Timber

A 20-square-mile blaze burned the historic Sperry Chalet in Glacier National Park last week. In California’s Sierra National Forest, an ancient grove of sequoias was scorched, but the trees survived.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker was joined in Ketchikan on Thursday by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, state Sen. Bert Stedman and state Rep. Dan Ortiz to sign a bill accepting a land trade between the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Mental Health Trust.

Gov. Bill Walker came to Alaska’s First City on Saturday to experience this year’s sun-filled Blueberry Arts Festival. He is attending fairs and festivals around Alaska in place of scheduling the governor’s picnics that have been traditional for the past few years.

Visitors to Wood-Tikchick State Park were greeted by an unusual sight this summer. Alders that are normally dense, green and leafy were bare.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and its partners, including Kodiak area Native corporations, are at the beginning of a two-and-a-half year, $1.8 million study of elk and bears on on Afognak Island to help balance game management and logging.

Kodiak Island Borough resource manager and officer Maggie Slife was part of a group that went out on a rainy day to inspect the completed replanting of the burn area the Chiniak fire left behind in 2015.