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Salmon Northwest Coast art on the Wrangell Cooperative Association community smokehouse. (Vivian Faith Prescott / For the Capital City Weekly)

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Planet Alaska: Smokehouse values

There are many ways to smoke salmon, but it takes discipline to take the time to learn and…

A beaver pauses on top of its dam.(Courtesy Photo / Chuck Caldwell)

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On the Trails: All about beavers

Leave it to ‘em.

The author looks over a mountain near Ketchikan in the late evening sun on an alpine deer hunt. (Courtesy Photo / Abby Lund)

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I Went to the Woods: Turning the corner

The corner from summer to fall is a casual turn.

Michaela Goade, an award-winning illustrator who recently released the book "Berry Song," works in her studio. (Courtesy Photo / Bethany Goodrich)

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Resilient Peoples & Place: The magic and power of berry picking with Michaeala Goade

Adventure, magic and feeling connected and grounded to home.

Ryan John glasses the edge of the Sag River as it meets the unforgiving, flat tundra on its way to the Arctic Ocean. (Courtesy Photo / Jeff Lund)

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I Went to the Woods: North slope caribou

I had stopped hopping from tussock to tussock attempting to keep my feet dry. Frequent missteps and sneaky…

A blue darner dragonfly perched on hands, shoulders, and heads. (Courtesy Photo / Ralf Gerking)

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On the Trails: Sights and sounds from the trails in late summer

Winged wonders abound.

Elizabeth Hall, assistant paleontologist for the Yukon government in Whitehorse, stands in her office laboratory.  (Courtesy Photo / Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: Secrets of an ancient horse of the Yukon

The Yukon is a great place to find the preserved remains of ancient creatures.

From left, Kelsey Dean, watershed scientist with the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, and Kaagwaan Eesh Manuel Rose-Bell of Keex’ Kwáan watch as crew members set up tools to drag a log into place. Healthy salmon habitat requires woody debris, typically provided by falling branches and trees, which helps create deep salmon pools and varied stream structure. (Courtesy Photos / Mary Catharine Martin)
 

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The SalmonState: Bringing the sockeye home

Klawock Indigenous Stewards and partners are working to a once prolific sockeye salmon run.

A northern oriole used dietary carotenoids to make its feathers bright orange. (Courtesy Photo / J. S. Willson)

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On the Trails: The colorful world of birds

Colors are produced by cell structure, which can scatter light rays, making iridescence, and by pigments, which absorb…

Ice fog, a phrase in Russell Tabbert’s Dictionary of Alaskan English, is not uttered in many other places because to form it takes a sustained temperature of minus 35 F. (Courtesy Photo / Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: Alaska lexicon sinks in over the years

When my little Ford pickup chugged into Alaska 36 years ago this month, I didn’t know a wheel…

Caption: AYS students Allison Mills and Ricardo Sanches help Quinn Aboudara rig a system to haul a log into 2.5 Mile Creek as a part of the crew’s stream restoration work (Courtesy Photo / John Hudson, SAWC)

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Resilient Peoples & Place: Alaska Youth Stewards program equips next generation of Prince of Wales land managers

“This work is restorative…”

Red huckleberries and blueberries in Wrangell at Mickey’s Fishcamp. (Courtesy Photo/ Vivian Faith Prescott)

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Planet Alaska: The language of berries

Like the berries, the language lives on the land.

A little fish called a graveldiver had hidden under a flat rock. (Courtesy Photo / Aaron Baldwin)

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On the Trails: Bricolage — this and that, bits and pieces

There were good minus tides in May and June, and I went out with some friends to take…

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Neighbors

Gimme a Smile: Inflation 111

I was going to title this essay, “Inflation 101,” but the number keeps going up

Red salmon gather at a Gulkana Hatchery fish weir that prevents them from going upstream on the east fork of the Gulkana River.(Courtesy Photo/ Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: High-country Eden for sockeye salmon

“It’s the largest sockeye hatchery in the world. Two-hundred and sixty miles from the ocean.”

Wild iris (Iris setosa) comes in a variety of shades, from the usual purple to pale lavender or reddish. (Courtesy Photo / Denise Carroll)

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On the Trails: Considering variation in flower colors

There’s way more than blue genes.

A Hills Bros. coffee can found at an old cabin on the Fortymile River. (Courtesy Photo / Ned Rozell)

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Alaska Science Forum: A field guide to old coffee cans

Can you dig it?

White sand beaches aren’t entirely rare in Southeast Alaska, but they are special nonetheless, especially on warm summer days. (Jeff Lund / For the Juneau Empire)

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I Went to the Woods: Adjusting the itinerary

It’s not that anglers want things to be difficult, we just enjoy the payoff of time and experience…

Courtesy Photo / KMHocker photo 
Recently emerged mayflies landed on our caps and hands, perhaps resting from the rigors of courtship dances.

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On the Trails: Fun in Gustavus

A walk near a shallow lake was the highlight.

The Valley of 10,000 Smokes pictured during a visit in 2018. (Courtesy Photo / Bob Gillis)

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Alaska Science Forum: 110 years since the largest Alaska eruption

“Stretching as far as the eye could reach … were hundreds — no, thousands — of little volcanoes.”