Government

For many, the New Year signals a fresh start. But for Alaskans, it also means it’s time to apply for the Permanent Fund dividend.

Applications for the 2026 PFD opened Thursday, with online filing starting at 9 a.m. Over 600,000 Alaskans receive the PFD each year, which is usually paid out in October.

It’s not yet clear how much the 2026 dividend will be.

In 2025, Alaskans received $1,000 — the smallest PFD in state history when adjusted for inflation.

The Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy will determine the 2026 PFD amount during the upcoming legislative session, which starts Jan. 20.

Dunleavy’s budget proposal would pay roughly $3,600 per eligible resident, but passing it through the Legislature is a long shot. It would require using about half of the state’s savings — more than $1.5 billion from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, which is the state’s main rainy-day fund.

Already, some lawmakers have raised concern about withdrawing that much from savings, arguing that a large PFD is unwise given low oil prices. Others say the money would be better spent on priorities such as public school funding.

To be eligible for a PFD, you must be an Alaska resident for the entire calendar year, and intend to stay in the state.

Alaskans have until March 31 to apply. You can file online at mypfd.alaska.gov or pick up an application at any Permanent Fund Division office.

Individuals who have been impacted by Typhoon Halong may be eligible for unemployment benefits.

On Dec. 26, the Alaska Department of Labor announced that anyone who lived or was employed at the time of the disaster in the Lower Kuskokwim Regional Education Attendance Area (REAA), the Lower Yukon REAA, or the Northwest Arctic Borough areas may be eligible for Disaster Unemployment Assistance.

That’s a special kind of unemployment benefit that supports people whose ability to work was impacted by a disaster.

To qualify, the typhoon must have impacted your ability to return to the place where you worked, or you must have sustained an typhoon-related injury that impacted your ability to work. People who suddenly became a major support to their household following a death related to the typhoon may also be eligible. If you were scheduled to begin work in an area impacted by the typhoon, you may also qualify.

The assistance payments would be between $153 and $370 per week for up to 27 weeks. The deadline to apply is Feb. 20, 2026.

People who want to apply will be asked for their social security numbers, as well as dates they worked and contact information for employers. Self-employed people or those who were previously unemployed may also be eligible, and they will be asked to provide a record of their wages.

For more information and to see if you might qualify, call 907-465-4691. Free interpreter services are available.

Alaska was awarded more federal money than any state besides Texas for a federal rural health initiative, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced on Monday.

The money will come from the Rural Health Transformation Fund, a $50 billion program set up as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and intended to counteract the effects of its sweeping Medicaid cuts in rural areas.

Alaska’s congressional delegation and state officials lauded the federal investment, which will be upwards of $272 million in Alaska in 2026.

At a Wednesday news conference in Anchorage, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the $1.36 billion the state is slated to receive over the next five years is the biggest investment from the federal government to Alaska’s health care system in state history.

“This is a generational opportunity for our state,” he said.

Heidi Hedberg, commissioner of the state’s health department said a major goal is to rework the state’s “fragmented” health system.

She said the agency will release more information about its plan for the money in the coming days, but pointed to the state’s application to the program, which outlines six priorities: maternal and child health, access to services, preventative care, a strengthened workforce, financial sustainability and updated technology and data systems.

Emily Ricci, the agency’s deputy commissioner, said that core to the state’s application was the question of how to support services that already exist in the state.

“Part of our focus was making sure that the tribal communities could see some of the ways that they want to sustain their programs and evolve or build their programs out further into something that provides more access and sustainable costs,” she said. “So I would say that those opportunities are written in each one of the initiatives.”

She did not immediately supply specific examples.

The state’s application also commits to adherence to several policies favored by the Trump administration, including a pledge to join licensure compacts and prohibit the use of federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds to buy soda pop by 2027.

Several of those commitments require the approval of the state’s legislature or medical board.

Hedberg said her agency will work with those decision makers to follow through on the commitments the state made in its application.

In a virtual meeting with reporters after the state’s news conference, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, challenged the state administration and legislators to take on the question of rebuilding the state’s health care system as a major issue.

In response to a reporter’s question, she said she was worried about the reliability of the funding because the state could fail to make the most of the opportunity or because the federal government could pause or cancel the funding.

“I know that we’re going into an election year next year. I know that the Permanent Fund always takes up space. I know we’re going to be talking about the gas line,” she said. “But we must, we must absolutely be talking about this health care opportunity that we have in front of us now.”

Framed by the fireplace in Alaska’s governor’s mansion earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy shook hands and posed for pictures in the final holiday open house of his two terms as Alaska’s top elected official.

Dunleavy is prohibited from running for another term, and 14 candidates have already signed up to run for his office in the 2026 elections. One of those candidates, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom stood next to Dunleavy at the open house, smiling alongside her husband.

Speaking to reporters before the open house, Dunleavy said the highlight of the year at a statewide level was the signing of a gas pipeline contract with developer Glenfarne.

“It started what I think is going to be a real pipeline,” Dunleavy said. “It’s something that the state has dreamed about for decades, ever since the trans-Alaska oil pipeline came into being.”

Since January, when Glenfarne announced it was buying into the long-pursued Alaska LNG pipeline project, it’s announced a series of preliminary agreements from international companies interested in buying gas.

To date, it doesn’t have firm deals for either buying or selling, and it is expected to make a go/no-go decision on the first phase of the project — a pipeline from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska for in-state use — within the next month.

“I think in January there’s going to be some major announcements that will solidify that this pipeline as a go,” Dunleavy said.

Dunleavy said he’s also been pleased with rising forecasts for Alaska North Slope oil. In November, the federal Energy Information Administration predicted that North Slope production would grow 13% in 2026, reaching levels that haven’t been seen since 2018.

“That’s good for Alaska as well,” Dunleavy said, “because of the renaissance on the Slope.”

The state’s unemployment rate is holding below 5%, he noted.

“When you look at the turmoil across the country and you look at the turmoil across the world, I think Alaska is in pretty good shape. … We have a lot of resources here, and I think we have a lot of great people,” he said.

Asked for the lowest point of the year on a statewide basis, Dunleavy said: “You’re always dealing with disasters. Under my tenure, there’s been 73 declared disasters … we had the issue out in Western Alaska, and so we have to add now a typhoon to our mix of volcanoes, earthquakes and so forth.”

Dunleavy himself was affected by the recent Matanuska-Susitna Borough windstorm disaster, and his wife couldn’t attend the holiday open house as a result.

“We lost some of our roofing on a building or two out there, and the heat went out,” he said.

While disasters are part of living in Alaska, he said Typhoon Halong was something extra.

“I would say that whenever a disaster impacts people at the visceral level, at the local level, at their household level — we got hit hard with that typhoon,” he said.

For much of the year, as in his conversation with reporters, the governor preferred to focus on the positives.

Earlier this year, Dunleavy said the arrival of the Trump administration was “like Christmas every morning” for Alaska.

Since Trump was sworn into office, his administration has relaxed restrictions on oil and gas drilling on the North Slope. It has advanced the Ambler Access Project, which promises to open a large mining area in Northwest Alaska.

The Interior Department has also pushed forward the road between Cold Bay and King Cove and proposals to explore for oil in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Dunleavy administration has been enthusiastic in its support of those actions, but most have been tied up in federal court and will be for months or years.

The ANWR drilling issue, for example, won’t even come before a federal judge until late 2026, according to a status update published this month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska.

The Trump-backed Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress this year will deliver millions of dollars in construction projects to the state, and other legislation will provide millions more, but other projects — particularly those involving renewable energy and projects intended to deal with climate change — were eliminated.

“Christmas every morning” entailed other metaphorical bits of coal for Alaska this year: The extended government shutdown left thousands of Alaskans unpaid for over a month, and the cuts instituted by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency caused significant amounts of uncertainty.

In the long run, DOGE doesn’t appear to have significantly affected the number of federal jobs here: The latest available figures show more federal employees in the state than there were at the start of the year.

While some federal grants targeted by DOGE have since been restored, many were not. Public radio stations and arts organizations laid off staff and curtailed their work.

Tariffs, visa issues and a prolonged dispute with Canada threatened the summer tourist season, but a feared Yukon boycott never appeared, and the number of cruise ship passengers traveling to Alaska increased slightly, to a new record high of more than 1.7 million.

At the holiday open house, Dunleavy said there’s plenty to look forward to in the coming year and in the years once he leaves office.

“There’s just a whole host of things — the possibility of data farms, artificial intelligence, and how that’s gonna revolutionize not just the world, but here in Alaska, I think we could become a data transportation center because of our proximity on the globe. So I think you’re going to see a number of announcements throughout the year that I think will set the stage for a great several decades going forward,” he said.

This story is co-published by the Wrangell Sentinel and Northern Journal.

An Indigenous community is locked in a debate about the pros and cons of a major new mine on their traditional lands — and a big cash payment promised by the developer.

There is strong support, and fierce opposition. A lot of money to be made, and a wild river to protect. The community faces a pivotal choice.

Though this story sounds like it could be unfolding in rural Alaska, a version of it has actually been playing out just across the border with Canada, in northwest British Columbia. Still, it has implications for the Alaskans who live downstream from the proposed mine site.

In a referendum after weeks of heated debate, members of the Tahltan Nation earlier this month voted overwhelmingly to approve a deal with a Canadian mining company that hopes to revive a huge gold and silver mine, called Eskay Creek, which stopped producing in 2008. The project is located above the Unuk River, which flows into Alaska near Ketchikan.

The Tahltans’ backing is a major step forward for the project, and it comes as the Canada and B.C. governments intensify efforts to build more mines in the name of national security and economic growth. Several of the projects are near the border with Alaska, where state and federal elected officials are separately pushing mines that could help wean the U.S. off a foreign supply of minerals used in energy, electronics and weapons.

Just one day after the Tahltan vote, Canada’s federal government announced that it had approved a merger between two multinational mining firms with a condition that calls for advancing two other proposed mines in Tahltan territory. Both projects sit above tributaries of the Stikine River, a major, salmon-bearing waterway that straddles Canada and the U.S. and empties into the ocean near the small Southeast Alaska town of Wrangell.

Louie Wagner Jr., a Tsimshian and Tlingit resident of Metlakatla, a Native community at the southern tip of Alaska’s panhandle, said he’s concerned about the health of the Unuk River and its future with mines in its watershed.

Wagner and his family have fished and hunted moose along the Unuk for generations.

“That little river cannot handle it,” Wagner said in a recent phone interview. The Unuk is notable, he added, for its abundance of eulachon, a small, oily fish also known as hooligan that’s a staple for Indigenous communities in Southeast Alaska.

Though rarely discussed in Alaska circles, the Tahltan Nation’s approach to mining has major implications for the industry’s future in the transboundary region. A top U.S. Department of Interior official visited the region last year to learn more about models for how Indigenous nations can partner with mining companies.

There are more than a dozen early-stage mining projects in Tahltan territory, many above rivers that flow into Alaska. And the Eskay Creek vote could serve as a preview of future deals between the Tahltan government and the for-profit mining companies promoting development.

For months, members of the First Nation debated whether to approve a deal, known as an impact benefit agreement, that Tahltan elected leaders had negotiated with Vancouver-based Skeena Resources, the company pushing Eskay Creek.

The specifics of the agreement have not been made public. But Tahltan officials have said it guarantees benefits worth more than $1 billion over the life of the mine, mostly in cash but also in contracts and wages.

The deal also calls for an upfront payment from Skeena, intended to be distributed to individual Tahltan members — to the tune of $7,250 each, according to Tahltan officials. And the agreement reportedly gives the First Nation government some environmental oversight over the mine.

The nation backed the deal with support from more than 77% of the roughly 1,750 Tahltans who voted, according to the Tahltan Central Government. Payments are expected to go out to members in 2026.

“Tahltan Central Government is not standing on the sidelines,” Tahltan president Kerry Carlick said in a statement after the vote.  “We are embedding ourselves directly into the governance of environmental protection.”

Tahltan leaders have long worked to navigate political tensions between an expanding mining industry and efforts to protect traditional lands and wildlife.

The Tahltan government has entered into a number of agreements with mining companies. But it also has opposed efforts to mine coal and drill for natural gas near the headwaters of major rivers in the region.

And some Tahltan members have been outspoken critics of the Eskay Creek project and the company promoting it.

In the leadup to the recent vote, arguments erupted on social media, and relationships among community members grew strained, some Eskay Creek opponents said in interviews.

“This is causing internal conflicts,” said Tamara Quock, a Tahltan member who lives in northern B.C. some 350 miles east of the mine site.

Quock said she thinks the promise of the direct payments “enticed” some people to vote in favor of the agreement. Debate over the project, she added, grew more intense after that condition was added to the deal.

Quock said she feels Skeena is “using the Tahltan people” to generate its own profits.

She and other critics have voiced concerns about a perceived lack of transparency and potential conflicts of interest within the First Nation’s government. They also say they are worried about possible environmental impacts from the project, which would involve digging two open pits and storing millions of tons of mining waste above the Unuk River.

Skeena didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Alaska Native leaders, fishermen and environmental advocates who live downstream, in Southeast Alaska, for years have expressed concerns about Eskay Creek and other proposed mines in the region, saying they don’t trust Canadian regulators to safeguard Alaskan interests.

“You can’t cut these watersheds in half and expect to adequately protect them,” said Guy Archibald, executive director of the tribally led Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. “Right now they’re cutting the baby in half and ignoring the effects on the Alaska side of the border.”

The commission last month filed a legal challenge in B.C. court, asserting that regulators had failed to consult Alaska tribes on several proposed mines in the region, including Eskay Creek.

Meanwhile, after a major spill last year at a Canadian gold mine in the Yukon River watershed, Alaska’s congressional delegation called for more oversight of Canadian mines near transboundary rivers like the Unuk and Stikine. The statement from the delegation — which has strongly supported mine development in Alaska — called for “binding protections, financial assurances, and strong transboundary governance.”

“As British Columbia seeks to advance numerous mines just upstream from Alaska, we are still asking them to fully remediate legacy sites and firmly commit to binding protections for Alaska interests,” Joe Plesha, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said in a recent statement. “Senator Murkowski is actively considering new ways to make our B.C. neighbors take Alaskans’ concerns seriously.”

Ottawa and B.C.’s provincial government, meanwhile, are funding new infrastructure projects and prioritizing permitting for energy and resource development projects, including Eskay Creek and the expansion of a huge copper and gold mine in the Stikine watershed, called Red Chris.

Canadian officials say existing regulations are geared to minimize impacts in the shared watersheds. Major projects undergo thorough environmental assessments before they’re approved, a spokesperson with the B.C. agency that leads those reviews, the Environmental Assessment Office, said in an email.

“Making sure large-scale projects are properly assessed is critical to making sure development is sustainable — to ensure good jobs and economic growth while also protecting the environment and wildlife, and keeping communities healthy and safe,” said the spokesperson, Sarah Plank.

Tahltan officials declined an interview request and did not respond to questions about Alaskans’ concerns or the First Nation’s agreement with Skeena.

Supporters of Eskay Creek say it could be transformational for the Tahltan Nation. Among proponents of the deal is Chad Norman Day, a former Tahltan president who has worked in the mining industry and now runs a consulting firm that does mining-related business.

“The benefits which flow to the Tahltan Nation from here will empower the people and territory unlike anything we have ever seen,” Day said in a statement after the vote.

Many Tahltan people work in mining, and the First Nation already generates revenue from Red Chris and another large operating mine, Brucejack, which started producing gold in 2017.

In 2019, Tahltan citizens voted in favor of an agreement with a different mining company pushing another, much bigger proposed mine partially in the Unuk watershed, called KSM. The outcome of that vote was nearly identical to the recent Eskay one, with about the same percentage in favor.

The first nation also, in the past five years, has entered into two joint decisionmaking agreements with the B.C. government for regulatory reviews of mining projects, including Eskay Creek.

Before it can start producing, Eskay Creek needs an environmental approval from the provincial government. A decision is expected early next year.

A controversial stretch of road connecting two Eastern Aleutian communities is heading toward construction.

The Alaska Department of Transportation has applied for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to build the road and is taking public comments on the proposed work until Jan. 12.

The 19-mile road would pass through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, connecting King Cove residents to nearby Cold Bay. King Cove community leaders say the single-lane, unpaved road could provide life-saving access to Cold Bay’s all-weather airport, but conservation groups have fought the proposal for decades.

In October, federal officials announced a land exchange agreement with the King Cove Corp. to facilitate the road. That wasn’t the first time a swap agreement had been approved, but local leaders said it was the first time the land had actually switched ownership into the hands of the for-profit Native corporation.

The refuge will swap 490 acres of land for the road, in exchange for about 1,700 acres of the corporation’s land. According to the permit, King Cove Corp. also relinquished its selection rights under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to 5,430 acres of land within the Izembek Refuge, which means it gave up its legal ability to select those parcels under ANCSA in return for the agreed land exchange.

Several environmental groups and dozens of Alaska tribes have called for the road to be stopped. They say the refuge shouldn’t be developed because it would threaten wildlife, some of which are precious subsistence resources for communities across the state.

Subsistence is also part of King Cove’s argument in favor of the road. The tribal government says the road would help them access their own subsistence lands, much of which is inaccessible except by boat.

According to the Corps, the road would cross numerous streams, some of which are home to spawning salmon. The project area also covers the habitat of endangered and threatened species, like the Steller’s eider and the short-tailed albatross.

The corps will consult with various organizations, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the State Historic Preservation Office and federal tribes before issuing permits. They are also accepting public comments during the application process.

Comments can be submitted via email or sent to the Army Corps field office in Fairbanks. You can find more information on the Army Corp’s website.