By DAVE KIFFER - With future ferry service up in the air and the price of both barge shipping and air travel on the rise, you could certainly forgive Ketchikan residents for wistfully wondering how life would be different in Southern Southeast if a road connected Ketchikan to the rest of the continent.
To be sure, even if there was a road it would be at least a 1,500-mile trip to drive from Ketchikan to Seattle but that s the not the point. You could do it, even if it took several days.
It was during the expansion of the canned salmon industry in the 1920s and early 1930s, that the federal government began considering connecting Alaska to the rest of the country. Thomas MacDonald, who would run the Bureau of Public Roads from 1919 to 1953, first proposed a coastal highway between Seattle and Southeast Alaska in 1925.
First case of variant SARS-CoV-2 strain detected in Alaska
Sunday PM (SitNews) Anchorage, Alaska - The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) announced last week that an Anchorage resident who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection last month was infected with a variant strain of the virus known as B.1.1.7, which was originally detected in September in the United Kingdom. This is the first identification in Alaska of the B.1.1.7 strain, or any of the variant strains that are raising concerns among public health officials.
“Viruses constantly change through mutation so it’s not unexpected to find variants of the virus,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin. “However, B.1.1.7 is one of several SARS-CoV-2 variants that has been carefully tracked because it appears to spread more easily and quickly than other strains of the virus.”
Alaska s all-time coldest recorded temperature turns 50 January 29th |
Jan. 23, 2021, is the 50th anniversary of Alaska s all-time lowest temperature: minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, recorded by a weather observer at Prospect Creek Camp.
Now a clearing in the woods, Prospect Creek Camp was located near the confluence of Prospect Creek and the Jim River, just north of the Arctic Circle and about 160 miles north of Fairbanks.
The camp was there to house workers building the trans-Alaska pipeline. The high temperature at Prospect Creek Camp that January day in 1971 was minus 64 degrees. The warmest air people in Allakaket (about 56 miles away) felt the next day was minus 66 degrees, which is still Alaska s record for the lowest high temperature of any day.
Nonprofit aims to connect marine businesses, investors January 29th |
New ocean-related jobs, investments and opportunities will be seeded by an ambitious Blue Pipeline Venture Studio that connects marine business entrepreneurs with the technology, contacts and finances they need to grow. The state s blue economy includes anything that takes place on the water, most prominently the seafood industry, along with marine recreation, maritime research, waterborne transportation and much more, said Garrett Evridge, a well-known fisheries economist previously with the former McDowell Group and new research director for the Venture Studio. There is significant opportunity to grow the Alaska ocean economy, he added. That might come from refinement of existing industries, getting more value out of salmon, for example, or support for new industries like growing seaweeds, or just being prepared for opportunities that aren t even on the radar. Like what s going to happen in 10,
Sightings of usually stealthy lynx becoming more common January 21st |
Mike Taras has worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for many years, but this is the first time he has said the words nuisance lynx.
Taras, a wildlife education and outreach specialist, said people are seeing a lot of lynx in Alaska s Interior. I don t remember people calling in telling us about lynx getting chickens and attacking cats and dogs, Taras said.
Canada lynx are wild northern cats found throughout most of Alaska. The long-legged creatures pad through the entire sweep of the boreal forest, all the way to the Atlantic coast of Canada. The felines that leave behind perfect-circle tracks in the snow are the perfect predator of the snowshoe hare.