Southcentral

Over 3 million people visited Alaska during the tourism season that ended in April 2025 marking a new record for the state, according to data released at the Alaska Travel Industry Association’s annual convention in Anchorage Tuesday.

The Alaska Visitor Volume report includes data over the 12-month period starting in May 2024. It shows 33,000 more visitors came to Alaska compared to the previous travel season, an increase of 1.1%.

The association’s president and CEO, Jillian Simpson, said the increase was driven by the cruise sector, and that a few smaller communities saw big increases in visitation.

“There are some ports of call outside of Seward and Whittier that actually saw really big jumps in cruise visitation, and that is Kodiak, Alaska. But they were outdone by, can you guess who? Unalaska,” Simpson said.

Data in the report was gathered by McKinley Research Group. It found 88% of travelers that came to Alaska did so in the summer. Over half of visitors arrived on a cruise ship, followed by airline travel.

Juneau’s port had the highest number of passengers at 1.7 million – almost 4% higher than the previous year, according to the report. The majority of people who flew to the state came into Anchorage.

Winter travel to Alaska has been increasing over the long-term, but it dipped 5.5% last year, according to the report. Simpson said it’s the first decline since the association started tracking winter visitors in 2006. Fewer than 400,000 people came to the state during the winter months – a decline of 21,700 winter travelers from the previous season.

It’ll be months before tourism data for summer 2025 is available, but Simpson said early indicators show a slight decrease in cruise visitors and airline travel.

“On the cruise sector side, we did see essentially flat this year, which is what we were predicting with capacity,” she said. “It was ever so slightly down.”

The tourism sector supported 48,000 jobs in Alaska last year, according to the presentation.

Correction: This story previously has an incorrect byline. 

The city of Anchorage is preparing to welcome up to 2,000 people displaced by the catastrophic storm that hit Western Alaska on Sunday. Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said she expects many will stay through the winter.

“We’ll do everything we can to help folks and to do our best to provide a safe and welcome environment where they can heal and have stability as they work to rebuild,” she said in an interview Thursday.

About 260 evacuees arrived Wednesday. Hundreds more arrived Thursday, with additional groups expected in the coming days.

LaFrance said some will likely stay with friends or family. But many will need housing. The city is standing up shelters at the Alaska Airlines Center, the Egan Center and the Fairview and Spenard recreation centers. Together, they can house up to about 1,200 people. The mayor’s team is also working to find hotel rooms. Going forward, she said, her team will look at options for more permanent housing.

“It’s unknown how many people right now will be able to go back to those communities, or when or how they will be rebuilt,” she said. “We are working very closely with partners and looking at ways that we can help to quickly scale up different kinds of housing to meet this need.”

LaFrance said the municipality is taking a supporting role as the state of Alaska and the Red Cross manage the emergency response. Her team is focusing on emergency shelter and transitional and temporary housing. She said the Red Cross is working to feed evacuees and provide other basic amenities.

Anchorage School District Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt said in an email that schools are ready to enroll students and provide support including emergency supplies, bus transportation, mental health services and translation assistance.

“This transition carries both emotional and cultural weight,” he wrote. “Our schools will be places of belonging, healing, and hope, where every child feels safe, valued, and connected.”

Bryantt and LaFrance both underscored the devastation of the storm, noting Alaskans impacted have had to uproot their lives.

LaFrance said when she visited with evacuees Wednesday, one man told her about his house floating away.

“He went in twice to save family members,” she said. “He lost his house, he lost his boat, he lost his snowmachines. He said he never wanted to go through that again.”

LaFrance said she’s asking all Anchorage residents to greet those who have been displaced with generosity and kindness, because they are going through something traumatic and have lost so much.

She said anyone wishing to donate can do so through the Alaska Community Foundation.

As the race to mine antimony is gaining traction in Alaska, so is the rush for the federal government’s financial backing.

Now, the Trump administration is injecting millions of dollars into an Australian company’s project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage.

Nova Minerals isn’t the only antimony interest in Alaska hoping for investment from the feds, but this week, the Pentagon awarded a grant worth more than $43 million to the Alaska subsidiary of Nova, Alaska Range Resources. The money is intended to turn the company’s Estelle Project, located in the Mat-Su Borough, into a hub for producing munitions materials.

Nova CEO Christopher Gerteisen said the project is on a two-year schedule, and that he doesn’t anticipate that the ongoing government shutdown will affect the funding.

“And so what this grant is for is to further define our resource out there, and then to mine the material, and then … process the material, to produce the munitions-grade ‘antimony trisulfide,’ they call it,” he said in a short interview.

Antimony, which is often associated with gold deposits, has a number of possible applications, including flame retardants, solar panels, semiconductors and ammunition. The U.S. government considers it a critical mineral.

Antimony was mined in Alaska off and on between 1905 and 1986, typically in response to wartime needs or higher prices. The revived interest comes amid a push from the federal government to boost mineral production and China’s ban on antimony exports to the U.S. China has been the United States’ biggest supplier of the mineral.

The award to Nova Minerals comes through Title III of the Defense Production Act, which allows the President to approve aid for businesses that buttress productive capacity for national defense purposes. That’s a lever the Biden administration also pulled to bolster critical mineral production and reduce reliance on foreign supply chains.

Gerteisen said the award will fund what he calls a pilot phase. He said Nova hopes to later build a refinery at Point MacKenzie in Southcentral to produce more than munitions with Alaska’s antimony.

“This grant is so important for Alaska because the race is on. Other states have some antimony discoveries, and this and that,” he said. “And the race is really on as to … where is the antimony refining hub is going to be for the United States.”

Other companies with antimony projects in Alaska may have different models, goals, and stages than Nova. But, on top of the mineral they want to mine, the companies share at least one other thing in common: They’re also looking to tap the Trump administration for funds.

Dallas-based U.S. Antimony plans to recover the mineral from discarded rock waste at historic mining sites in Alaska and truck the ore down to its smelter in Montana. The company began its first small-scale antimony reclamation in Alaska in early September at the Mohawk Mine near Ester.

And last week, U.S. Antimony inked a $245 million contract with the Defense Logistics Agency to supply antimony ingots to the Defense Department’s store of critical minerals.

In response to a question about U.S. Antimony’s efforts to secure federal funding, Vice President of Investor Relations Jonathan Miller sent KUAC a link to a September investor’s conference.

During the conference, Miller said the company has been working with Pentagon officials throughout the year.

“At the DoD’s request, we put together scope papers and white papers for a grant, essentially outlining what would be needed for us to expand our operations and our claims,” he said at the time.

Miller said in the presentation that the company will likely announce a federal award of just under $30 million in the near future. That was before the government shutdown began, however, and it wasn’t immediately clear how, or if, that timeline might be affected. Miller also did not say whether the money would be directed toward the company’s Alaska operations during the conference.

In an email Wednesday, Miller congratulated Nova on their award, and suggested companies should approach the endeavor collaboratively.

“We believe it’s critical to build bridges with Nova and with all miners in Alaska who are producing, or will produce, antimony in the future,” he wrote.

Another Australia-based mining company, Felix Gold, still says it’s targeting the end of this year to start mining antimony at its Treasure Creek project just north of Fairbanks.

Similar to the other two companies, Felix Gold has also formally sought federal support for that plan, and the company is touting a visit from officials with the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Permitting Council, saying their recent stop at Treasure Creek represents a “substantive milestone.”

In a call with investors last month, Felix Gold Executive Director Joseph Webb said the visit was “as good as you can get” and helped the company’s case, but that he couldn’t guarantee anything just yet.

Most of the staff running three Alaska newspapers in Homer, Kenai-Soldotna and Juneau resigned in protest Monday. The decision came after the corporate owner of the Homer News, Kenai Peninsula Clarion and Juneau Empire forced revisions to a story after pressure from a Republican state lawmaker.

The four journalists — Regional Editor Erin Thompson, Clarion Sports and Features Editor Jeff Helminiak, Clarion Senior Reporter Jake Dye and Homer News Reporter Chloe Pleznac — signed a joint resignation letter castigating Alabama-based Carpenter Media Group for its decision to modify the story without consulting the reporter or editor responsible, saying it “gravely undermined” their ability to do their jobs.

“Though this decision is extremely painful for us, it is not difficult,” they wrote. “We cannot do our jobs knowing that pressure from an elected official can mean our stories are edited without prior consultation with us.”

Last Wednesday, Homer Republican Rep. Sarah Vance posted a letter on state letterhead to her official Facebook page objecting to a Homer News article about a memorial for the slain activist Charlie Kirk. She highlighted a paragraph that identified Kirk as a “far-right” activist with “racist and controversial views.” Vance accused the paper of bias and said she was “aware of” a campaign to boycott Homer News advertising.

In an interview, Dye said his resignation was a long time coming. He’s repeatedly complained about mismanagement since Carpenter Media bought the paper out of insolvency last year, he said. But capitulating to pressure from a state lawmaker, going over the editor’s and reporter’s heads, Dye said, was a step too far.

A day later, the story was removed, edited, stripped of a byline and reposted — without, Dye said, any consultation with the newsroom. Vance subsequently thanked Carpenter Media in a Facebook post for responding to her concerns after a discussion with the paper’s publisher.

“Sarah Vance sent one letter on a Wednesday night — she probably didn’t even put a ton of thought into it — and got our story changed,” he said. “What stops her from doing that the next time? What stops anybody?”

Vance and Carpenter Media did not respond to interview requests.

Dye hasn’t gotten answers on what Vance asked for, and what Carpenter agreed to, he said.

“I feel like I should be able to trust Carpenter Media,” he said. “That’s just not what happened in this case.”

The mass resignations leave the three papers with just two reporters: one for the Homer News and another with the Juneau Empire, Dye said.

Veteran Alaska journalist and University of Alaska Fairbanks professor Paula Dobbyn said she was shocked by the episode — not just by Vance’s pressure campaign, but Carpenter’s decision to give in.

“We pride ourselves as Americans on having freedom of the press,” she said. “For an ownership group to just go ahead and alter a news story based on a complaint by a politician without consulting the editor or the reporter, I just think was appalling, and I fully support the staff for not putting up with it.”

It’s especially alarming given the fragile state of journalism in Alaska, she said. It’s not clear what’ll happen to the papers with most of the editorial staff gone, and Dobbyn said she’s concerned the exodus will leave Kenai Peninsula communities less informed.

“I certainly hope that the Kenai is not going to become another news desert, because, you know, people have the right to be informed,” she said. “There’s a lot that’s happening down there, and we certainly need coverage of it.”

Dobbyn said she hoped another news source would fill the void. She pointed to the Juneau Independent, a nonprofit online outlet founded by the former editor of another Carpenter paper, the Juneau Empire, who also resigned over disagreements with management.

As much as he loves journalism, Dye said he’s not planning to follow a similar path.

“I don’t think the others are really interested in that. We certainly don’t have the money for that,” he said. “I, unfortunately, kind of think this is it.”

Dye hopes Carpenter Media will invest in its Alaska papers, he said, but he’s not optimistic. He said management told the newsroom that the Clarion was losing money, but had not outlined plans to turn the struggling outlet around.

“Until this last week, they (didn’t) really interact with us,” he said. “I keep asking them what the plan is, and I don’t ever get a satisfying answer.”

On Tuesday, Dye said he planned to head to the local job center for a typing test so he could apply for a job as a 911 dispatcher.

“I really think that’s going to be less stressful than what I’m doing now,” he said.

Editor’s note: Former Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac previously worked at KTOO as a Morning Edition host from 2022 to 2024. 

A Homer Republican state representative declared victory on Friday after successfully pressuring the local newspaper to revise a story about a vigil honoring Charlie Kirk.

Rep. Sarah Vance, who helped organize the vigil, took issue with the newspaper’s description of Kirk’s views.

Vance highlighted the story’s second paragraph, which identified Kirk as a “far-right activist” and an icon among Christian nationalists. It described some of his views as “racist and controversial” and said Kirk perpetuated “conspiracy theories.” The story, by Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac, didn’t include concrete examples, but did link to an 1,100 word article in the New York Times with many.

“This piece is not journalism, but rather it is hate-baiting at its worst,” Vance said in a letter to the newspaper’s owners, Carpenter Media Group, on her Alaska State Legislature letterhead. She accused the paper of bias.

“I urge you to take immediate corrective action,” she wrote.

The newspaper’s owners later removed, edited and reposted the story, a move that Vance welcomed in a post on social media. But a former editor of the newspaper said Vance took it “a step too far for an elected representative.”

“That’s government intimidation of a free press, and, you know, the First Amendment says the government shall not do that,” said Michael Armstrong who worked for the paper for more than two decades. “It’s right there up front, and I think she’s crossed that line.”

Vance and Carpenter Media executives did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Armstrong said it’s fair game for government officials, or anyone else, to criticize a news outlet’s coverage. But he said a passage from Vance’s letter saying she was “aware of a growing movement to boycott Homer News advertising” crossed the line into intimidation.

“If you want to have a civil dialogue with the newspaper, with the editors, with the publishers, that’s appropriate,” he said.

At the Homer vigil, a week after Kirk was assassinated in Utah, Vance had extolled the value of the type of open debate Kirk and his group, Turning Point USA, were famous for.

“Remember that the people who were spreading hate and vitriol are our neighbors,” she said in a short speech at the vigil. “We need to do like Charlie and engage with them in open dialogue that’s respectful, that leads them to the truth.”

In an interview, Pleznac defended her work, saying her coverage of the vigil was part of a larger effort to ensure Homer conservatives saw themselves reflected in the newspaper’s coverage.

“I thought it was important to document them honoring Charlie Kirk’s legacy,” she said. “I went, I took photos, and I took video, and I thought that that was something that would honestly make them happy.”

Pleznac said she wrote the description Vance objected to after reviewing other news coverage of Kirk’s assassination in an effort to provide context backed by evidence.

“Vance said I should have published the original article as an opinion piece because of the language I used to report the opinions that Kirk regularly, proudly espoused,” Pleznac said. “My reporting of those opinions is not a reflection of my bias but rather a reflection of my research.”

Armstrong said the episode echoes another recent Kirk-related controversy — ABC’s decision to temporarily take Jimmy Kimmel off the air following threats from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission after Kimmel made comments about Kirk’s assassination

It comes alongside a broader Trump administration crackdown on media critical of the president and his allies, the New York Times reported. President Donald Trump has sued the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CBS over news stories, and has sought to limit the Associated Press’s access to the White House over its decision not to abide by Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

“I think that (has) set a tone, obviously, for his administration, but also for a lot of other conservative Republicans,” Armstrong said. “It’s making it harder for the press to do their job.”

Pleznac, too, said Vance’s pressure campaign amounts to state censorship.

“It is the antithesis of what I believe ethical journalism stands for,” she said.

Armstrong said Vance should be held accountable, and that government officials more broadly should respect the role that reporters play in American democracy.

“I don’t think newspapers should be intimidated by their government. I think the government should be intimidated by the newspapers,” he said.

If government officials don’t like what they see in the newspaper, Armstrong said, the right approach isn’t intimidation — it’s open dialogue.

KBBI’s Simon Lopez in Homer contributed reporting to this story. 

Editor’s note: Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac previously worked at KTOO as a Morning Edition host from 2022 to 2024. 

The Alaska LNG Project netted two more agreements earlier this month during an energy conference in Italy. Both agreements are nonbinding, but proponents say it’s proof of ongoing positive momentum. The developments come as the company behind the project aims to decide whether to move forward with development, or not, by the end of the year.

Adam Prestidge remains optimistic about the Alaskan LNG Project’s commercial viability. He’s the project president under Glenfarne Group, which assumed majority ownership earlier this year.

“We think it is a fantastic project from an infrastructure fundamental standpoint,” he said. “Its commercial attributes, we think, make it a really attractive project, and put it in a really advanced state.”

The idea of a natural gas pipeline between the North Slope and Southcentral has been tossed around for decades.

If it’s built, the three phase project would extract and treat natural gas on the North Slope, move it through an 800-mile long pipeline to Southcentral and then liquefy it in Nikiski for export overseas. The project already has the necessary land and permits. What it needs now are customers – and, of course, to be built.

Since taking over, Glenfarne’s secured five nonbinding agreements with potential project customers. Two of those were signed at the Gastech Conference earlier this month in Italy.

One agreement is with JERA Co. – Japan’s largest power generation company – to purchase a set amount of liquefied natural gas from the project over two decades.

The other agreement outlines a “strategic partnership” with POSCO International. The company is the sales representative of POSCO Group, Korea’s largest steel producer, and also imports liquefied natural gas.

Prestidge says he’s aware of the skepticism around nonbinding contracts. But he says the scale and scope often require a drawn out negotiation process – sometimes up to one or two years.

“They’re enormous contracts, and they don’t just turn into binding agreements overnight,” he said.

Glenfarne Communications Director Tim Fitzpatrick says four of the agreements are at the first in a three-step process to get to a binding agreement.

The agreements come as project owners prepare to make a final decision whether to move forward with development – a decision expected by the end of the year.

Glenfarne enlisted another firm to update the project’s current cost estimate. Prestidge says Glenfarne does not expect construction costs to be “significantly more expensive” than previous estimates, but they’re keeping the final construction price tag secret.

“You wouldn’t normally be publishing publishing costs for a project – for a private project, kind of on a recurring – rolling updates,” he said. “And so the ultimate cost to complete is going to be something that is most likely not going to be made public.”

Glenfarne says construction costs are only one part of the equation. Prestidge says steel tariffs and the cost of liquefied natural gas will ultimately dictate final project costs, and Glenfarne thinks its commercially viable.

Larry Persily is a former state revenue commissioner and Federal Coordinator of the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects. He suspects Glenfarne’s decision won’t sit well with Alaskans.

“I think keeping it secret, which is another way to say private, will just increase the skepticism among Alaskans who think this thing has been a multi-million dollar wasted effort over the years,” he said.

And Persily is doubtful project costs will come in at previous estimates, around $44 billion, pointing to rising labor costs and project overruns in other parts of the country. In the mid-2010s, the total estimates were between $45 billion and $65 billion. In 2020, the estimate dropped $37.5 billion, but then came back up, in part, due to inflation.

“It’s really hard to believe that is going to come in at that [Alaska Gasline Development Corporation] estimate,” he said. “Mega-projects like this are notorious for going over budget.”

Prestidge says Glenfarne’s team is up to the challenge.

“We’re very appreciative of the reception that we’ve gotten from Alaskans,” he said. “We know, we know that we’re new in the state, and we’re going to continue working, working really hard to deliver this fantastic project for the state.”

Glenfarne and the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation will hold an open house Oct. 8 at the Nikiski Community Recreation Center from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. to share project updates and meet with residents.