Alaska, USA

The blueberries are so ripe now that the best time to pick those are late morning while they are chilled down and the leaves are not so moist, otherwise they fall easily or squish in your fingers.

We are worried about the effects of large infestation and about wildlife.

The winds came east out of the Chugach Mountains and caused damage to forest, unlike anything we have seen in over 50 years. It is going to be expensive and time consuming to clear the windfall.

Last month a mysterious orange film ("goo" in the media vernacular) washed up on the shores of a northwest Alaskan village called Kivalina. An orange powder seems an odd product for the drying of crustacean eggs, but could make perfect sense for fungi -- specifically, the rust fungi.