The Hatcher Pass Road in Alaska has opened for the summer season, but deep snow remains at higher elevations, with crews spending the last week digging out the road over the pass before opening it.
The Western Arctic Caribou Herd has been declining for years, and the migration patterns of the animals have been changing. In several locations in Northwest Alaska, caribou have been arriving later and later in the season. Friday last week, people in Kotzebue finally started seeing caribou — hundreds of them ― crossing the Kotzebue Sound north of town, coming from the Noatak riverside. Ice conditions are one of the reasons for the caribou’s late migration, said Thomas Baker, chair of the Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional Advisory Council.
“It started breaking into pieces beneath us,” said Phillip Rode.
One party’s camping gear was blown away in the wind. The other’s shelter was destroyed, and they couldn’t start a fire. The Rescue Coordination Center launched from Anchorage but had to turn back due to "extreme conditions".
As much of the Lower 48 braces for frigid weather, Anchorage-area temperatures have run some 13 degrees above normal so far this month.
Avalanche monitors say danger remains high in Turnagain Pass, Girdwood and Portage.
Aerial surveys this September and October show the bowheads aren’t where they usually are.
“The growth-cycle this year is unprecedented,” with carrots, peas and broccoli heads “as big as a platter,” farmers market vendors say.
Sea ice in the Chukchi Sea disappeared far earlier than normal this spring as a result of exceptionally warm ocean temperatures.
Why air quality is worse at different times of day and how you might be violating city code with your leaf blower.
The tragedy came after several days of dire warnings about the dangers of river travel due to an unusually early warm-up. Search and rescuers crawled onto weak ice, open water all around, to help retrieve the survivors.
“You could take your sailboat and sail from Dillingham all the way to Little Diomede and never see much more than an ice cube.
The cold and wet hunters built a fire to keep warm until Alaska Army National Guard rescuers arrived hours later.
The man was walking his dogs on a well-used trail when he came across a sow with two cubs, a Fish and Game assistant area wildlife biologist said.
For the first time, the race will run two laps to its halfway point and back. Mushers agree it’s the safest way to run the race, but it could present challenges.
While industry has had to adapt to changes, many locals are still struggling to find a new normal amidst the shifting seasons.
Looking over a longer time span, bears in the southern Beaufort Sea are now using land to an extent they haven’t used it historically,” a researcher said.
Recent storms and warm seas melted a vast stretch of ice in the Bering Sea, leaving some islands surrounded by water when they should be locked in ice.
“If black bears are starting to stir, brown bears could be, too,” a state Fish and Game official said.
In villages like Kongiganak, communities have stopped burying their dead because, as the permafrost melts, the oldest part of their cemetery is sinking.
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