Taking GED or vocational classes in prison is not unusual. But at Juneau’s Lemon Creek Correctional Center, a small group is studying Latin, a language that’s been dead for centuries.

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Visitors to Lemon Creek Correctional Center pass through three locked gates. You surrender your phone, keys — pretty much everything but your ID.

Once you pass through the final door, you’re locked in with 200 inmates.

“I call them my captive audience,” Jim Hale, a former college professor who teaches writing at the prison, said.

Hale began teaching at Lemon Creek about four years. Over time, he grew closer with some of his more dedicated students. A few months ago one of them approached him with an unusual request: Would he consider teaching Latin?

Hale learned Latin years ago as a graduate student studying Renaissance literature, but he hesitated.

His Latin was rusty, and why would anyone want to learn a dead language, let alone in prison?

“The one thing about Latin is, you’ll see anybody who’s been to jail or has to deal with legal process, you see a lot of Latin words a lot of people are not understanding,” Lemon Creek inmate Lowell Ford said.

Ford has had enough experience with legal proceedings to recognize a number of Latin phrases, but that’s not why he asked Hale to teach the class.

Since joining Hale’s writing class four years ago, Ford has worked hard to improve his style. But he’s a perfectionist — constantly editing and revising his work, never quite feeling satisfied with it.

Ford likes to write as concisely as possible, which makes choosing his words carefully very important.

“With no grasp of Latin then the grasp of English seems to be kind of fleeting and you lose where the word came from or what the word truly is supposed to mean,” Ford said.

In his writing classroom, Hale peppers his lectures with discussions of Latin etymology.

Hale always told his students that understanding the original meaning of the words you want to use is the only way to really get across what you want to say in writing.

Knowing that, Hale said yes. The former professor and freelance writing instructor even bought the Latin textbooks out of pocket.

“So it was a way of honoring our friendship,” Hale said. “And then, he found other guys who wanted to do it!”

The class meets weekly for an hour in the prison library. During a recent lesson, they examined a poem about Dido, queen of Carthage.

Four men in faded yellow jumpsuits took turns translating lines of text into English. Sometimes they paused on a tricky word until Hale offered up a gentle hint to get them going again.

Ford says the vocabulary is particularly tricky for new learners. So much of English evolved from Latin, as did the meanings of many words.

“When you’re memorizing Latin original words, sometimes the English words try to superimpose themselves over the Latin origination words,” Ford explained.

“For instance, our words ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ come from two Latin words meaning the same thing,” Hale added.

Ford said he spends more than an hour each night in his cell going over vocabulary and conjugation. He’s been reading the Aeneid in his spare time.

“It’s like learning how to spell for a spelling bee; you take a list of words and you repeat them numerous times and then you write them and you write them and you write them,” Ford said.

They don’t spend much time on pronunciation — Latin hasn’t been spoken as a native language for more than a thousand years, after all. The goal is simply to understand the texts they study.

Hale said teaching the class forced him to revisit a subject he thought he’d never study again.

“It’s an old axiom that you never really learn a subject until you have to teach it,” Hale said. “I feel like I’m learning Latin again with the guys.”

Ford has been at Lemon Creek for about six years. He’s not due for release until 2020. He’s 39 now, and he knows learning new languages and subjects will only get harder. But he said he’s grateful for the opportunity.

“It makes a section of time that would normally not have much value for me, turn into something that can be positive,” Ford said.

The class may go on hiatus later this summer while Hale is out of town, but Ford said he plans to continue practicing alone and with his classmates.

Fewer summer chum salmon and king salmon swam up the Yukon River than expected this season. High water and debris made it tough to catch and count the salmon swimming by.

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At first, many hoped the king run was late and restrictions would be lifted, but with more than 90 percent of the kings past the lower Yukon, data indicates that only around 165,000 king salmon made it past Pilot Station. That is much less than the low-end projection of 175,000.

The summer chum numbers are also below the pre-season forecast of 2.5 million. The in-season forecast is now around 1.7 million fish.

The data also indicates that the Yukon River king run includes fewer older fish than predicted.

A shed and an outhouse.

Those are the only structures that have burned in Alaska’s wildfire season this summer, according to officials.

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Wildfires have burned just 270,000 acres in the state this year. That’s far short of the 1.2 million acres that burn during a normal season.

“In the press release I’m just writing up, I used the word ‘largely uneventful,’” state Division of Forestry spokesman Tim Mowry said.

The division is one of several state and federal agencies responsible for fighting wildfires in Alaska.

On Tuesday, those agencies said they’re sending 100 of Alaska’s wildland firefighters out-of-state. Five crews are flying to Idaho to be dispatched to fires around the Western U.S.

The main cause for this year’s slow fire season? Mowry says there haven’t been any long periods of hot, dry weather.

There have still been 288 fires in Alaska this year. And they’ve burned 425 square miles — more than a third of the area of Rhode Island.

But most of those fires have been far from densely populated areas.

Two blazes are currently getting serious attention from firefighters. They’re outside the tiny village of Chalkyitsik. That’s about 170 miles northeast of Fairbanks.

James Nathaniel is Chalkyitsik’s tribal administrator.

“Everybody was getting excited because you could actually see the smoke coming from the fire,” Nathaniel said.

Lightning started the two fires in early July.

Officials say the area where they’re burning, the Yukon Flats, is among the driest in the state. But firefighters are now making progress in getting them under control.

Even without fires threatening urban areas, the state has still budgeted about $23 million for firefighting and prevention this year.

Some crews have been fighting fires. Others have been working on projects to create barriers, to make it easier to stop fires when they start in the future.

Mowry said it’s worth paying to have crews on hand in case a major blaze breaks out.

“That’s how this business works is, you can’t just flip a switch and have people there, ready to go,” Mowry said. “There’s a lot of planning and training and everything every year that goes into this.”

On Monday night, just after President Trump announced his nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, an abortion-rights crowd gathered outside the court to protest.

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“We object!” they shouted.

Liberals across the country have pinned their hopes on Sens. Susan Collins of Maine or Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski to derail the confirmation.

Collins and Murkowski typically vote for abortion rights and are among the Republicans who most frequently vote against their party. But Murkowski is keeping her cards close to her vest on Kavanaugh.

Murkowski said she’s disappointed at all the interest groups and partisans who prejudged the nominee.

“I’m a little annoyed that some of my colleagues, even before the president had laid down Judge Kavanaugh’s name, had already determined they were going to vote against whomever,” Murkowski told Alaska reporters in her office Tuesday morning.

Murkowski isn’t making any such early pronouncements, pro or con.

“I’ve been asked already this morning by several different reporters, ‘What do you think? What do you think?'” Murkowski said. “I am certainly going to defer on that until I’ve had an opportunity to review.”

Murkowski said she’s going to base her decision on Kavanaugh’s record, the rating the American Bar Association gives him and the views of Alaskans.

“I hope that Alaskans will weigh in,” Murkowski said, “but I also hope that they will give it thoughtful consideration, too, and not just a knee-jerk, ‘You should support him because he’s Trump’s pick,’ or ‘You should not support him because he’s Trump’s pick.'”

Murkowski said she’ll also rely on what she learns in a face-to-face interview with Kavanaugh, which may be weeks away.

For many Americans, this vote is all about the future of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion across the country. But it’s generally accepted in Washington that you can’t ask a judicial nominee how he’ll vote on a challenge to Roe, because a judge is supposed to consider the facts of each case, not pre-judge a case based on hypotheticals.

Murkowski said she abides by the rule.

“If he’s a good judge he’ll say, ‘I cannot pre-determine an outcome. That’s not my job,'” Murkowski said.

Murkowski called her evaluation standards “rigorous and exacting.”

Murkowski was far more effusive when Trump announced his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the high court. In a statement right after Gorsuch was announced, Murkowski said she was pleased with the selection and commended Trump on a strong nominee.

Murkowski said she was able to say more then because she had more advance notice on Gorsuch.

“The indicators were there very early that Gorsuch was going to be the nominee, and so I think there was just a little more opportunity to just kind of process,” Murkowski said.

Here’s another difference: Gorsuch replaced Justice Antonin Scalia, who anchored the conservative wing of the court, but Kavanaugh would replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the bench. Murkowski said she valued Kennedy’s moderating voice and said she’d be “fine” with a nominee in that mold.

“And so the question is whether Kavanaugh replaces him as that justice who is perhaps more in the middle,” Murkowski said. “I don’t know that he is. But that is something that I’m going to be looking at.”

Actually, Kavanaugh is considered by most court watchers to be much further to the right than Kennedy. Among the other things Murkowski said she wants to know about Kavanaugh is whether he looks to precedent for clarity and what he considers settled law.

Sen. Dan Sullivan said Judge Kavanaugh is known for applying the Constitution “as written,” upholding the right to bear arms and having a “healthy skepticism” of the powers of executive branch agencies — all plusses, in Sullivan’s book. And Sullivan said he knows Kavanaugh, from when they both worked in the Bush Administration. Sullivan didn’t exactly say how he’d vote, but he very rarely votes against the Republican leadership and he’s given no indication he would vote no on Kavanaugh.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

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All 11 passengers survive Tuesday morning floatplane crash on Prince of Wales Island

Leila Kheiry, KRBD – Ketchikan

Eleven people have survived an airplane crash Tuesday morning on Prince of Wales Island, and were back in Ketchikan early Tuesday afternoon.

Will Murkowski block Kavanaugh nomination? Here’s how she says she’ll decide

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Sen. Murkowski isn’t saying whether she’ll vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Here’s how she says she’ll decide.

AFL-CIO president says Walker has earned re-election 

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

The head of Alaska’s largest labor federation says at this point Governor Bill Walker would have most unions’ support. And he wants Walker and former U.S. Senator Mark Begich to reach an agreement that would leave only one of them in the race for governor.

State’s wildfire season ‘largely uneventful,’ according to officials

Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

Wildfires have burned just 270,000 acres in the state this year. That’s far short of the 1.2 million acres that burn during a normal season.

Coast Guard, partners search ferries for illegal activity, drugs

Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak

U.S. Coast Guard and Alaska law enforcement agencies seized 56 grams of heroin, an ounce of methamphetamine and almost 2 pounds of non-commercial marijuana in a large-scale search for illegal activity on ferries in Washington state and Alaska.

Fewer summer chum and kings in Yukon than predicted

Johanna Eurich, KYUK – Anchorage

Fewer summer chum salmon and king salmon swam up the Yukon River than expected this season.

How ‘pickers’ and ‘lickers’ help Bristol Bay’s fleet

Austin Fast, KDLG – Dillingham

Every couple of days during salmon season, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports how many sockeye from each age class are returning to Bristol Bay.

Lemon Creek inmates study Latin etymology and epic poems behind bars

Adelyn Baxter, KTOO – Juneau

Taking GED or vocational classes in prison is not unusual. But at Juneau’s Lemon Creek Correctional Center, a small group is studying Latin, a language that’s been dead for centuries.

Larsen Bay manages summer recycling needs

Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak

Residents of Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island are working to keep recycling alive for the population of around 70 people.

Alaskan skier and Olympic gold medalist Kikkan Randall has cancer. Randall made the announcement on Instagram Wednesday morning.

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“The color pink has taken on a new chapter in my life,” Randall said in her post on social media. Known for her pink-streaked hair, the skier said she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

The 35-year-old from Anchorage had just moved to Penticton, B.C. with her husband Jeff and two-year-old son Breck when she noticed a lump in her breast.

“It was actually Mother’s Day,” Randall said. “We were just starting to get a break after the wave of gold medal stuff and moving and all that. Breck and Jeff and I had a great day out exploring.”

It was the end of the day and Randall was getting ready for bed.

“I just happened to brush past my breast and noticed something felt different. It felt kind of like a pea or a marble,” Randall said.

Randall got a mammogram, then an ultrasound, and finally a biopsy. She says she was shocked with the results.

“All the signs they tell you that prevent breast cancer– exercise, nutrition, no smoking– I checked all those off,” Randall said. “And I have no family history, so this really just came as an absolute surprise.”

Randall wasn’t insured yet in Canada, so she started talking to doctors back in Anchorage, where her parents still live.

Randall found a good team at Providence Medical Center and started treatment on Monday. She will have five more rounds between now and November. When the chemo is finished she’ll have a break and then surgery.

Meanwhile, Randall said she’s focused on what’s right in front of her — the support of her friends and family, her community in Anchorage, and her fans around the world. She’s working with an organization called Active Against Cancer, which was started by an Olympic marathoner.

“This is so overwhelming,” Randall explained. “You almost stop in your tracks and you stop doing all the things you normally do, yet your body needs those things that you always do so I’m going to try to keep activity at the forefront here and also hope to be a good advocate for [Active Against Cancer].”

Randall had already been involved with the organization for five years now, so she says she’ll put the energy she has into promoting a healthy lifestyle for cancer survivors.

Randall biked to her first round of chemo on Monday and plans to stay active in the months to come.

The color pink has taken on a new chapter in my life as I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Although we caught it early and the prognosis is good, my life will change quite a bit in the coming months. I have returned to Anchorage for treatment at @providencealaska Cancer Center. It’s a scary thing to learn you have cancer and I have wondered every day since how this could have possibly happened to me. But I have promised myself that I will remain positive and active and determined throughout my treatment. I am going to bring as much tenacity, strength, and energy toward this challenge as I have throughout my entire career. I began my first round of chemo on Monday surrounded by great friends and family. I made to sure get a gym workout in beforehand, rode my bike to and from the hospital, and wore my happy shoes. I will be using my blog to keep everyone posted through my upcoming journey. #Kikkanimal @llbean @aktivmotkreft @aktiv_usa photos by @charlesrenfroski

A post shared by Kikkan Randall (@kikkanimal) on Jul 11, 2018 at 8:54am PDT

The head of Alaska’s largest labor federation says at this point, Gov. Bill Walker would have most unions’ support. And he wants Walker and former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich to reach an agreement that would leave only one of them in the race for governor.

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Four years ago, the Alaska AFL-CIO endorsed independent Bill Walker – after Democratic candidate Byron Mallott joined Walker’s ticket as the candidate for lieutenant governor.

Based on what the Walker-Mallott administration has done since then, federation President Vince Beltrami said the governor deserves re-election. The AFL-CIO will make an endorsement on Aug. 24 – if two-thirds of its unions can agree.

“If I had to make a bet, I would say that, if we can get an endorsement, if we can get two-thirds, that it would be more for Gov. Walker at this point, because folks believe that he’s earned re-election in our eyes,” Beltrami said before adding, “Now that’s just my opinion.”

The AFL-CIO released poll results Monday that show Republican candidate Mike Dunleavy leading, with Walker and Democrat Mark Begich tied for second in a three-way race. Dunleavy would have 32 percent of the votes – Walker and Begich, 28 percent each, with 12 percent undecided. But the poll said both Walker and Begich would defeat Dunleavy if there were only two major candidates.

Beltrami said a two-person race would be best for workers.

“I hope that there can be some consensus between the Walker and Begich camps on the way forward, and of course that would mean, you know, potentially one of those candidates either stepping aside or coming to some kind of agreement like what happened back in 2014,” Beltrami said.

Labor unions can play a big role in Alaska elections. The state has the fourth-highest rate of union membership of any state, at 18 percent of workers.

Beltrami said he was a little disappointed and surprised that Begich entered the race. He’s supported Begich in all of his previous runs, but the union leader said this time it’s confusing to voters.

“I don’t think it was the best calculation from our perspective for Mark to get in,” Beltrami said. “He claims that there’s a path to winning. I haven’t seen that yet. I’m still looking forward to see if that bears out, but in general it just kind of complicated the race a little bit more.”

Walker said he appreciates what Beltrami had to say about the race.

“I think we have walked the talk on where we are with labor,” Walker said. “And a very significant part of that, of course, is the project labor agreement for a gas line.”

Begich also is proud of his record on labor. And he said he was encouraged by the poll results. He noted he won a three-way race to become Anchorage mayor in 2003.

“In a lot of ways, I think the next seven or eight weeks will really tell the story of who has the best chance of winning in November,” Begich said. “I don’t think it can be determined based on a moment in time.”

Walker said he expects his campaign will talk with Begich’s about narrowing the field.

“I anticipate there will be communications to a certain degree going forward and I think that’s probably a necessary piece to somewhat simplify the race to a two-way rather than a three-way race,” Walker said.

Begich said it’s too soon to predict how his campaign will interact with Walker’s. He said that a week can be a lifetime in politics.

“I think if the governor’s making those comments, then we’ll see how the time goes,” Begich said. “But I can tell you that we’re running full tilt. We – really, this is our first week of a hard, focused campaign, (after) the first four weeks getting organized, getting our state structure together. And now we’re putting it all out there starting this week.”

The AFL-CIO will hear from candidates at a convention on Aug. 23, and could issue endorsements the next day. Beltrami said unions also will be active in legislative races.

Dunleavy faces six opponents in the Republican primary: former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell; Darin Colbry, a janitor and landscaping worker; Thomas Gordon, a heavy equipment mechanic; Gerald Heikes, who has owned a drywall company; Merica Hlatcu, an engineer; and Michael Sheldon, a handyman. Libertarian Billy Toien, a hotel concierge, also is running in the general election.

Preschool teacher Hannah Hendrickson said there are two distinct duties for catch samplers working at salmon processing plants around Bristol Bay.

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“People oftentimes nickname this job as the pickers and the lickers, so I said, ‘I’m not a licker. I’m only a picker!’ ” Hendrickson said.

Hendrickson is talking about picking freshly caught sockeye out of huge, ice-filled crates so she can mark down their length and gender and weigh every eighth fish.

The licker is her colleague Deven Lisac. Across the table at Peter Pan Seafoods in Dillingham, Lisac was snipping off bits of fins and plucking out fish scales. Saliva is a good enough adhesive to stick fish scales on the thick cards for their journey to the Department of Fish and Game laboratory in King Salmon.

“Grab the tweezers, and then you just give it a lick,” Lisac advised. “And that was fish No. 4, so it goes on slot four.”

The pair are part of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s seasonal crew tasked with sampling 240 sockeye a day from each district in the bay. They also sample 200 chums and 200 kings a week.

Biologists can analyze fish scales like tree rings to determine age, as wider sections indicate nutrient-rich summers and narrower ones are scarce winters. Scale-agers in King Salmon have a busy month from mid-June to late July, counting the rings on approximately 46,000 scale samples from all five commercial districts, the Port Moller Test Fishery and the escapement counting towers.

Jack Erickson, a research coordinator with ADF&G in King Salmon, explained that the salmon age classifications of 1.2, 2.2, 1.3, 2.3 and so on represent how many years the fish spent in fresh water before migrating out to sea. A 1.2, for example, means one season in fresh water and two in salt water.

With a giant sockeye run of 51.3 million forecast for this year, Erickson said Bristol Bay fishermen should absolutely take notice of the age of the fish they’re catching.

“1.2s are smaller typically than 1.3s. They’re a year longer in the salt water for growth. (Fishermen) are concerned about their markets as well,” Erickson said. “I think there’s a lot of fisherman, very savvy, that are looking at the same information the biologists are. When they look at the Port Moller Test Fishery, when they look at our age comp(osition)s, when they look at our escapements, they’re wondering the same thing and wanting to have instant access just like the biologists sitting here in King Salmon and in Dillingham.

Providing all that fish data is messy work with hours just as dependent on the tides as fishermen. During the school year, Hendrickson wrangles squirming four-year-olds at the Bristol Bay Native Association’s Head Start program. She’s now doing the same with fish that are just as slippery.

“Sometimes we’re doing an overnight sample that starts at 10 in the evening and goes until 3 in the morning. There’s one time that we got everything cleaned up and a tender from Igushik comes in and we’re like, ‘We’ll take them!’ so we were here doing that stuff again,” Hendrickson said.

Hendrickson is just two weeks into her first season sampling the Nushagak harvest. On the other hand, Lisac is an old pro in her fourth summer with ADF&G.

“Every day, it’s a struggle fighting with dead fish,” Lisac said. “Then when I get home, they’re processing fish at the house, so it never ends. This time of year is fish. I do get tired of eating fish and fish and fish.”

ADF&G has one catch sampler in Togiak and four in King Salmon all sending data to the lab like Hendrickson and Lisac. They’ll be meeting tenders at the dock every day across Bristol Bay until July 19. Erickson said analyzing salmon genetics is just one tool in managing fisheries.

“It’s a predictor. It doesn’t always come in exactly as predicted — matter of fact, they rarely do. Some come in large, and some come in small,” Erickson said. “We don’t take any specific one as a sign that something’s bad or good. It just helps us lead the direction of how we’re going to manage.”

A commercial company that aims to launch small payloads into the earth’s orbit is conducting tests for a future launch from Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s facility at Narrow Cape.

They’re trying to develop a streamlined rocket, or vehicle, to carry small payloads.

The employees of the company, Vector, are conducting tests with a simulation rocket.

Pacific Spaceport Complex facilities director Bruce Walter enters what looks like a locker room. It’s important that no dust gets through.

“This is where you would don your white robe, if you will. Booties, pants, hoods, and you’d walk through the air bath, which is just a big air Jacuzzi, gets all the dust off of you, HEPA filter’s at the bottom to take the particles out, and then you step into the clean room,” Walter said.

What’s known as the clean room is big and well-lit. The ceiling is so high that it dwarfs anyone that enters. It’s like a cathedral, but for spaceships. This building is where staff prepares satellites, also known as payloads, for launch.

What looks like a rocket is set up on one side of the room. It’s dark grey with orange lettering along the side reading Vector. The company says it’s 43 feet long and 42 inches wide.

Walter explains it’s a test model.

“They’re going through the steps to make sure that all of their procedures work with the real vehicle,” Walter said. “This is a mock up. If you look in the back end of it, it’s just a big, empty tube.”

John Garvey, president of launch services for Vector, says the exercises this week are part of a test run. They’re focusing on the operations, like moving the vehicle around.

“And we’re just trying to establish that as the basis so that when we move up to the next level, issues like transporting it, picking it up, erecting it vertical will already have been accepted as normal so we can start working on the next level of functions,” Garvey said.

Garvey says they were out at the facility on Tuesday for the exercise and continued with exercises Wednesday.

City Councilors and community members in Unalaska expressed support Tuesday night for an ordinance that would ban single-use plastic bags in Unalaska.

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As it stands, the proposed ordinance would put the burden on retailers. Starting Jan. 1, businesses would receive $100 fines for providing a customer with a disposable shopping bag. That does not include plastic bags used to package bulk items like fruit.

Vice Mayor Dennis Robinson first added the issue to a City Council agenda in April and said he fully supports the ban.

“I think we need to get away from plastics,” Robinson said. “If you have eaten a fish out of the sea in the past 10 years, you have nanoplastics in your blood from that fish. It’s a horrible thought.”

Nearly a dozen Unalaskans voiced their support for the bag ban. But some, like Abi Woodbridge, said it doesn’t go far enough.

“In the very near future, I highly recommend that straws be added, but also the industrial use of plastics on the docks,” Woodbridge said. “When people shrink wrap pallets, that stuff gets loose. It ends up in the bay.”

Earlier this month, Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban drinking straws. Now, food packaging in the city must be recyclable or compostable.

No one expressed opposition to Unalaska’s ban, and councilors said they may add other plastic items.

The push to reduce Unalaska’s dependence on plastic bags began at a community meeting in February.

Councilors will continue discussing the proposed ordinance at their next meeting July 24.

The Arctic tundra in Northwest Alaska is being colonized by a new species: beavers.

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Historical records and previous studies indicated that Alaska’s boreal forests were the northern edge of the species. But a new analysis of satellite data shows the animals expanding past the treeline and into the Arctic.

Beavers are like little engineers: they alter the shape of streams, rivers and ponds by building dams. Which is a lucky break if you’re a scientist with satellite images.

“We can actually see the mark of this animal from space,” Ken Tape, professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said. Tape is the lead author of the new paper playfully titled “Tundra be dammed: Beaver colonization of the Arctic.”

Tape and his colleagues used satellite data to map the formation and disappearance of beaver ponds in an 18,293 km² area of the northwest Arctic over a 15-year period ending in 2014.

“We didn’t really know what we were going to find,” Tape said. “If they were moving out of the Arctic, then you’d see a lot of ponds draining…  But that’s not what we saw, we saw a lot of new ponds forming.”

So, what could be causing this push into new territory?

Tape says they think that climate change is definitely playing a role. As the Arctic warms, there’s more unfrozen water in winter, which is prime habitat for beavers to build their shelters. There’s also more shrub growth, which means more food, and more building material.

But the researchers aren’t ruling out the idea that beavers may be returning to an area they inhabited in the past. Tape says it’s possible they were wiped out by trapping in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“So we could be seeing a population rebound where they’re reoccupying their former range,” Tape said.

Both of these things could explain their expansion north.

So, given that beavers change whatever land they get their paws on, what does that mean for the Arctic ecosystem?

“We don’t really have a clear answer to that,” Tape said. “But what we see is that when you change the hydrology, when you pool water on the tundra landscape, you immediately induce permafrost thaw.”

That thaw — under the beaver pond and around it — along with the warmth of the beaver pond itself might create what Tape calls a sort of “oasis” where plants and critters typically found further south might flourish. In other words, the beavers could be accelerating changes already happening in the Arctic due to a warming climate.

The obstructions that beavers make in the waterways could also impact existing fish populations, in ways that could be positive in some cases and negative in others.

Tape says he hopes to do more research to try to answer some of those questions.

The Copper River dip net fishery is re-opening after being shut down for more than a month. A dismal early wild sockeye return, which threatened escapement goals, is rebounding, according to Glennallen area state biologist Mark Somerville.

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”We’re monitoring hatchery component and overall escapement here to see if we can keep the fishery open,” Somerville said. “And obviously it looks like right now we can. We’ve opened up the personal use fishery for an 84-hour period here starting Thursday at noon through Sunday.”

Somerville says sport fishing is also re-opening with a Friday start date. With ensuring escapement in mind, he says managers are working to determine the number of hatchery versus wild sockeye stocks moving upriver.

”Trying to figure out whether or not we’re gonna reach that wildstock escapement goal,” Somerville said. “It’s not like the different fish come up in colors or anything like that. They all look the same.”

Somerville says historic return timing, and genetic analysis help biologists sort the returning stocks, noting that hatchery fish are internally marked.

”The hatchery operator puts their outgoing fry into a strontium bath for about 24 hours. Strontium is a salt, and they incorporate that strontium into the bone structure of their otoliths, which we refer to as ear bones, but it’s a bone we look at for aging,” Somerville said. “And then, when those fish return, those otoliths are taken out. They’re sectioned, they’re polished, they’re coated, and then the department sends them to the University of Alaska Fairbanks to look at them under an electron microscope. And when they use a fluorescent light, the strontium actually shows a green band. And so we can tell if that fish came from the hatchery, or is a natural fish.”

Somerville says biologists are also trying to understand why the early part of this season’s run was so weak. He says it may be due to poor ocean survival, but could also reflect its 2013 parent stock, which was heavily harvested in the commercial fishery during the early part of that year’s run.

”We tended to pass early fish at a lower level than we did the later fish, and we could be seeing the result of that as well this year,” Somerville said.

For dip-netters planning to fish this week’s dip net opening, Somerville notes that the Copper River has been running high and fast, conditions that slow fish movement upriver, and make boating and dip netting challenging. Somerville says cloudy cooler weather the early part of this week should ease the situation.

The U.S. House on Wednesday passed a revision of the Magnuson Stevens Act sponsored by Alaska Congressman Don Young. The original 1976 Magnuson Stevens is almost universally praised. It’s the law that keeps foreign fishing fleets off America’s shores and established regional management councils to rebuild fish stocks and ensure sustainable harvests. But Young’s renewal of the law is not without controversy.

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Young always says the Magnuson Stevens Act was misnamed.

“I like (to) take pride in that bill. It’s my bill, the Magnuson Act,” Young said in an interview in his office before the vote. “It went over to the Senate and the Senate did what they usually do, they named it, the Magnuson Stevens Act. And it shouldn’t have been named that. I won’t go into what should have been named.”

Rightly or wrongly, the bill is named for the late Sens. Warren Magnuson of Washington and Ted Stevens of Alaska. But Young’s larger point is that he considers the law his baby and insists he would never do anything to undercut it. Young said his latest bill, H.R. 200, builds on the original idea that fisheries management should be built on sound science

“That same goal is there but times evolve,” Young said. “Technology improved and we think it’s time the councils that are doing their jobs have a little more flexibility.”

Adding flexibility to the law is important, Young said, because the management councils know the facts of their fisheries better than Congress does.

For instance, in the House floor debate, Young pointed to the law’s 10-year deadline for stock rebuilding programs.

“If the fish come back quicker under this bill, (H.R.) 200, they can be fished at sustainable yield level,” he said. “Under the present law, which I wrote, they can’t do that. Otherwise we lose years and management of the fish for a period of time.”

Young said some people oppose his bill because they don’t want commercial fisheries succeed.

It is the flexibility Young likes that is exactly what strikes some as a step backwards. Democratic Congressman Jared Huffman of California said Young’s revisions would open the door to the bad old days of overfishing, before Young –  and the senators – created the Magnuson Stevens Act. Huffman led the opposition to Young’s modifications.

“So I find myself ironically in the position of defending the framework that (Young) essentially created, against my colleague’s attempts to make changes that I believe are fundamentally threatening to that very framework,” Huffman said.

Huffman cited a government estimate that if all the nation’s depleted fisheries were rebuilt, it would create an additional $31 billion in seafood sales.

“That’s why we want to keep these critical provisions that have worked so well, because we can do even better if we stay the course,” Huffman said.

Linda Behnken of Sitka caught part of the House debate online, during a break in her fishing season. She is director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and said it’s more important than ever to rely on science in fisheries management.

“As the oceans change right now, with warming oceans (and) ocean acidification, we can’t assume that fish have the resilience that we had thought they had in the past,” Behnken said. “We need to be particularly cautious.”

Behnken said the push for more flexibility is primarily coming from the recreational fishing sector in the Gulf of Mexico, which is seeking alternative management methods. She’s not in favor of straying from the principles in the Magnuson Stevens Act.

“A fish that’s dead is a fish that’s dead, no matter who caught it,” Behnken said. “So all sectors need to be held to annual catch limits if we’re to assure a health future for our fisheries.”

The chairman of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, whose jurisdiction includes the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, wrote a letter saying the Council doesn’t see the need for major changes to the Magnuson Stevens Act but also see the benefit of giving the councils more flexibility in some situations.

The bill passed the House 222-193 and next goes to the Senate, where its prospects are far from certain.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

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Alaskan skier Kikkan Randall reveals breast cancer diagnosis

Emily Russell, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Alaskan skier and Olympic gold medalist Kikkan Randall has breast cancer. Randall made the announcement on Instagram Wednesday morning.

Fisheries: Why Young wants changes to beloved law

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Rep. Don Young claims pride of authorship in the Magnuson Stevens Act, but he’s penned a few revisions. The U.S. House just passed them. Critics say he shouldn’t mess with a masterpiece.

Trump’s tariffs on China could shake up Alaska seafood industry

Daysha Eaton, KMXT – Kodiak

On Tuesday, the Trump administration proposed 200 billion dollars in new tariffs on China, upsetting markets worldwide.

Calista shareholder meeting rocked with contentious tone over several lawsuits

Teresa Cotsirilos, KYUK – Bethel

The Calista Regional Corporation, representing shareholders in Bethal and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is embroiled in not one, but two ongoing lawsuits, one of which is a sexual harrassment case. The corporation’s annual meeting last Friday was far more contentious than usual. Though shareholders voted to maintain the current leadership structure, they also had angry, pointed questions for CEO Andrew Guy.

Hatchery debate wages on as research continues

Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer

A conflict is intensifying over hatcheries in Prince William Sound.

Unalaskans express overwhelming support for ban on plastic bags

Zoe Sobel, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Unalaska

As it stands, the proposed ordinance would put the burden on retailers. Starting Jan. 1, businesses would receive $100 fines for providing customers with a disposable shopping bag.

Beavers are moving into the Arctic — you can see it from space

Ravenna Koenig, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Fairbanks

“If they were moving out of the Arctic, then you’d see a lot of ponds draining… But that’s not what we saw, we saw a lot of new ponds forming.”

About a dozen people, including a baby, sit in a classroom at the Knik Tribal Council office in Palmer discussing building a budget and putting aside money each month. They share ideas about ways to spend less on food and phone apps that offer good deals. After the two hour-long class, participants stay to talk to the teacher and Ayumin Moses reflects on what she learned.

“This class is really exciting,” she said. “And it’s really, really opened my eyes and helped me realize the things I need to do to make positive changes for me and my girls.”

Moses recently separated from her husband, and her financial situation is drastically different than it used to be, she said. She knows she needs to be financially stable before reaching for one of her biggest goals.

“I eventually want to own my house,” she said. “That’s one of my goals. That’s one of the things I have on my wall. I made a list of what I want in my life.”

But with a poor credit history, it could be a while before Moses could get a loan from a traditional bank. Instead, she can now turn to Knik Tribe’s Community Development Financial Institution – or CDFI. It’s like a bank with a mission to help the community, and it relies on relationships.

“Instead of lending money to what the numbers are, [CDFIs] lend money to the person,” explained Richard Porter, the Executive Director of the Knik Tribal Council.

This flexible financial organization has a pool of money from government, private, and non-profit sources that can be lent to people who wouldn’t be eligible for a traditional loan or who would get really high interest rates. The whole point of the program is to offer financial opportunities in low-income communities.

“When you try to go to go get a loan and your credit is bad, well guess what? You pay 20, 25 percent on the dollar,” Porter said. “Well how does that work out? Does that help you get ahead, to move forward in your financial situation where you can actually begin to create wealth after home ownership?”

Knik Tribal Council started developing it’s lending program three years ago and is just now giving out housing loans. They are the only statewide organization of its type, though there are other regionally focused ones. At least half of their clients need to be Alaska Native or American Indian, but anyone can apply.

Porter said one of their primary goals is to make it possible for people to keep living and working in rural areas instead of migrating to the Mat Su Borough. “They end up here, and they end up costing our system a lot of money if they don’t want to be here,” he said. “So we’re interested in, if they want to stay out in the village, that we can help them accomplish that.”

One regional financing group has already shown that the flexible community development tool is an effective solution for rural Alaska, where traditional banks don’t often have branches. Spruce Root started in southeast Alaska six years ago. Business Development Director Paul Hackenmueller said that so far, they’ve only given out a dozen loans totaling about $800,000, though the number of proposals is growing.

But Hackenmueller said success isn’t just measured by the number of loans. As the name says, a CDFI is aimed at community development, which means developing long-term capacity.

At Spruce Root, they work with entrepreneurs in seven small Southeast communities to develop business plans. After going through the process, some of their clients realize they can start their businesses without any help. Others figure out they shouldn’t even bother trying for a loan.

“Sometimes we work with an entrepreneur and they realize, ‘Wait a minute, this business will never make me money. So I’m going to stop today, after going through this business planning process, and not spend the next two or three years of my life and who knows how many thousands of dollars, trying to run a business that will cost me money every time I open the door,'” he said.

Ultimately, Spruce Root’s goal is similar to Knik Tribe’s goal – to help people thrive in their home communities and not have to relocate.

“The focus has always been on strengthening rural economies here so that the people who live here now and have lived here for thousands of years can continue to do so,” Hackenmueller said.

Both Spruce Root and Knik Tribe think offering a flexible financial tool that depends on relationships instead of numbers helps level the economic playing field so that people can do just that.

A conflict is intensifying over hatcheries in Prince William Sound.

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For the second time this year, Alaska’s Board of Fisheries is weighing an emergency petition to block a hatchery from increasing its production. This is the latest skirmish in a battle over whether pink salmon hatcheries are causing more harm than good.

“This is the incubation room in here, and what we’re having here is stacks of incubators,” Gary Fandrei said as he pointed towards stacks of incubators that look like the drawers to a really large tool chest. “We actually have a total of 359 incubators that we have available to us in here.”

Fandrei is in charge of Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association, and he’s giving a tour of the Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery near Homer.

This summer, the facility will harvest up to 125 million pink salmon eggs. Depending on survival, most of those eggs will hatch in the fall.

Like other pink Salmon hatcheries, the one at Tutka Bay has attracted scrutiny over the last couple of years over growing environmental concerns.

“The big issue that’s confronting us right now that seems to come up is the ocean carrying capacity,” Fandrei explained, “Whether we’re putting too many fish out in the ocean for the ocean to be able to support that number.”

The other issue raised by critics is a growing body of research indicating that biological problems can arise when pink salmon from hatcheries spawn with wild fish.

In response to concerns, the Board of Fisheries re-established its committee on hatcheries earlier this year.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is also in the midst of a multi-year study on hatchery pink and chum salmons’ interactions with wild stocks. That study is funded by several hatchery nonprofits and fish processors.

“So what we’re really interested in understanding is how aggregates of pink salmon in Prince William Sound and Chum Salmon in Southeast Alaska genetically vary from one another,” Chris Habicht, a geneticist working on the project, said.

Habicht said some species like sockeye can genetically vary within a single river system, but on the other side of that spectrum are pink and chum.

“Species like pink salmon have a much shallower population structure,” Habicht said. “In other words, genetically, they are more similar across a larger geographic area than other species of salmon.”

Habicht hopes the project will get researchers closer to understanding whether hatchery fish can skew the genetics of wild pinks and chums enough to make them less resilient over time.

Researchers also question if too many hatchery fish are being released into the waters of the Pacific between Russia, Alaska and Japan.

Greg Ruggerone with Seattle-based Natural Resource Consultants has published several studies on the abundance of salmon and their diets. By his estimates, pink salmon make up nearly 70 percent of all the salmon in the North Pacific. Even though hatchery pinks are only 15 percent of that total, it’s still a lot of fish.

“That 15 percent of hatchery pink salmon translates to about 82 million hatchery pink salmon,” Reuggerone said.

Pink salmon are aggressive feeders, and Ruggerone’s latest study found large numbers of them are severely depleting zooplankton supplies in the Bering Sea.

“The plankton are the building blocks for the north Pacific, supporting sockeye salmon. Those zooplankton also support other species that are consumed by chinook salmon or coho salmon,” Ruggerone explained.

Ruggerone said seabirds may also be suffering from that ripple in the food web, and research like this is leading to more scrutiny for hatchery operators like Fandrei.

Ruggerone said the industry takes these topics seriously, but when it comes to emergency petitions like the one the Board of Fish will consider next week, Fandrei is nervous about the outcome.

“I don’t want to see knee-jerk reactions, and I don’t want to see just an overzealous type change that could come up,” Fandrei said. “That might be something that would be negative to the hatchery program when it’s totally not necessary.”

It’s unlikely that the latest petition over the Solomon Gulch Hatchery will definitively tip the argument one way or the other, but both sides say it could signal a change in how the Board of Fish handles the growing body of concerns.

The board will take up the emergency petition on July 17, and its hatchery committee will meet for the first time in October.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration proposed $200 billion in new tariffs on China, upsetting markets worldwide.

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Michael Kohan, with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, says those new tariffs include some that may affect Alaska seafood.

“This last recent development on July 11, the U.S. is going to impose 10 percent tariff on imports from China, which could include Alaska seafood product that has gone to China for reprocessing and then is being imported into the U.S. for the domestic market,” Kohan said.

Alaska seafood processors often head and gut fish then send them to China for secondary processing, and they are exported back to the U.S. or to other countries from there.

In June, China announced it would increase tariffs on U.S. seafood products in response to those set earlier by the U.S.

China added 25 percent to the existing tariffs on July 6.

After the decision, industry analysts said seafood reprocessed in China and then exported back to the U.S. would be exempt from the tariffs.

But this new announcement looks like it changes that.

That would be a major shift. China is the largest trading partner for Alaska seafood and is a major reprocessing sector for the U.S.

ASMI officials say Alaska companies export approximately $1 billion worth of Alaska seafood to China annually. Pollock, salmon and Pacific cod make up the bulk of Alaska fish sent to China for reprocessing, according to ASMI, and they’re included on the new tariff list.

ASMI has been active in the Chinese market for over 20 years, but Kohan says that could change.

“We have a large international market that we can apply our seafood to. So, as much as we are focussing on China right now, there are growing markets in other countries around the world,” Kohan said. “We will be trying to be able to develop markets that will enhance Alaska seafood in these markets that are growing in countries like Spain and Brazil.

ASMI officials say they’ll continue to analyze what the latest tariff announcement means for Alaska seafood, and they plan to submit comments to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

The latest proposed tariffs would go into effect in September.

Professional football players embarked on a whirlwind tour of Bethel on Wednesday. Seattle Seahawks offensive linemen Joey Hunt and Jordan Roos were in town for a grand total of nine hours and got a crash course in Yup’ik culture.

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Elder Mary Nanuwak gave the linemen a Ziploc bag of fry bread on Wednesday afternoon, during their tour of the Lulu Herron Elders home.

“You can top them with whatever you want,” Nanuwak said.

Nanuwak also gave them a hand-knit hat and scarf to wear on the sidelines between plays.

Hunt and Roos flew to Bethel to promote health and wellness in the community and learn about Yup’ik culture. At Lulu Herron, the Seattle football pros autographed posters and took pictures with Bethel’s elders. They were so much taller than some of their fans that they occasionally had to crouch to fit in the frame.

“They say Bethel’s true Alaska,” Hunt said. “This is what we wanted to see, so we’re excited to be here.”

This is Hunt and Roos’s first trip to Alaska. The offensive linemen were particularly excited to visit local families’ fish camps outside of town.

“Just getting across there on the boat; we were just hauling it across that water,” Roos said. “It was awesome and the fish smelled amazing.”

Roos and Hunt also toured Bethel’s hospital with State Representative Tiffany Zulkosky and played games with local kids at 4-H. They said they were excited to learn about Yup’ik culture. Some elders, like Gloria Anvil, may not watch too much pro football, but they can still get pretty excited to meet a player.

“I’m glad they stopped by here,” Anvil said. “Thank you.”

You can watch Jordan Roos and Joey Hunt, and maybe Mary Nanuwak’s hat and scarf, in action against the Indianapolis Colts in the Seahawks’ first preseason game on August 9.

Marijuana can now be purchased legally in Haines. Winter Greens, the borough’s first recreational marijuana dispensary, opened its doors to the public Tuesday afternoon.

When tourists arrive in Haines on a cruise ship, the first thing they see as they leave the boat are the local businesses facing the harbor along Beach Road. There are places to rent bikes, buy souvenirs and book tickets for the fast ferry to Skagway. They can also see a storefront trimmed with green, where marijuana is available for purchase to anyone over the age of 21.

At the door Shauna Adams checks IDs before customers enter the store. She and her husband Jason Adams moved to Haines to open the business. It has been a long process.

“So I guess about 2016, I came up for the first time,” Jason said. “My wife and I had grown and done a medical and commercial grow in Oregon, and we’d also helped with a dispensary and seen how that worked. We decided we needed to look for a spot. So I flew out and started walking around the streets of Haines with a measuring wheel, figuring out where boundaries were because we have to be 500 feet from a school or a church. And so we found this shop and we decided this is it. We can do it here.”

Jason says that initially, there was some skepticism about setting up a pot shop in Haines.

“I think the negativity that we got two years ago when we started looking up here—there was a little bit of negativity. We were worried about it, and I think other people bringing their businesses here were also worried about that. And then nothing ever came of it,” Jason said. “The borough was one hundred percent behind us. I feel like any kind of complaints we had were answered quickly.”

Since then the Adams’ have spent a long time making sure that everything is above board, from licensing regulations to fire marshal permits. Adams says he understands that the state needs to set up careful regulations when it comes to this business. And how do those regulations compare to Oregon?

“Easier, but more strict. I would say less steps but more direct,” Jason said. “Even though it took a year to get certain paperwork through, I believe that once they started it went very fast. From the time they started on our turn to look at our paperwork, AMCO really stepped it up. They went very fast.”

Ed Hesse works at Winter Greens as well. He is a close friend of the Adams and worked on a growing operation in Brookings, Oregon. He says that while the cruise ships will bring in a lot of customers, so far they have seen a lot of locals.

“Everybody has been saying the same thing. We have been waiting, and we’re so glad that you’re open,” Hesse said. “I think Lutak Lumber is so happy that people won’t be calling them every day to see if we’re open.”

It is illegal to consume marijuana in public. However, there has been discussion across the state about creating spaces where customers can smoke on-site.

Alaska’s Marijuana Control Board will meet in August to discuss the issue. Jason Adams says that he would like to be able to provide a separate space for consumption in the future.

“I’m looking for a spot for on-site consumption, but you can’t use it here, so they would have to leave and go off-site,” Jason said. “And we’re searching for that, and then how that would work as a business plan because right now liability-wise it’s very hard to figure out.”

At the moment Winter Greens is collecting data to figure out what their hours should be. However, Jason says they do plan to stay open in the winter.

The two remaining Blockbusters in Alaska are closing.

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Kevin Daymude, the store’s General Manager, made the announcement over Facebook on Thursday. “It is sad to say goodbye to our dedicated customers. We have thought of you as family for the past 28 years,” Daymude’s post said.

Blockbuster began opening movie rental stores in the U.S. in the mid 1980s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the franchise grew into a multibillion dollar business.

That’s when Blockbuster came to Alaska and also when Daymude became a Blockbuster employee.

“These are businesses that I started from the beginning– training the managers, putting the shelves up, bringing the product in, doing the computers– all that stuff,” Daymude said.

Daymude has seen the business boom and bust. At its peak, there were 15 Blockbusters throughout Alaska– in Ketichikan and Kodiak, Kenai and Soldotna. At one point there were three in the Fairbanks area and five in Anchorage.

“We were constantly looking at new locations to open up another Blockbuster,” Daymude said.

But in recent years, Daymude has watched them close, one by one.

“It breaks my heart seeing that happening and seeing good employees– I have to say goodbye to them. People don’t understand that,” Daymude said.

Daymude remembers closing down the Blockbuster in Wasilla, which he said was a particularly hard decision to make. He was there when customers came into the store for the last time.

“This little girl, probably about seven years old, was bawling big old crocodile tears,” Daymude said. He asked her what was wrong. “And she [said], ‘My mommy and I would come here every Friday night. We’d order a pizza, come over to Blockbuster, get our movies, and have a Friday night movie night with just her and I and now we can’t do that.”

Daymude said he had to leave the building.

“It just breaks my heart. What do you say to a little girl like that? ‘I’m sorry?’ There’s nothing else to say,” Daymude said.

The final day of regular business at the two remaining Blockbusters– one in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks– will be Monday, July 16. There will be an inventory sale on Tuesday, July 17 that will continue through July and August.