Alaska Sea Grant Lands Gift to Boost Commercial Seafood Harvesters Alaska Sea Grant Lands Gift to Boost Commercial Seafood Harvesters
Photo by Deborah Mercy/Alaska Sea Grant Commercial fishing vessels head out to sea near Chignik Lagoon.
Alaska Sea Grant at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has received a $450,000 donation from Northwest Farm Credit Services to fund several programs that support Alaska’s commercial seafood harvesters.
The donation from Northwest Farm Credit Services, a cooperative that finances farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen and more, is directed to programs that provide business education and tools to current and aspiring Alaska commercial fishing business owners.
Alaska Sea Grant at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has received a $450,000 donation from Northwest Farm Credit Services to fund several programs that support Alaska’s commercial seafood harvesters. The donation from Northwest Farm Credit Services, a cooperative that finances farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen and more, is directed to programs that provide business education and […]
Beads on the tundra: The first U.S. import from Europe? February 11th |
Glass beads the size of blueberries found by archaeologists in a Brooks Range house-pit might be the first European item ever to arrive in North America, predating the arrival of Columbus by a few decades.
Made in Venice, Italy, the tiny blue beads might have traveled more than 10,000 miles in the skin pockets of aboriginal adventurers to reach the Bering Strait. There, someone ferried them across the ocean to Alaska.
At least 10 of the beads survived a few centuries in the cold dirt of three locations in northern Alaska. Archaeologists recently unraveled the mystery of the beads in a paper published in the journal American Antiquity.
It’s time to re-write the history books again folks, although if you’re still reading that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492, you need to buy a whole new history book. Renessaisance-era Venetian glass beads discovered at multiple archaeological sites in Alaska suggest they pre-date Columbus’s arrival by decades, making them the earliest known European goods in the Americas. This means Indigenous North Americans had contact with people who had either been to Italy or traded with people who had long before Columbus rocked up.
By now, it’s commonly accepted that the Vikings were the first Europeans to set foot on continental North America. Leif Erikkson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, led the first European expedition in search of the “New World” nearly 500 years before Columbus, with the oldest known Norse settlement discovered in Newfoundland, Canada dating to 1000 CE.
Calista board member Wayne Don became a brigadier general in the National Guard this past weekend. He has been serving as the director of the joint staff in Alaska and heading up the Alaska National Guard’s COVID-19 Response Team, which has meant doing contact tracing, food distribution in Southcentral Alaska, and being prepared to do more if needed.
“Nobody has needed guard assistance, which is a good thing,” said Don. “It means that the capacity in each of the communities hasn’t been exhausted. So really, when a community can’t deal with the issues in front of them is usually when we get called in.”