Caribou on the Run at Fortymile River By Ned Rozell Floating down the Fortymile River, we heard the roar of a rapid just ahead. At the same time, we noticed the caribou, about 50 of them, clustered on a cliffside near the water. It was too late to pull over. I aimed the canoe for [...]
Pink salmon — too much of a good thing? By Ned Rozell Of the five species of salmon that swim Alaska waters, the pink is by far the most plentiful. Some scientists think the fish is an overabundant predator that outcompetes other salmon and some seabirds. In the late 1990s, Japanese researchers noticed an intriguing [...]
Alaska's Crested Auklet By Ned Rozell Millions of Alaska birds nest on rocky emerald islands seen by few people other than ship captains. One of the funkiest of these creatures is the crested auklet, which looks like a bassist in a punk band and smells like a tangerine. These hand-size birds have intrigued Hector Douglas [...]
Alaska Hot Springs, Far and Wide By Ned Rozell KANUTI HOT SPRINGS — After a few hours of skiing through deep snow, Forest Wagner and I smelled a tuna sandwich. We knew we were closing in on warm pools of water. From the frozen Kanuti River, we moved along an open stream up toward Kanuti [...]
Streaking, Manmade Lights in the Sky By Ned Rozell I slept outside a few nights ago. Lying a platform of packed snow, my face looking upward from the sleeping bag, I squinted at the Big Dipper. Within a few minutes, what appeared to be a moving star slanted across the dipper. Then another. And another. [...]
Where are the Yukon Chinook Salmon Headed? By Ned Rozell In a packed university conference room, biologist Randy Brown spoke of chinook, the fatty king of far-north salmon. “It's more than just a fish, it’s a culture,” Brown said to the Fairbanks crowd, many of them Alaska Natives. Brown is the lead author on a [...]
Alaska Hit By Major Earthquake, Again By Ned Rozell What’s this? Another aftershock? That’s hundreds now, each more faint than the last. Sorry, I guess I’ve moved on. I should pay more attention, given that you - a 7.9 deep in the seafloor not far from Kodiak - are the most powerful earthquake on the [...]
Beavers Moving Into Northern Alaska Due To Climate Change By Ned Rozell Animals the size of Labrador retrievers are changing the face of Alaska, creating new ponds visible from space. “These guys leave a mark,” UAF ecologist Ken Tape said of North America’s largest rodents, beavers. He has observed the recent work of beavers north [...]
Alaska Salmon Complete a 1,000-mile Journey, and Life By Ned Rozell MOUTH OF THE DELTA RIVER — On a morning with biting air in the single digits Fahrenheit, this river smells like sulfur and is splashy and loud. Bald eagles and ravens swoop in the updraft of a nearby rock bluff in what looks like [...]
Wolves a defining part of Alaska landscape By Ned Rozell The wolf tracks appeared as they always do, as a surprise. On a day between fall and winter, with the leaves fallen and browning but the ground not yet hard, I was walking with my dog and an a.m. radio. We were descending a four-wheeler [...]