Alaska voters elected 13 new members to the state Legislature. The first-time lawmakers are a heavily Republican group; the only Democrat is also the only woman. 

Ron Gillham is one of the new members joining the House. The Soldotna Republican said the new members from his party have a lot in common, including many of the same principles. 

“We want a smaller budget, we want a smaller government,” he said. “You know, we all want to prosper. So we’re all looking at ways that we can put  more people back to work in the state.”

Read more coverage of the 2020 election

Gillham’s family owns a fishing charter business and he’s also worked as a heavy equipment operator on the North Slope. 

Gillham said he and other new House Republicans are interested in a proposal that Gov. Mike Dunleavy advanced to lower the limit on how much the state can spend each year. 

“And it’s kind of a unanimous thing that if we don’t get a spending cap, we’re not going to get a balanced budget,” he said.

Gillham said last week that he hopes the conversations among Republicans will lead to the party forming a new majority caucus in the House. That hasn’t happened yet. The party holds a bare majority of 21 seats in the chamber. 

Gillham added that while all of the new Republicans are men, they have diverse life and work experiences, which he says will benefit the state.

“It is a very diverse crowd,” he said. “They’re not a bunch of politicians. They’re from all different segments of the state — businessmen, teachers,” among others.

After the last election, House members took a month into the session to organize a majority. 

RELATED: Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer seeks initiative audit to calm election questions

Big Lake Republican Rep.-elect Kevin McCabe said he thinks there wasn’t enough relationship-building two years ago, and having a group of new lawmakers who already know each other could help next year. 

McCabe, a cargo pilot, said that among the Republicans, there are differences that reflect who they represent. 

“There are some that are a little bit more moderate and they’re from moderate districts,” he said. “And there are some that are a little bit more conservative that are from conservative districts.”

When asked if he’s hopeful that the Republicans will form the House majority caucus, McCabe it’s already established by the fact that most members are party members. 

Liz Snyder of Anchorage is the only Democrat, as well as the only woman, among the new Alaska lawmakers. However, Anchorage independent Calvin Schrage was nominated by the Democrats and Utqiagvik independent Josiah Aullaqsruak Patkotak has said he plans to join a group of rural legislators who currently caucus with the mostly Democratic majority. 

RELATED: Representative-elect Patkotak says he opposes joining a caucus that seeks cuts to certain rural Alaska programs

Snyder won by 16 votes over Republican Rep. Lance Pruitt, based on the unofficial results. 

Snyder teaches public health at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She said her career has prepared her to work with lawmakers — including her fellow new legislators — with different political beliefs, to benefit Alaska communities. 

“I have some learning to do, just to understand the landscape, understand how things work, when conversations are had and getting started between now and when session begins in the new year,” she said.

Snyder said it’s been good for the state to have more women serve in leadership positions over time. And she hopes that the long-term trend in having more women legislators will return after a decline this election. 

“I think women on a whole bring a unique perspective, a unique work style, unique experiences and backgrounds, and the more diverse experiences we have in leadership positions, the better we can represent all of Alaska,” she said.

With Snyder joining as the lone woman, the number of female lawmakers will go from a record high in Alaska of 22 down to 18. 

The other new members include two Republicans elected to the senate: Roger Holland of Anchorage and Robert Myers of North Pole. The other new Republican House members are Mike Cronk of Tok; Christopher Kurka of Wasilla; Ken McCarty of Eagle River; and James Kaufman, Tom McKay and David Nelson of Anchorage.

As Americans watched the presidential race draw to an end over the last few months, an educator in Sitka was quietly celebrating her own executive victory. Earlier this year, Mt. Edgecumbe High School’s Chohla Moll won one of the most prestigious awards a science teacher in the United States can get.

Chohla Moll, whose Tlingit name is Kookaxk’w, is a science teacher at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka. Her teaching style is innovative and energy-filled. Her students have done everything from watershed restoration research to cognitive studies of their classmates’ cellphone use to examining the impact of microplastics on species in Sitka Sound.

Now she’s being nationally recognized for her work. Earlier this year, she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. A fellow science teacher in Anchorage nominated her, and the application process was rigorous.

“You have to make a video of yourself teaching. It has to be non-edited,” she said, speaking to KCAW in an interview in October. “You have to do the full lesson plan and you have to have a ton of questions that you have to answer.”

Moll decided to record herself leading students in a herring dissection, incorporating both medical scalpels and traditional knowledge. She began the lesson by singing a Tlingit herring song with students. Then she walked students through the process of examining different parts of the fish under a microscope.

The relevance of herring goes beyond the dissection tray: Herring is a traditional food for Indigenous peoples of Southeast Alaska and is traded to many of the communities Mt. Edgecumbe students hail from. Its future as a subsistence resource hangs in the balance, between state fisheries management, market demands and climate change.

“What did Alaska Department of Fish & Game tell us, in the radio stories that we listened to, the age class of these herring this year?” she asked students toward the end of the lesson. “They said that the population of herring we have are about three years old. So does that mean some of the fish can be older and some of the fish can be younger?”

Moll said she applied for the award hoping to bring her students’ stories to educators around the country.

“I felt like the story my kids have to tell in the world is an important story. I feel like the cultural component and the cultural connection that we have to place is important,” she said. “And I wanted to share that story to a larger audience.”

The process pushed her to reflect on why she does what she does, and how she can do it better.

“And how often do we get an opportunity to really think about that in our profession?” she asked. “So by the time I submitted it I was like, ha! I’ve already won! I’m done.”

In July she found out that she did, in fact, win. The award is one of the highest distinctions a science teacher in the United States can receive.

The ceremony was a bit different. Rather than flying out to DC, she joined the other 106 winners of the math and science prizes in a virtual awards ceremony, via Zoom.

Her classroom is a little different too, these days. The herring lesson, filmed in 2019, feels a world away. No one is wearing a mask, students are crowded above microscopes and Moll is flitting around the room from one table to the next. Today, pulling off a lab with high school students is much harder. There are new safety concerns that an eye-washing station won’t remedy — COVID-19.

“I have a box. I have a box in the front of my room that’s taped off so I have six feet of distance from students. And I have a shield. Fans in my room,” she said. “During ‘Medium risk’ I’m supposed to stay in my box, and I’m not supposed to leave my box.”

Like teachers everywhere, Moll is figuring out ways to move forward, even with the challenges the coronavirus has created for her classroom. She’s reworking lesson plans, finding technical workarounds and figuring out how to give instructions differently, with social distance in mind.

“I can’t touch their microscopes! So it’s a practice in patience,” she said. “But it’s better because I’m not doing it for them. They have to do it themselves.”

Getting her classroom to a place where students are operating their microscopes with confidence while she stays behind her plastic shield takes more work and planning on her part than it used to. But she said that’s all worth it when she thinks about what Mt. Edgecumbe students are giving up this year to peer through those microscopes.

“I have students who come here from all over the state. And I value their commitment in traveling so far away from home,” she said. “I feel like my job is to make that sacrifice worth it. I will also say that my kids are here right now in a pandemic for a reason. You don’t travel thousands of miles away from home to wear masks in a room unless you want an education.”

“And that’s why I’m here,” she said.

Moll hopes to travel to DC sometime next year to receive formal recognition and to meet the new president.

The COVID-19 outbreak at Alaska’s largest prison continues to grow. 

A total of 299 inmates at the Goose Creek Correctional Center near Wasilla had tested positive for the virus as of Tuesday. That’s an increase of nearly 100 since last Wednesday, when 204 people had reportedly tested positive. 

Department of Corrections spokesperson Sarah Gallagher said the infections are spread across four housing units, or mods, forcing everyone housed there to go into quarantine. 

Of the nearly 300 cases, about a third are considered recovered, Gallagher said. Four inmates were hospitalized with the disease. Three have since recovered and returned to Goose Creek. The fourth, a 69-year-old man, died on Sunday morning from complications related to the virus

The corrections department says it is conducting testing on the affected mods every three days and working with a state health department contractor for a facility-wide testing sweep.

Goose Creek houses over 1,300 inmates, according to the most recent report from the Alaska Justice Information Center. 

Forecasters are warning of dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains around Southcentral Alaska.

“Things really are dangerous coming into this Thanksgiving holiday,” said Wendy Wagner, director of the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center. “And if you do go in the backcountry, really know if you’re in avalanche terrain because that’s where we don’t want to be. So we can be on the lower-angle slopes, but not those 30 degrees or steeper, or below those, where it could actually slide.”

According to the avalanche center, in Turnagain Pass, Girdwood and nearby mountains, avalanche danger is considerable Tuesday, and expected to rise to high Wednesday. That means large, human triggered avalanches are likely.

Wagner says avalanches of this nature occurred last weekend as skiers ventured into the mountains. She says luckily nobody was caught or injured in those slides. But, Wagner says it is “very likely” the conditions leading to last weekend’s avalanches will continue through the weekend and into next week.

The National Weather Service is forecasting multiple storms in Southcentral through the weekend. Storms are expected to bring high winds and a mix of rain and snow to the region through Wednesday night.

More snow is expected to fall in Southcentral Thursday night into Friday as temperatures drop. Wagner says the storms and resulting avalanche danger are likely to impact mountains throughout Southcentral.

“Anywhere that gets new snow, and even if there’s not much new snow but a lot of wind, that will increase the avalanche hazard,” said Wagner. “So this is looking like a region-wide setup where avalanche conditions will worsen.”

The Hatcher Pass Avalanche Information Center is also warning that avalanches will be likely following new snow accumulation in the forecast for Wednesday night.

Alaska will have a new election system, after voters passed Ballot Measure 2.

After Tuesday’s count, the more than 3,000-vote advantage that yes votes have appears to be too large to be overcome by the ballots that are left to count.

The measure will introduce primaries that are open to candidates with any or no political parties. The top four finishers will advance to the general elections, in which voters will be able to rank their choices. Candidates will win if they receive a majority of the first-preference votes, or all ballots are exhausted.

Read all of Alaska Public Media’s coverage of the 2020 elections

Two Anchorage House races also were resolved with today’s vote count.

Democrat Liz Snyder defeated Republican Representative Lance Pruitt by 16 votes, if the unofficial count holds up.

Pruitt is the leader of the House majority caucus and was seen as a potential candidate for House speaker.

But the margin is small enough that the state would pay for any recount.

Republican David Nelson defeated Democrat Lyn Franks by a margin of 90 votes, based on the unofficial count. The margin is large enough that the state wouldn’t have to pay for a recount and Franks would have to foot the bill if she requests one.

Nelson would succeed Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, who he defeated in the Republican primary.

There is one race that is still undecided. It’s between independent Josiah Patkotak and Democrat Elizabeth Ferguson, for a district that covers the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs. The count in that contest could be finished Tuesday night.

Control of the House could depend on the outcome of that race. If the vote count holds up, there would be 21 Republicans in the chamber, which is the minimum needed to form a majority caucus. But it’s not clear if all 21 Republicans want to caucus together.

All results will remain unofficial until they’re certified. The target day for that is next Wednesday.

The 2021 Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Open World Championship Sled Dog Race has been canceled.

Organizers announced this week that it’s too risky to hold the sprint races through the city during the coronavirus pandemic. They cited concerns about race requirements and large crowds of spectators. 

The three-day championship is usually held during the 10-day Fur Rondy festival that starts in late February. It draws teams from across Alaska.

Organizers are still planning to hold a festival in some form next year. They say there will be a modified schedule, and some other events will be canceled like the popular Running of the Reindeer, reported the Anchorage Daily News.

Reach reporter Tegan Hanlon at thanlon@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8447.

The majority of candidates elected by Alaska voters to both the state Senate and House are Republicans. But it’s not yet clear if the majority caucuses that govern both chambers will actually be Republican. 

The majority caucus decides how power and influence are spread across the Legislature and determines the shape of each chamber’s budget proposals. And newly elected Republicans have been talking about how they will organize since election results started to become clear. 

Read all of Alaska Public Media’s coverage of the 2020 Elections

In the House, there will be 21 Republicans, the bare minimum needed to form a majority caucus. The Senate has 13 Republicans, two more than they need to form a majority. 

Soldotna Republican Sen. Peter Micciche helped organize a meeting of the Senate Republicans on Nov. 13. He said he’s “very optimistic” that the Republicans will be forming a majority. 

“The reality of it is, is that Alaskans did choose a vast majority of Republicans, and philosophically, we’re more aligned,” Micciche said. “We have some very healthy differences in our group.”

The differences between Senate Republicans have been deep over the past two years. They haven’t agreed on the size of Alaska Permanent Fund dividends or whether to draw more than planned from the Permanent Fund’s earnings reserve. They also couldn’t agree that their members should be required to vote in favor of the budget.  

Micciche said the majority should listen to each other and shouldn’t rely on punishing members to unite the caucus. He said if the senators feel valued, they’re more likely to work together. 

RELATED: Representative-elect Patkotak says he opposes joining a caucus that seeks cuts to certain rural Alaska programs

“But shooting your own soldiers to win a battle, ultimately results in the loss of a war,” he said. “I don’t like to use a military analogy, but you really do need to be a unified team.”

Republican Senators Mike Shower of Wasilla, Shelley Hughes of Palmer and Lora Reinbold of Eagle River lost committee chair positions — and Mia Costello of Anchorage lost her position as majority leader — after coming into conflict with Senate Republican leaders on the budget and procedures. Two of those leaders, Senate President Cathy Giessel of Anchorage and Senator John Coghill of North Pole, were defeated in the Republican primary.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Begich, an Anchorage Democrat, is optimistic that a different Senate majority — with members of both parties — will form. He expects that if Democrats are in a bipartisan majority, they’ll support the leadership on the budget as long as their voices are heard. He said the Republicans’ differences over the budget and procedures are a recipe for chaos.

“If they can’t work those out, we stand ready to serve with those who are ready to move the state forward,” he said.

In the House, the situation is even more complicated. If the Republicans lose one vote, they won’t be able to form a majority. 

The Republicans failed to form a House majority two years ago due to divisions within the party. Instead, eight Republicans formed a coalition with Democrats and independents.

Someone observing this process from the outside is Nikiski Republican Mike Chenault. He has as much experience organizing majority caucuses as anyone in the state, as Alaska’s longest-serving House Speaker. 

He said the key to organizing is to find common ground that all of the members can agree on and to distribute power around the state so “everyone has skin in the game.” His advice is to focus on the budget, considering that the state is spending more money than it has available in revenue. 

“But I think we all also know that you can’t just gut this state budget and fix it in one fell swoop,” he said. “You’ve got to put together a plan — and a maybe a couple-of-year plan — on how you address not only the revenues, but how you address the spending, and what does the state of Alaska actually need to provide to the residents of the state.”

Chenault said requiring majority members to vote on the budget — known as the “binding caucus” — was useful in forging compromises. He cautioned that a proposal from some newly elected Republicans to not have a binding caucus could lead to challenges.

“It gives one or two people the ability to thwart the budget process and keep you in Juneau for additional time because you can’t come to an agreement,” he said.

The binding caucus has been criticized by some legislators and candidates for concentrating power in the leadership. But Chenault said at least some other states have even more powerful legislative leaders, including some speakers who personally assign all committee chairs. 

Chenault added that it can be helpful for Republicans trying to build a majority to talk with rural legislators about whether they want to join. When he last served as speaker in 2016, there were 22 Republicans and four Democrats in the majority. He added that it can be helpful to getting legislative work done to have a good relationship with Democrats even when you disagree on policy and are in different caucuses.

Republicans at the center of talks on forming a House majority either didn’t return calls or declined interview requests. 

Fairbanks Republican Rep. Steve Thompson may be particularly important to determining who is in the House majority because he’s worked with members of both parties in the past. 

Thompson, who will become the longest serving House Republican next year, was among those who declined to discuss organizing a caucus. 

But Thompson said the shape of the next year will be heavily affected by what Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposes for the state budget next month. 

“We’re going to be waiting with bated breath for Dec. 15, to get the governor’s budget,” he said. “We’re hoping that it’ll be something he’ll work with us on and with. And so, it’s going to be the deciding factor in how this session will probably go.”

Thompson outlined his goals for the new Legislature: passing a budget, reducing spending, examining the formula for PFDs and working to find issues where legislators can work with Dunleavy. 

“And the main thing is: We’ve got to move Alaska forward, thinking of the future — not just 2021, but going out five years or more,” Thompson said.

Thompson added that he has remained a conservative Republican regardless of what caucus he’s been in, and that he hopes to steer state policy in a conservative direction. 

There’s a Norwegian term for deliberately embracing time spent outside, for both the mental and physical benefits.

It’s frifluftsliv (pronounced FREE-loofts-leev), something Alaskans will find familiar, in spirit if not in name. And some say it’s a way to cope with the many limitations on life during a pandemic.

One of them is Andy Meyer, a professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, recently featured in a Seattle Times article about friluftsliv. Meyer says it’s a deeply rooted part of Norwegian culture, but it can be — or should be — for everyone.

LISTEN HERE:

If you or your community have a term for a similar concept, please let us know, we’d love to hear about it. Email us at news@alaskapublic.org.

Economic forecasting is always something of an exercise in prognostication — that is, gazing into a crystal ball and hoping to see Alaska’s future.  

But state economist Neal Fried said it’s particularly difficult to figure out what next year is going to look like. 

“If there’s someone out there that can forecast what’s COVID is going to do … and then, of course, guess what consumer behavior is going to be, that’s a tough one,” he said.

Alaska’s economy, much like the rest of the country, has taken a hit from COVID-19, though some of the impacts won’t be clear for a few years. 

Fried laid out some of those details at the Resource Development Council’s annual conference on Wednesday. 

“How does what’s going on now, this COVID recession compared to previous ones? It’s already lost more jobs than any of the previous ones,” he said. “Is it going to be the worst recession? I don’t know.”

The COVID-19 pandemic came at a particularly rough time for Alaska. The state was just beginning to climb out of its recession from the 2015 oil-crash, and Fried said everyone expected that growth to continue this year — especially in the tourism industry

Instead, as the pandemic unfolded and shut down the tourism season, businesses closed and a record number of Alaskans found themselves out of work. 

“If you look at April, we peaked at almost 70,000 individuals in Alaska receiving unemployment. And you know, when you think about a workforce of about 320-330,000, that’s a lot of folks,” he said. “The numbers have come down some but still remain sort of stubbornly high.”

Nearly every sector of the state’s economy lost jobs. One, federal employment, added jobs this year. That’s because of hiring for the U.S. Census.

There are indicators that the pandemic scared away some private investment. Fried said three new hotels that were supposed to open in Anchorage never materialized. 

And some parts of the state have felt the impacts of the downturn more than others. Interior Alaska has had a boost from the military. The Anchorage region has been buoyed by growth in the Mat-Su. 

But it’s a different story in Southeast. 

“Southeast has just been hammered,” Fried said. “It’s been hammered by two things. Of course their very big dependence on the cruise ship and visitor industry, and then to add insult to injury they had a lousy fisheries season. So they just got hit very, very hard.”

The pandemic was swift and, in some ways, surprising in how it impacted the state’s economy. 

“We went basically from a near, if not record low unemployment rate … to record high the next month,” he said.

Fried said state economists have been looking for new ways to measure its impact and the health of specific sectors. 

For instance, Fried said they are looking at the number of people who have been stopped and frisked every week at the Anchorage International Airport for the last few years and comparing it to this year. They’re using it as a way to measure the drop in travel to Anchorage. 

“I didn’t even know this data exists,” Fried said. “But you can see transportation in Anchorage, passengers dropped as much as 86% and it stayed quite low. You know it’s still 50% below where it was a year ago up to the current period. It is beginning to improve. When you look at these numbers for Juneau, Fairbanks, they look very similar and in some cases even worse.” 

They’re also looking at cargo landings at the Anchorage airport. There has been a sharp increase in cargo traffic there during the pandemic. Fried and others have said it was the world’s busiest airport during parts of 2020. He attributed that volume, in part, to supplies coming in from China and other parts of the world, and to the explosive growth of e-commerce. 

There are a few bright spots in the state’s overall economic health. 

For one, the military is still growing in Alaska. Personnel are moving to the state along with the new F-35 jets. 

The marijuana industry is hitting record-high sales. 

And Fried said mining did well during the last recession and is still doing well during this one. Mineral prices are good right now, he said, and it’s an indicator that the state’s economy may be more diverse than many people think. 

As Alaskans prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many are breaking from tradition and ordering meals from local restaurants instead of cooking at home.

Amid months of uncertainty and pandemic disruptions, Anchorage restaurant owners say demand for Thanksgiving dinner to-go has been an unexpected boost for business.

Every year, Patrice Watson cooks a big Thanksgiving meal for her family.

“My mom and I we always cook. We always cook,” said Watson.

But this year is different. Her husband is in quarantine in their bedroom after testing positive for COVID-19. So far, Watson, her four children, and her mom aren’t sick. But, she says, she wants to be able to serve Thanksgiving dinner no matter what. And this year, that means getting it prepared for her. So she ordered dinner from Davon’s Place House of Soul.

“We just need a 12-14 lb turkey. We want the greens, we want the macaroni and cheese, potato salad, all of that,” said Watson. “And we ordered catfish, so that’s something different than what we were going to do, you know, than what we normally do.”

Davon’s Place is owned by Khanesia Allen. Traditionally, she cooks a big Thanksgiving meal for her family. She and her husband have six kids and 17 grandchildren. But this year, she decided to cook for other families.

RELATED: Hard-hit Anchorage restaurants prepare for more restrictions

“I honestly, truly love to cook, said Allen. “And my food is, like, really good. So I’m like why can’t I do it if everybody else is doing it? And the outcome? Oh my god, I have three people to call back today. And if they do want dinner it’s going to put it to like, 20.”

Dozens of Anchorage restaurants are offering Thanksgiving dinner, or elements of it, to go. From pies and rolls to turkey and stuffing to barbeque. And for many businesses, it’s a first.

At Davon’s place meals are made-to-order, so the cost depends on what customers want and how many people they need to feed. And, there are a lot of options.

“Turkey, dressing, ham, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, candied yams, potato salad,” said Allen, listing the items on her Thanksgiving menu. “You have green beans, mashed potatoes, cornbread and rolls. And then I have the cakes, the pies, the cranberry sauce, the tomatoes and onions for the sides. Of course gravy.”

As for her own family, Allen won’t be doing the cooking this year. But, she says, it’s in good hands.

“My sons, my daughter, they all cook just like me. So I’m very proud, I don’t have to worry about, oh is it going to be good, or anything like that,” said Allen.

And there’s one dish Allen says she’ll always make time for, even if she’s in the middle of cooking 20 Thanksgiving dinners.

“But I do do my ham. I don’t care what, I do my ham,” said Allen.

At Peppercini’s Deli and Catering, Jason Kimmel is getting ready to distribute around 75 take-and-bake Thanksgiving meals. He says, the business has never cooked Thanksgiving for the public before. But, they started selling bake-at-home meals at various times during the pandemic and that gave customers an idea.

“People started asking about Thanksgiving,” said Kimmel. “Actually one of our customers sent us a Facebook message asking us if we were going to do it and that’s what kind of got the ball rolling.”

Once they started advertising on social media, Kimmel says it took less than a week to sell out of orders. Each meal costs $225, and Kimmel says, but it’s a lot of food. Most customers he’s talked to say they’re just feeding their immediate family.

“So we’re gonna have way too much food,” said Kimmel. “When we cooked everything a few weeks ago, we figured it would be enough for ten to twelve people. So we’re sending these really nice fancy logo Tupperware for lack of a better term. And then everyone will have leftovers to pack up and eat it all weekend.”

Kimmel says, while the idea was hatched this year, he expects it to become a tradition for post-pandemic Thanksgivings.

Lex Treinen contributed reporting to this story.

The battle over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain has dragged on for decades. 

And now, the Trump administration is close to auctioning off drilling rights for the land in northeast Alaska — potentially just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January.

But there’s a big, unanswered question looming over the idea of a sale: To what degree would the industry actually participate?

Oil and gas companies aren’t talking publicly about whether they’d bid. Kara Moriarty, head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, said that’s not surprising.

“Participation in lease sales is one of the most competitive and secretive things between companies,” she said. “So I don’t know who is interested in participating in a state lease sale, any more than I know who is interested in participating in the next NPR-A lease sale, or in the coastal plain of ANWR.”

Moriarty said the public likely won’t have the full picture of industry interest until the federal government unseals the bids on the day of a sale. A sale date has not been announced yet, but the way the government’s timelines work, one could be held just before Inauguration Day. 

But while oil and gas companies are mum, industry experts and analysts do have a read on what a lease sale might look like.

“My view is that any response will be fairly lukewarm,” said Rowena Gunn, an analyst for the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.

RELATED: Trump administration rushes to sell oil rights in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Even though Alaska politicians and industry groups have long fought to get drill rigs on the coastal plain, which is thought to hold billions of barrels of oil, Gunn and others say there’s currently a thick layer of uncertainty and risk that could lead to limited interest in a lease sale if one happens within the next couple months. 

“They’ll probably get some bids,” said Larry Persily, an oil industry observer and former federal coordinator for Alaska gas line projects. “But even at fire-sale prices, there probably won’t be a rush of interest.” 

That’s for a number of reasons, he said.

One of them is money.

The coronavirus pandemic and an oil price war have both hit the oil industry hard. Oil prices are still low, and it’s expensive and difficult to explore for oil in the Arctic, said Mark Myers, a geologist and former natural resources commissioner in Alaska.  

“The prices have fallen down to a level that leaves very little capital for exploration in these companies,” Myers said. “So that’s one of the biggest negatives.”

RELATED: Alaska is down thousands of oil and gas jobs, as the pandemic continues to squash demand

Also, there’s the opposition, Gunn said, which may weigh more heavily on publicly-traded companies.

“There’s a certain amount of public opinion that it wouldn’t necessarily be good PR for them to be seen as drilling in the Arctic or drilling in environmentally-sensitive areas,” she said.

While some, including Alaska’s congressional delegation, have celebrated the prospect of a lease sale as a way to create more jobs and revenue for the state, others are fighting to keep oil companies out of the refuge, citing concerns about impacts on ecosystems, Indigenous people and the climate.

Indigenous and conservation groups have already filed multiple lawsuits that aim to block drilling in the coastal plain. They’re asking major insurers to not support any oil and gas projects in the refuge. An array of big banks have said they won’t fund new oil development in the Arctic. 

Colorado-based energy economist Philip Verleger said he also wouldn’t expect a deluge of bids because of the uncertainty of future oil demand. If a company develops a field in the refuge, he said, it’d likely want to produce oil there for 30 or so years.

“There is huge uncertainty now as to how quickly oil consumption and natural gas consumption will peak and start to decline,” Verleger said.

He said he believes a lease sale in the refuge would have been “terrifically successful” 15 years ago, but the time to develop the coastal plain has passed.

“I do not think ANWR is ever going to be produced,” Verleger said. “The cost of going there and developing and putting the resources in is too high, particularly since the production would last a long time, and we don’t know if demand would last as long.”

Gunn said some of the larger oil companies operating in Alaska are also already busy with other projects, such as ConocoPhillips work in the NPR-A and Hilcorp taking over oil fields at Prudhoe Bay.

Both companies declined to say whether they had plans to participate in a lease sale in the refuge, if one is held. ExxonMobil also declined to comment. Oil Search said it is “focused on developing the Pikka project and exploring our current leases.”

Chevron said it will not comment “on existing or future plans at ANWR,” but will “consider this opportunity in the context of its global exploration portfolio.”

Opposition, funding, demand and current projects aside, perhaps the biggest uncertainty of all is the changing administration. 

Biden has said he opposes drilling in the refuge. 

Andy Mack, another former Alaska natural resources commissioner, said even if the Trump administration issues leases before leaving office, Biden’s administration could delay the permits that companies need to search for oil and build their infrastructure.

“What they would try to do is make it so difficult, so onerous, to get the array of permits that the companies just kind of say, ‘Well, we’re not going to spend 10 years just trying to get a simple permit, we’re going to put our money and our investment elsewhere,’” Mack said.

However, Mack said, it’s also possible companies could secure leases and just wait for the administration to change again.

“It’s pretty long-lead stuff,” he said.

And, Mack and Myers underscored, the flip side of all this is that the refuge is still thought to hold a whole lot of oil. For some companies, that payoff could outweigh any risk or uncertainty.

Reach reporter Tegan Hanlon at thanlon@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8447.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention increased the severity of its warning against cruise ship travel.

The Level 4 warning is the agency’s strongest recommendation against cruise travel. It means there is a “very high level of COVID-19” aboard cruise ships and that all people should avoid cruise travel worldwide.

The increase comes a month after the CDC lifted its 7-month ban on cruise ship travel and released its plan for the industry to resume safely.

The cruise industry creates tens of thousands of jobs in Alaska and was anticipated to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to the state this year.

Cruising has been suspended since mid-March. The closure of Canada’s ports is among the reasons Alaska’s cruise season was canceled this year. That closure will remain in effect until at least February.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has an opportunity to veto the Pebble Mine. But a document obtained through a public records request suggests to mine opponents that DEC doesn’t intend to use it.

RELATED: Army Corps denies permit for Pebble Mine

The Alaska DEC has to certify that Pebble’s proposed mine meets state water quality standards or the mine can’t get its federal permit. It’s called 401 certification. Mine opponents filed a public records request of the state and found a meeting note from Aug. 4. Pebble representatives, officials from the Department of Natural Resources and DEC Commissioner Jason Brune were at the meeting. The note says:

401 certification needed from DEC. DEC is not going to notice or solicited public comment son 401 certification. DEC will follow their standard process of releasing the 401 cert with the ROD 

Translation: The state agency will release its certification at the same time as the Record of Decision from the Army Corps of Engineers. The so-called ROD is the ruling on whether the mine gets its permit to dredge and fill wetlands. 

It burns mine opponents that there’d be no opportunity to respond, and that they can’t even see another key document: Pebble’s mitigation plan, which it submitted to the Corps.

“They’re not making this a publicly available process,” said Lindsey Leyland, deputy director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay. “They’re not sharing the information, the conversations that they’re having with other agencies with the public, which is pretty concerning, to say the least.”

LLeyland said the meeting notes make it sounds like it’s already a done deal: DEC will be “releasing the 401 cert with the ROD,” as it says in the meeting note.

RELATED: Alaska agency says it’s neutral on Pebble Mine. Internal documents tell a different story.

She and other Pebble opponents also say that DEC Commissioner Brune should not be involved in decisions about Pebble.

For a few years, Brune was a high-profile advocate for Pebble. He was a public and government affairs manager for Anglo American when that company was a partner in the proposed mine. That job ended in 2014, and Brune has no financial stake in the project.

Now, as head of  DEC, Brune said he’s letting the professional staff at DEC decide whether to issue a 401 certification for the mine. He said the decision hasn’t been made yet. 

“That process rests with the (DEC’s) Division of Water right now,” he said. “And if they issue a 401 cert, it can be appealed up to me. But that decision currently rests with the Division of Water.”

Brune said DEC has already held a public comment period on whether the state should certify that the mine meets Alaska’s water quality standards. That was this summer, running at the same time as the Army Corps’s comment period on Pebble’s environmental report. 

The Corps received more than 13,000 comments. Brune says DEC got 106.

As for the charge that this is already a done deal, Brune said an important word was left off the meeting notes: “If”

“So if there is a 401certification,” Brune said, “it will be issued with the ROD.”

Brune didn’t know when that might happen. Pebble’s parent company told investors this month it expects the Corps to issue its Record of Decision before President Trump leaves office, on Jan. 20. 

In the meantime, Alaska’s two U.S. Senators issued a new letter to Pebble’s parent company asking that it let Alaskans see the mitigation plan, so they can evaluate it.

This summer, the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to scuttle the Alaska patrol of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter when over 10% of the crew was put in quarantine. But the ship’s mission was saved when a large group of cadets — the youngest, newest and most-inexperienced members of the Coast Guard — was called on to help.

To use a very old nautical phrase, Captain Blake Novak was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Novak is commanding officer of the cutter Munro, one of the biggest vessels in the Coast Guard fleet at 418 feet.

The Munro was in Dutch Harbor this summer when Novak got word of a big storm heading their way. The weather forecast was so bad that Novak was advised to stay in port for the next four days. It would’ve been dangerous to get underway as the storm passed through the area.

“We were going to encounter 18-plus-foot seas off the beam,” Novak said.

If they stayed in port as advised, they would miss a planned military exercise off Hawaii. As Novak saw it, they had to leave.

But many of his crew were ashore for a barbecue celebration that included having a few beers.

“We call it the bottle-to-throttle policy, which says that you need to stop drinking 12 hours prior to getting the ship underway,” Novak said.

The Munro normally has 150 crew members. But many couldn’t help prepare the ship for departure because they had been drinking. So Novak turned to 16 cadets fresh from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

“The majority of our cadets were underage,” Novak said. “So, right away they were filling shoes and able to step in immediately to assist and assume those roles to help out with the crew.”

Novak says the cadets handled the ship’s lines so they could leave Dutch Harbor as soon as possible.

First Class Cadet Jordan Park says that turned out to be a long day.

“It was really great to be relied on in that way,” Park said. “I think it was a little bit tough because we had been up since pretty early that morning pulling in, and we expected to stay overnight. And then, not staying overnight and getting underway that night was a little bit challenging. But that’s how the Coast Guard is and it was cool to experience that.”

Novak says they then steamed at high speed for 48 hours to beat the weather and eventually get to Hawaii on time.

So many cadets serving aboard a Coast Guard ship is very unusual. But it’s an unusual year.

The Munro’s mission in the Bering Sea this summer included fisheries enforcement, search and rescue and patrolling the maritime boundary with Russia. But just before the ship left, Novak says they had an asymptomatic crewmember who tested positive for COVID-19. The crewmember and their close contacts, 18 people total, had to stay in quarantine.

So, Novak asked the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut for help. Many cadets were just returning from a summer break.

“In the military, we would say they were ‘voluntold,’” Novak said.

Novak says the arriving cadets were excited but understandably very nervous.

These cadets are essentially officers in training. And for two months, they filled roles normally held by enlisted service members just out of boot camp. Senior enlisted personnel trained the cadets to handle the lines for the ship, work in the mess, serve as lookouts and steer the ship.

Third Class Cadet Branyelle Carillo says she expected to be working hard.

“But we knew that it was going to be a great learning environment for the future and understanding what the fleet is actually about compared to us being here at school,” Carillo said.

And Carillo says they learned the importance of working as a team.

“You have to use other people that are around you in order to get what needs to be done,” Carillo said.

“So, that was like a biggest lesson of a lot of things that we did on (the) Munro.”

Novak, who considers his ship as a floating schoolhouse, says their experiences are important for any future leader, whether in the Coast Guard or elsewhere.

“These young men and women, in the future, are going to be put in positions where they’re managing our enlisted personnel,” Novak said. “So, for them to get a true feeling of what it’s like to walk and spend a day — in this case to spend two months — in the same shoes as our enlisted personnel, it’s very important from a leadership development standpoint.”

Not only did all the cadets have a unique experience, they also received a Meritorious Team Commendation that is usually only awarded to regular Coast Guard personnel. The Coast Guard Academy says it’s rare for these cadets, some a little over a year out of high school, to wear such a red ribbon on their uniform before they even graduate from the Academy.

The drugmaker Pfizer recently applied for an emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine. 

And Alaska state health officials said this week that if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives companies the go-ahead, the first vaccines could arrive in Alaska before the end of the year.  Though, they probably won’t be widely available until March. 

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Americans have been helping to develop these vaccines by going through clinical trials — including a Juneau woman who has been part of Pfizer’s vaccine trials.  

Fiona Brown grew up in Juneau, but right now she’s in Ohio, working on a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences. 

So, when she saw an ad on Facebook looking for volunteers for Pfizer’s clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine, she knew that as a science nerd she had an edge. 

“It was pretty funny when I got in there and they gave me the protocol, and it’s like ‘Alright, so there’s going to be some technical science stuff in here’ and I’m like ‘Don’t worry, my undergrad is in biomedical engineering; nano-particles are kind of like, my thing. I could explain it to you if you’d like me to’,” she said, laughing.

RELATED: Alaska’s geography poses unique challenge in getting COVID-19 vaccine, treatments to rural areas

So, here’s how it worked. 

She had a 50-50 chance of either getting the vaccine, or a saline solution injected into her. And, the study was double-blind. 

“I don’t know what I got, the nurse injecting me doesn’t know what I got, the doctor in the study doesn’t know what I got,” she said.

That being said, Brown is pretty sure she got the actual vaccine. That’s because saline injections don’t generally cause immuno-reactions. The vaccine, though, can and she got sick. 

“I actually had a fairly moderate reaction,” Brown said. “It’s pretty rare, they say about 5% of people had what I had which was a fever, nausea, fatigue, body aches. But because I had that reaction, that tells me that I’m like 98% sure that I got the actual vaccine.”

Just to be sure, Brown said she went and got a COVID-19 test. And that came back negative.

RELATED: LISTEN: A COVID-19 vaccine is on the horizon, but Alaska faces unique challenges

The study isn’t over. It’s about two years long. Brown said she got two shots, two weeks apart — that’s the immunization process. Then, they called her back three weeks later and drew some blood. They’ll call her back at 6 months and 12 months and two years later. 

“That’s going to be where they’re measuring how long the effectiveness of this vaccine is going to last because that’s a major question right now, right? Is this going to be like a flu shot where we have to get this every year? Or is this going to be like chicken pox — you get it once and you’re done?” Brown said. “We just don’t know.”

Another unexpected side effect of the vaccine is that Brown is carrying a lot less stress now.

“It’s such a relief to not go into the grocery store and not constantly be thinking about ‘What am I touching? How close am I to people’,” she said. “I was really scared at the beginning of getting asymptomatic COVID[-19] and spreading it to people and not knowing. And that was just a constant concern of mine, I didn’t want to be that person.”

Now, it’s much less likely that she will be that person.

She’s using her knowledge of how the vaccine works to try and demystify it for people. She can rapidly explain it in a sea of multi-syllabic science jargon, but has also come up with a simple way to illustrate how it works. 

Some vaccines, like the traditional flu vaccine, use live virus or dead virus or pieces of a virus, and scientists use that to train your immune system how to recognize an invader and your body learns how to fight it off. 

But, there’s this middle step where you have to have a ton of that virus in order to make enough vaccines. Brown said the problem with that is that it takes a long time to make. 

Pfizer though, went in a different direction. The drug company’s vaccine is mRNA-based. 

“I think the best way to explain it is, in science class, what we typically learn is that the DNA is the manual — it has all the information you could ever actually need. And from that manual, you have mRNA which are like photocopies. So the mRNA is like 200 copies of this one page of the manual that’s important,” Brown said.

Essentially, the mRNA gets delivered to the cells and then the workers in the cells use that photocopy to produce whatever needs to be produced. In this case, Brown says it’s proteins that your immune system learns to recognize and fight — using photocopies, instead of real virus, to teach your body how to fight off COVID-19. 

“So there’s no infection going on, there’s no damaging of cells. It’s just a process of giving a different photocopy,” she said.

Brown said she hopes giving people an idea of how the vaccine works will prompt them to make more informed decisions about whether they should take it. She wishes that everyone could talk to their personal doctor about the vaccine and if it’s a good choice for them, but knows that’s not realistic. 

She said that people who don’t want to get the vaccine should weigh their concerns carefully.

“Is it because you’ve had really bad reactions to vaccines in the past? Is it because you don’t trust pharma companies? Is it because you believe that the process has been politicized and you don’t necessarily trust our government?” Brown said. “Really analyze what is it that you’re afraid of with the process and then decide from there. Is this a reasonable fear when weighing it against having a pretty deadly virus circulating in our country and around the world and the economic toll that’s taking.”

Either way, she said it’s a personal choice.

If the FDA authorizes Pfizer’s vaccine, the company says it could have 50 million doses by the end of the year and 1.3 billion by the end of 2021. 

The Anchorage School District will continue with online learning through December 17th according to a message from Superintendent Deena Bishop today. Students will then go on winter break until January.

Read more: Anchorage will enter ‘modified hunker down’ for December 

Bishop cited the surge in coronavirus cases in Anchorage which has stressed hospital capacity and staffing in the city. She also said the pandemic has led to difficulty staffing ASD buildings. 

Related: Hospital officials warns of ‘dire’ staffing situation ahead of holiday 

Last month, the district announced a plan to reopen school buildings on November 16th, but again postponed the plan, for the third time. It was unclear until now how long the postponement would last. 

The district has faced pushback from parents and teachers about recent attempts to reopen school buildings. But district leaders want to get students back into buildings as soon as possible. 

Related: ‘I hope someone can help us’: ASD’s decision to resume in-person learning faces growing scrutiny 

Bishop said in the message the district is working to get all students back into school buildings “as soon as community conditions allow.” 

Read the full message below: 

Dear ASD Families,

Given the continued community spread of COVID-19, the strain on hospital staffing, and challenges with predictably staffing our buildings, ASD will continue online instruction through December 17.

The District continues its planning for a gradual, phased-in approach to starting in-person learning, as our sights are set on getting kids back into school buildings just as soon as community conditions allow. I will continue the twice-monthly updates to keep you informed of the planning progress. 

We will, however, continue with our small-group, in-school tutoring sessions that have seen great success this semester. Schools across the District have significantly expanded these offerings, and after the Thanksgiving break, more than 50 elementary and secondary schools will either begin or continue in-person programs to provide additional support for small groups of students who need it most. I encourage families to reach out to their teacher or principal to learn what offerings may be available at their school.

As we continue with what has been a very unpredictable school year, it is my wish that families can celebrate Thanksgiving in a meaningful way according to their own traditions. In the upcoming days, I encourage you to reflect on what matters most for you and your family. Gatherings will likely be smaller this year, but I hope the experiences will be no less enjoyable.

I want to close by sharing some insightful, if not timely, words from Oprah Winfrey, who I have always admired for her lifelong commitment to improving people’s lives. Her words seem especially relevant this Thanksgiving — “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” Although we cannot be together in our schools right now, as your superintendent, I am thankful for ASD’s students, families, and educators.

Have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sincerely,

Deena M. Bishop, Ed.D.

Superintendent

The state health department on Tuesday reported 13 deaths tied to the coronavirus and 583 new infections.

It’s the largest number of deaths reported in a single day by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services since the pandemic began. It comes as the number of infections in Alaska continues to swell, threatening to overwhelm the state’s health care system.

The health department says five of the 13 deaths are recent, and the rest are being reported following the review of death certificates. Most of the deaths involved Alaskans in their 60s or older. One was a man in his 30s. Several were residents from Western Alaska.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region continues to be hard hit by the pandemic, and continues to have the highest rate of infections in the state.

Over the past two days, the regional health corporation reported 85 new cases among just residents of the small village of Akiak.

It’s not just Alaska where infections are surging. Across most of the country, coronavirus cases are spiking, leading to warnings about a shrinking number of hospital beds and, in some places, more restrictions.

Every region of Alaska continues to be in a high-alert level, meaning there’s widespread community transmission and many undetected cases, according to the state health department.

RELATED: Goose Creek prison COVID-19 outbreak grows

The number of hospitalizations tied to the virus in Alaska also continues to rise.

By Tuesday, a total of 131 people with the coronavirus were hospitalized, and another 13 were waiting on test results. Twenty-one of them were on ventilators, according to the health department.

The total number of Alaskans who have died from the virus is now 115.

The 583 new infections announced Tuesday stretch from Utqiaġvik to the Aleutians to the Princes of Wales-Hyder area, but most of them, about 65%, are tied to the Municipality of Anchorage.

State health officials have also cautioned that their daily updates of infection numbers only provide a slice of the picture of the spread of infection in Alaska. The true number of infections is much higher than the case count publicly reported each day, they say, because staff can no longer keep up with data entry and validating each case.

RELATED: Alaska’s high COVID-19 case counts are even higher than the state’s data show

Forecasters are warning of dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains around Southcentral Alaska.

“Things really are dangerous coming into this Thanksgiving holiday,” said Wendy Wagner, director of the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center. “And if you do go in the backcountry, really know if you’re in avalanche terrain because that’s where we don’t want to be. So we can be on the lower-angle slopes, but not those 30 degrees or steeper, or below those, where it could actually slide.”

According to the avalanche center, in Turnagain Pass, Girdwood and nearby mountains, avalanche danger is considerable Tuesday, and expected to rise to high Wednesday. That means large, human triggered avalanches are likely.

Wagner says avalanches of this nature occurred last weekend as skiers ventured into the mountains. She says luckily nobody was caught or injured in those slides. But, Wagner says it is “very likely” the conditions leading to last weekend’s avalanches will continue through the weekend and into next week.

The National Weather Service is forecasting multiple storms in Southcentral through the weekend. Storms are expected to bring high winds and a mix of rain and snow to the region through Wednesday night.

More snow is expected to fall in Southcentral Thursday night into Friday as temperatures drop. Wagner says the storms and resulting avalanche danger are likely to impact mountains throughout Southcentral.

“Anywhere that gets new snow, and even if there’s not much new snow but a lot of wind, that will increase the avalanche hazard,” said Wagner. “So this is looking like a region-wide setup where avalanche conditions will worsen.”

The Hatcher Pass Avalanche Information Center is also warning that avalanches will be likely following new snow accumulation in the forecast for Wednesday night.

Next summer’s cruise season could look very different in Southeast Alaska: pandemic precautions like testing, screening and social distancing will complicate the tourism economy if ships do return next year.

In order to get a handle on what to expect for next year’s cruise season, Ketchikan city officials hired some out-of-town expertise.

“So the discussion this evening, and the subject obviously, is how can Ketchikan position itself for the upcoming restart of the cruise season?” said Miami-based consultant Luis Ajamil, addressing the council on Nov. 19.

He told Ketchikan’s local leaders that all of the large cruise lines that serve Alaska are, for now, planning to be sailing again by the time the season rolls around in April.

Ajamil said most port communities are waiting for cruise giants to lay out their plans, but “this is not an issue that just the cruise lines themselves can do. And more importantly, it is of such vital importance to the community, that you all need to take that leadership position,” he said.

Which is to say, it’s better to make your own rules instead of waiting for cruise lines to bring their proposals.

Though cruise lines aren’t back at it yet, they’re expected to implement safety protocols that do their best to encase visitors in a bubble. Ajamil said they’ll likely use things like COVID-19 tests, health screenings and temperature checks to try to keep the coronavirus from coming aboard.

Ajamil said cruise lines have put a lot of energy into making sure passengers are screened from bringing the illness on board. Then they’ll need to ensure the virus isn’t contracted while onshore.

“It turns out to be that this is probably the most complex part of the journey,” he said. “And we know that because that’s when a passenger is going to get off and on and has to interact with the community.”

And that, of course, presents a problem. Industry groups have proposed restricting passengers to cruise line-sponsored excursions at the outset to give them a little more control over health protocols. But independent tour operators that can’t afford to sell their excursions aboard worry they’ll be left out.

That’s more or less what’s happened in Europe, Ajamil said. Visitors get on a bus, take an excursion and return to their ship. In that case, the bus functions as an extension of a hermetically sealed cruise ship bubble.

“This gives you a glimpse that if you as a community don’t create your system, that’s what will happen,” he said. “Because that is the natural — that’s where, you know, gravity will take the cruise lines to do that.”

Ajamil framed geographic bubbles as an alternative. Basically, you take a map, draw a line and seal a section of town off from the rest of the community. To get in or out, workers would need to go through the same precautions as cruise ship passengers — testing, temperature checks and so on.

“You don’t have any buses there, people can’t come in and out of it, but you invite your businesses to come and set up shop there,” he said.

The bubble could be as small as the port itself — but given the small footprint of the city’s cruise ship docks, that’d still leave many businesses on the outside looking in. And the same precautions that insulate passengers from the virus will also act as an barrier preventing visitors from contributing to the local economy on the outside of the bubble.

So Ajamil says Ketchikan could, in theory, expand that bubble to include most of downtown’s waterfront commercial areas — including the landmark Creek Street.

“It can be done, that you have bubbles within this area, and obviously the traffic can go through, it just can’t interact with the passengers,” Ajamil said. “But as you expand this bubble, more and more and more people will be able to enjoy the economic benefits.”

Ajamil also pitched the idea of a city-wide bubble, where everyone who sets foot on the island has to be tested, screened and such. But Ajamil said that’s likely not a viable option for Ketchikan, though he suggested it might work for smaller communities — he pointed specifically to Skagway.

Ajamil said there’s a lot that’s still unknown. It’s not clear whether cruise lines would be amenable to any of the bubble proposals he laid out. There’s no real example of anything like this anywhere in the world, Ajamil said. But he said there is an upside to Ketchikan forging its own path.

“If Ketchikan does this right and proves it’s a safe destination, safe destinations will be a magnet,” he said.

Mayor Bob Sivertsen said it’ll be a challenge to plan.

“Quite daunting, to tell you the truth, in regards to the time crunch that we’d be under and the fact that there’s so much uncertainty around stuff,” he said.

City Council Member Abby Bradberry questioned where the resources would come from.

“Who would be paying for these costs of, you know, securing our bubble, and all the other recommendations … that we might have to impose on ourselves for the cruise lines or CDC?” she asked.

Ajamil replied that the city could charge a fee to passengers, similar to local and state head taxes.

The city has convened a task force to start planning, including representatives from the local businesses, cruise line agents, local public health officials and city port officials, among others.

And that’s good, Ajamil said, because there’s a lot of work to do, and the clock is ticking.

The president of Alaska’s hospital association said this week that Alaska is already suffering from a shortage of health care workers as coronavirus cases continue to climb. 

Thanksgiving get-togethers could only make things worse, he warned.

Speaking on Talk of Alaska, Jared Kosin, of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, said that the public sometimes misunderstands what the crisis is. 

“Oftentimes they think there’s a bright red line, and we’re gonna, all of a sudden hit it, and .. we’re going to be underwater. And it’s not that simple,” he said.

RELATED: Across Alaska, as the pandemic sends more staff home, hospitals prepare for the worst

Instead, capacity will start to strain regionally at unexpected times, leading to gaps in the system.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing those cracks,” he said.

Hundreds of health care workers are having to take time off because of exposure to COVID-19, or catching it themselves. That means staffing shortages, including in Anchorage.

Those strains reverberate across the state.

RELATED: Alaska reports a record 13 deaths as surge in coronavirus cases continues

YKHC CEO and President Dan Winkelman said that the Yukon-Kuskokwim region has been hit hard by the pandemic, and has said the virus is making it harder to find hospital beds in Anchorage for rural patients.

Earlier this month, he said, four patients needing acute care weren’t able to get out of Bethel for several days. That was two weeks ago, and things could get even worse. The region reported 171 cases between Monday and Tuesday alone.

Kosin also pointed to nursing homes as places that are already under strain, and where an outbreak could break the already-stretched health care system.

“If that sector starts to kind of go under, there’s only one place for them to go and that would be a hospital, and if we have a transfer of those types of patients into a hospital setting it would put us under immediately,” he said. “So we’re in a pretty dire situation right now.”

Kosin says that almost all hospitals in the state are currently experiencing staffing pressure, something which is likely to get worse if case numbers continue to rise.