INVESTIGATIVE SERIES · FISHERIES
Deep dive into Alaska commercial salmon fisheries, trawl fleet restrictions, and Attorney General stays.
Amid surging interest in Alaska’s minerals, state officials are reporting an “unprecedented” backlog in new mining claims.
It's been more than two decades since Alaska elected a Democratic governor.
Larger-than-life salmon and sandhill cranes joined Indigenous dancers near Fish Creek, just west of downtown.
The jump in salmon numbers has also inflamed a debate about fishing bans amid reports of illegal harvests.
Currie Dixon is premier of the Yukon Territory. A lot of the issues on his mind might also be on yours.
Western Alaska youth are grappling with trauma they suffered during last year's climate disaster.
Subsistence fishermen are fighting the attorney general’s decision to overturn the board’s action.
Gas and heating fuel prices in rural Alaska were already high. An impending spike from the Iran war could "wipe out" communities.
The clock is ticking before a June 1 filing deadline.
Candidates tell us how they'd respond to threats like typhoons and thawing permafrost, and with whom they'd want to dine — living or dead.
The wells was drilled on Indigenous-owned land, in a program that prompted sharp opposition from area tribes.
The independent says he's best situated to unseat incumbent Republican Nick Begich III.
Catching up on the Northern Journal trail.
The race between Bill Hill and Matt Schultz is heating up.
"I'll kill them all right now, with my bare hands," one mine booster said in a recent video posted online.
A half-century ago, the Indigenous Tsimshian village of Metlakatla, in Southeast Alaska, preserved its reservation when others in Alaska were terminated. Today, the reserve sustains a thriving fishing industry — and the tribe is fighting in court to expand its territory.
Gubernatorial hopefuls are blasting Alaska's trawlers for catching salmon. Now industry allies have launched a radio ad campaign.
Mike Dunleavy, in a required gift disclosure, said he accepted a helicopter ride and overnight stay at a preserve. But his hosts won’t be getting any special treatment, he said after returning home.
Lawyers for the Trump administration are defending a Biden-era decision to veto the controversial Pebble project in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.
Anchorage's Gus Schumacher describes his experience of tough results while, meanwhile, his roommate was winning an Olympic medal.
Kikkan Randall is one of the commentators who pulls graveyard shifts over the weekend to call races happening in Europe.
The Olympic torch relay stopped at the headquarters of Italian oil giant ENI. Some winter sports athletes aren't pleased.
A Trump appointee threatened sanctions on Canadian halibut exports if the country’s negotiators didn’t accept a cut to the British Columbia catch, according to multiple sources.
New from Northern Journal: a recurring survey of candidates for governor.
Alaska's senior senator speaks to some of the major congressional debates from the past year.
A long-running weather pattern shows no sign of relenting. “Cranky’s a good way to describe it,” says one mayor whose village hit minus 50.
The Eskay Creek project is one of several prospective mines near the British Columbia-Alaska border, where the government and industry have promised new investments.
After a blizzard forced an emergency landing in the Bering Strait village of Teller, the pilots have been sampling local delicacies.
Scientists remain hopeful halibut will rebound, as in decades past. But they are unsure when that will happen.
The trawl industry has scrambled to try to find a way to keep the whales out of their nets after nine were accidentally taken in 2023.
The bottom trawl fleet accidentally catches and kills millions of pounds of halibut each year, stoking a fierce, long-running debate.
Scientists haven't reached a consensus about the forces that have driven down halibut stocks. But the decline is hitting the harvest hard.
An Alaska Native corporation leased mineral rights inside a national park to Contango Ore Inc. The company’s plans are generating opposition from fishermen and conservationists.
An investigation appears to center on whether seafood companies violated federal rules by processing accidentally caught salmon and halibut into low-value fish meal.
A study published before the storm said there's an $80 million-a-year gap in money needed to protect or move coastal communities.
The controversy over a typically celebratory honor underscores the intense polarization over resource development in Alaska Native communities.
Jeron Joseph has no driver's license, and he's barely ever left his home village. Now he's navigating life on the road system.
Hundreds have left their homes. Many may never go back.
A weekend well-spent in rural Alaska.
Behold, the slimy sculpin.
A dispatch from the most happily chaotic time of year in the 49th state.
A Q&A with two longtime Alaska public radio employees
Opponents cautiously celebrate, but the owner of the mining claims is looking for a new partner.
The filing deadline for the 2026 elections is still nearly a year away. But Democrats in Alaska and Outside are anxiously awaiting a decision about which office Peltola will run for.
After a landmark veto, Trump administration officials say they’re “open to reconsideration” and are negotiating a potential settlement of a lawsuit filed by Pebble’s developer.
Demand for low-carbon nuclear energy could boost uranium prospects on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. But residents of the small village of Elim fear a mine would pollute the river they depend on.
Vancouver, British Columbia, home to dozens of companies searching the world for minerals, has a special interest in the northernmost U.S. state.
Sure, there could be a secret CIA installation on a Bering Sea island. But taking a dog team across the surrounding sea ice? Only in Hollywood.
Alaska’s Legislature adjourned last week without addressing an issue that many residents of coastal, Native villages see as urgent: expanding access to commercial fishing careers.
In a remote corner of North America, salmon and mining companies are vying for new territory.
The request by leaders of the state’s urban utilities faces opposition from some advocates, who say wind power is a more politically and economically realistic bet than the multi-billion-dollar Susitna development.
The lawsuit asks a judge to order the service to "promptly issue" its decision on the petition by a specific date.
Opponents are celebrating the news as a setback for the Palmer Project near Haines, one of the state’s most advanced — and polarizing — mining projects.
No one is saying whether the truck that spilled 1,000 gallons of fuel had been on a Hilcorp job. But it belongs to a company that’s worked for Hilcorp on its Yukon Flats exploration program.
A global mining giant is selling its 50% stake in Donlin Gold. One of the buyers is John Paulson, who made billions betting against the housing market before the 2008 financial crisis.
New calls to raise Alaska’s mining taxes and royalties come as state officials face difficult fiscal decisions.
Hilcorp has signed oil leases with Doyon, the Indigenous-owned corporation for Interior Alaska, which hopes the drilling effort will yield the state’s next big oil field. But there’s fierce opposition from local tribes.
“Sometimes you’re just never going to have data that says, ‘Yes, that’s what it was,” said a top state regulator.
A standoff between World Championships organizers and Norwegian climate advocates is threatening to mar an otherwise impeccably executed event.
For Alaska’s eastern neighbors, dual threats of tariffs and annexation still loom.
Some news and notes, including a leg wrestling video, about my work and travels over the past couple of months.
There were warning signs ahead of the bet on Peter Pan Seafood, which is expected to cost Alaskans more $29 million.
A permitting system designed in the 1970s was supposed to make Alaska’s commercial fishing industry more sustainable and more profitable. But over the last 50 years, it has hollowed out many Indigenous coastal villages where residents no longer can earn a living by harvesting salmon.
Boosters of a mining road in the backcountry northwest of Anchorage are poised to get a $100,000 federal grant for trail work. Some locals see it as part of an under-the-radar effort to push the road forward.
Touting an unconventional approach, Contango Ore says it can develop mines faster and with a smaller environmental footprint. But some Alaskans fear an influx of ore trucks on state roads.
Premiums for Alaska health insurance plans on the federal marketplace have spiked more than 50% over the past three years.
Conservation and tribal advocates have lobbied for a crackdown for years on the unintentional harvests of salmon and other species by Bering Sea pollock trawlers. Now, they’re turning their attention to a smaller pollock trawl fishery in Prince William Sound.
We've got items on the proposed Ambler road and neighboring mines, a project to research low-carbon fuel that could come from Alaska mines and Indigenous challenges to mining projects in British Columbia and the Nome area.
The Palmer development, near a glacier above the salmon-bearing Chilkat River, has for years fueled political divisions in the town of Haines. Now it's getting a new owner, raising questions about the project's future.
Canada’s federal government plans to fund a key road at the Galore Creek development, along a major salmon bearing river that flows into Southeast Alaska near the fishing town of Wrangell.
State fish scientists say the circumstances of the fish kill suggest that it stems from a water quality problem. But regulators say they're still waiting from data from the Kensington gold mine's operator.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska rejected a proposal to increase electricity rates for heavier users. And: updates on the Kodiak king salmon bycatch incident and the future of Peter Pan Seafood.
The incident is sure to draw more scrutiny on the issue of bycatch — the industry term for the unintended harvest, typically of salmon or halibut, by boats targeting other species.
“Sugarcane” is set in British Columbia. But after recent screenings in Sitka and Anchorage, advocates say the documentary’s themes are as relevant and urgent just across the Canadian border in Alaska.
Alaska caught black cod is oily and delicious, and it's selling at rock bottom prices right now in part because of the devaluation of the Japanese yen.
I want to hire a talented, young reporter to do more of what Northern Journal is already doing — independent journalism on Alaska’s lands and natural resources.
Skippers in Prince William Sound and Kodiak say this year's pink harvest is one of the worst they’ve ever seen. “I wake up every morning and I try to apply for a different job," one said.
Washington’s Democratic governor had advanced an ally of tribes and conservation groups for appointment to the federal commission that manages lucrative fisheries off the Alaska coast. But the U.S. commerce secretary instead reappointed an official from a Seattle-based trawl company.
Officials say cyanide pollution at Victoria Gold’s Eagle Mine poses no health risks to Alaskans. But advocates worry it could compound a yearslong salmon crisis on the Yukon River — and should draw new attention to Canadian mines in areas that drain into Alaska waterways.
Greetings from Northern Journal headquarters — also known as my couch, here at home in Airport Heights. I'm just back from an amazing reporting trip to Kodiak. I'd been there twice before, each time briefly to cover the biennial Fish Debate, but this trip was longer. In addition to my time in Kodiak city, I spent a few days in the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq villages of Ouzinkie and Old Harbor, talking to residents about their access to the island's commercial fisheries. Fourth of July in Old Harbor is not
A year into the the crisis in Alaska's $6 billion commercial fishing industry, there are some signs of recovery. But major threats persist, many of which fishermen feel powerless to affect.
In May, lawmakers narrowly rejected a talk radio host’s appointment to a highly paid position regulating Alaska's commercial fisheries. Now, after the failure of that pick, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has chosen a new appointee with a similar — though not identical — background for the job.
Experts say that the request, if granted, could force restrictions not just on salmon fishermen but also on activity that affects river habitat, like road and residential construction.
A mammoth investigation.
Introducing the Northern Journal podcast.
The director of Anchorage's city-owned cargo port says maintaining the boat launch is a money-losing operation that his agency won't continue. No one else has stepped up to take over.
Alaska's congressional delegation, in documents filed in federal court late Tuesday, called the proposed Donlin mine one of the state's “most important and necessary economic development projects.”
The program, if approved, would target smaller companies than those that won a share of more than $100 million in salmon and pollock purchases by the federal government earlier this year.
The years-long debate is taking on increasing urgency, as subsistence harvesting bans continue and the policy responses under consideration threaten to impose steep costs on industry.
Peter Pan Seafoods said Thursday that another processing company would lease and operate two of its Alaska plants for the summer salmon season. But another facility, in King Cove, is still in limbo.
“We are all sort of on pins and needles,” said a local official in King Cove, where fishermen and elected leaders are waiting to learn the fate of Peter Pan Seafoods' shuttered plant.
A federal judge has settled a dispute that began in 2021, when the Dunleavy administration tried to expand salmon fishing opportunities beyond those offered by the federal government.
Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee has advanced Becca Robbins Gisclair, an attorney and conservation advocate, for a seat currently held by Anne Vanderhoeven, who works in the trawling industry.
Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy subjected Anchorage cross-country skier Gus Schumacher to a pop quiz about climate science in an exchange that went viral in conservative circles.
The plan could close fishing for 7 more years and open the door for hatcheries. In villages along the river, Tribal leaders say the state has cut them out of the process, and want federal oversight.
Big energy news for the Northwest Arctic Borough, while a new study adds to the pile of evidence suggesting that booming, hatchery-boosted pink salmon populations could be harming wild sockeye.
Climate change poses an existential threat to cross-country skiing. But it's hard to talk about for some top athletes, who fear being accused of hypocrisy because of their travel-intensive lifestyles.
Anchorage cross-country talent Gus Schumacher won an international cross-country ski race Sunday, something no other American man has accomplished in more than 40 years.
“It's one of the most difficult days of my life,” said Rodger May, one of the company’s owners and a longtime player in Alaska’s seafood industry.
The chinook are threatened by climate change and competition from hatchery-raised fish, and existing state and federal management are failing to stem their decline, says the Wild Fish Conservancy.
Plus: Tribal governments near a major proposed graphite mine on the Seward Peninsula criticize the Biden administration for failing to consult them before granting $37.5 million to the project.
Other highlights: money for tree planting and thinning, a new state vessel and plane, and a major budget boost for the state grant program funded by oil production in the National Petroleum Reserve.
The federal government says it's considering submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit over fishing rights between the state and the Southeast Alaska tribal government of Metlakatla.
Also: A state utility regulator wanted to block the Permanent Fund's board chair and a renewable energy advocacy group from weighing in on an Anchorage utility's proposed rate hike.
Also: The pilot in the Halibut Cove float plane-boat faceoff makes her case to a federal judge, and a high-profile hire in the Alaska Senate.
A federal agency says it's considering a rewrite to guidelines that shape management plans for Bering Sea and other fisheries. But it has not yet committed to taking action.
Plus: an array of stakeholders weigh in on Anchorage's electric utility's proposal to raise rates, AIDEA pays $500,000 for road data and Dunleavy gets a new press aide.
Graphite is crucial for electrical vehicles, but China controls the global supply. A mine on the Seward Peninsula could help change that — but it's perched above an essential Iñupiaq subsistence area.
Plus, read my attorneys' warning letter to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, which has refused to fully process a basic public records request for more than two months.
Mike Dunleavy has appointed ally Mike Porcaro, a longtime GOP advertising consultant and talk radio host, to a highly paid job as a commissioner at the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission.
An update on the fate of The Walrus, coyotes attack Alaska soldiers in Louisiana and Gov. Mike Dunleavy visits a mining prospect in the Alaska Range, which could connect to the West Su Access road.
Alex Ortiz, a longtime staffer to the Alaska delegation, has taken a job as a lobbyist and consultant at Capitol Hill Consulting Group, whose clients include Native corporations and a mining company.
Bristol Bay fishermen are calling for strikes, lawsuits and “the goddamn picket signs and pitchforks” in response to low salmon prices. But an industry expert says processors have been "screwed," too.
Israel Mahay, who owns a Susitna river jet boat business, had chaired the Recreation Rivers Advisory board. Mike Overcast, who owns a heliskiing lodge in the Susitna watershed, was set to replace him.
The Southeast Alaska troll chinook fishery will open as scheduled July 1, after a federal appeals panel reversed a lower court ruling that would have kept the $85 million industry off the water.
A federal appeals panel issued a last-second ruling Wednesday that will allow this summer’s Southeast Alaska troll chinook salmon fishery to open as scheduled July 1.
The Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy plans to ask the federal government to list Southeast Alaska, Southwest Alaska and Cook Inlet king salmon under the Endangered Species Act.
Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said the state would appeal the denial immediately. But the clock is ticking before the scheduled July 1 start to the king salmon fishery.
The mining company leading the Ambler mine project has shelved a planned summer drilling program amid delays to a related road proposal. Plus a property tax dispute over the Point Thomson oil field.
Alaska's governor and Kim Kardashian in the same place? A new tourism lodge in housing-starved Girdwood? Read on for more.
The inaugural edition of Interesting Stuff has items on the Southeast Alaska troll lawsuit, the timber controversy in Yakutat, a new pro-family advisor for the governor and a renewable energy project.
A federal judge issued an order Tuesday voiding an environmental review that helped authorize the small-scale fishery, a $30 million industry that employs hundreds of people in Southeast Alaska.
Leaders of Yakutat's village corporation say they didn't pledge land as collateral for loans they took out to start a logging business. But some fear tribal land could be sold to satisfy the debt.
First Nations groups in the Yukon Territory and Alaska GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration are advancing discussions about whether hatcheries could help stem a steep crash in salmon populations.
Criticism of Dunleavy's nomination to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is a sign of the growing polarization and high stakes in Alaska fish politics amid historic crashes in salmon stocks.
The lawsuit aims to defend endangered killer whales. But the science is complex, and Southeast Alaska fishermen could be put out of work.
Catching up on some nuggets from the state budget, news on a contentious mine and road proposal in Northwest Alaska, and links to some of my recent freelance pieces.
Logging is on the decline across Southeast Alaska. But in Yakutat, the local Indigenous-owned corporation is still cutting, over the objections of tribal and cultural leaders. Here's a firsthand look.
Advocates say that seafood businesses, trade groups and fishermen need to take more action to advocate for lower carbon emissions, or risk continued catastrophic declines in their harvests.
Translating a pro-fish platform into policy reality won’t be easy for Peltola, who will serve in the House minority. But experts say Peltola can still find ways to advance her fish first agenda.
The state agency responsible for advancing the Ambler road and oil development in the Arctic Refuge has seen dozens of employees exit amid escalating attacks from conservation groups.
And, scroll down for a bit of news from Alaska's economic development arm.
