Subsistence

“These ridges that we’re standing on, there would have been more of them, and they would have been bigger,” ice researcher Andy Mahoney says. “The features that we now see, they’re something of a shadow from the past.”

A letter closes the investigation into the gray whale killed last summer on the Kuskokwim River. The final enforcement outcome was a slap on the wrist nine months after the whale swam up the river.

Salmon are beginning to hit the nets of subsistence fishermen around Bristol Bay. Eddie Clark was fishing at coffee point near Egegik last week when he got his first salmon.

Most of those who showed up for a Bureau of Land Management meeting in Fairbanks opposed the plan to open ANWR. They said it would disrupt caribou calving season and harm subsistence, culture and environment.

Once again, the Chilkat and Chilkoot rivers are turning black with little fish scrambling upstream. The eulachon, commonly known as hooligan, are running in full force and all kinds of different species are loving it. At the mouth of the Chilkoot river, there’s a feeding frenzy happening. Birds dip beaks and talons into the water,…

“I was impressed with the range of comments that we got,” La Marr said. “Comments from the mining industry, comments from environmental groups, a lot of comments from the tribes… comments from people throughout Alaska and people in the lower 48 as well.”