“Our shipping monitors clocked another cruise ship going at excessive speed near Pond Inlet,” posted Baffinland Iron Mines on their Twitter account Sept. 22. While the maximum speed was agreed at nine knots in some passages used by the cruise ships, one ship in particular, The Hanseatic from Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, was clocked at almost 16 knots, nearly twice the velocity. It’s the second time this month the cruise line has been clocked in excess of the speed limit agreement.

The number of sockeye returning to Klukshu, Yukon, to spawn began to drop off in the 1990s. This year, hundreds of the bright red fish line the small creek that winds through the village. Neither the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations nor Fisheries and Oceans Canada are sure why the fish have returned after decades of steady decline.

Permafrost is ground that stays frozen year round; the permafrost in interior Alaska also has massive wedges of actual ice locked within the frozen ground. When that ice melts, the ground surface collapses and forms a sinkhole that can fill with water. Thus, a thermokarst lake is born. At first glance, Big Trail looks like any lake. But look closer and there's something disturbing the surface: bubbles.

Nome's landscape is physically altered, with raw material scattered wildly, the coastline reconfigured, and camps that anchored generations of subsistence either flattened or gone.

The storm could have threatened the town’s winter subsistence stock if not for the work of local power plant operators.

"I had never seen burrows like this, and they were everywhere on the Nuna. What seemed to be elaborate tunnel systems dug where there was apparently no permafrost, and sometimes the burrows led up to the bench behind."

Several communities in the Norton Sound are struggling with contaminated drinking water days after the significant September storm hit the region.

The erosion of the Old Russian Cemetery from the impacts of the storm Merbokis also an unfinished process. The earth is actively moving, falling onto the beach bit by bit and sometimes in large chunks every day, to reach a state of stabilization after the storm.

The heavy rains and high water from storm Murdok today and Monday are contributing to the erosion of the old landfill and river bank.

The spiders are usually in multiple form in most areas, but it has not been witnessed in this form. This is described as a spider "ballooning" event, the term used when spiders launch themselves in to the air. These events might be happening more frequently as warming Arctic temperatures has been associated with increases in the population of some spider species such as the wolf spider (see Spider Baby Boom in Warming Arctic), and spiders moving further north and also having more then one hatch per season.

The aftermath of Typhoon Merbok left fuel tanks floating and home flooded, but locals also saw an opportunity.

GOLOVIN RESIDENTS ARE IN CLEANUP MODE as their community works to restore power, phone service and clear debris. After the flood waters receded from the weekend’s severe fall storm, some locals are left with feet of sand in their homes. “At my place we’ve got three feet of sand we’re still shoveling out with the crew here, trying to get the sand out of the living area so we can get the sheetrock to go ahead and dry off,” Alaska Senator Donny Olson of Golovin said.

Shaktoolik has lost its berm to the storm that’s hammered Western Alaska over the weekend, according to Mayor Lars Sookiayak. The berm was all that protected the small village from the sea. “It really saved us from the first hit that came in this morning,” one resident said. 

Storms can bring a bounty to the beach - driftwood sometimes or in this case, clams! But be careful out there. There are new concerns about emerging levels of harmful algae in Western Alaska waters, which could impact shellfish and human health.

A historically powerful storm slammed into Western Alaska Friday night and into Saturday, bringing major flooding and high winds to a huge swath of coastal communities. By Saturday evening, the state said it had received no reports of injuries or deaths related to the storm. But damage had torn across hundreds of miles of Alaska’s coastline impacting communities all along the way. Alaskans described water flooding homes and roads. Wind tore off roofs. Houses floated off their foundations. Boats sank.

On September 17, 2023 Typhoon Merbok hit the coast of Tununak, Alaska. Here are some photos taken by Roseanne Panruk, after the storm caused by Typhoon Merbok

In a recent report from the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST), 16 salmon caught in the Mjólká river in the Westfjords were confirmed to originate from farms. Signs indicate that the salmon originate from open sea farms by Haganes, where a hole in the pen caused part of the stock to escape in August.

"I don’t recall seeing anything like this before."