Alaska
Federal government allocates $108 million to replace two Alaska bridges
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU/KTVF) – On Wednesday, officials with the Trump administration announced $108 million in funding for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT) to replace the World War II-era Johnson River and Gerstle River bridges along the Alaska Highway.
According to Administrator Sean McMaster with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), this funding marks the first Large Bridge Project awarded by the Trump administration under the FHWA’s Bridge Investment Program.
“These bridges are in poor condition and they’re outdated, and today, this investment is going to change that,” he said.
Constructed with a designed service life of about 50 years, the bridges have seen wear and tear over the years, although Angelica Stabs, Northern Region Public Information Officer with Alaska DOT, said they remain safe for travel.
Any problems with these structures, McMaster argued, could lead to three-hour, 150-mile detours along the Alaska Highway which Stabs called a critical supply route “for goods and services, whether that’s construction, the food we eat, or anything we need to live in our, you know, our unique communities. Basically, this highway that these bridges certainly live on are lifeline for commerce, tourism, and daily living for Alaskans.”
Now that the funding has been announced, the replacement, which has been on Alaska DOT’s radar for years, can finally move forward.
“We’re all about making our roads safe. We’re trying to keep the economy flowing in Alaska, and some people might be saddened to think, you know, for example, the Gerstle River Bridge is going away, but we’re doing everything we can to keep a little bit of that history in Alaska still,” Stabs said.
The award has gone live, and Stabs estimated that work would begin on the Johnson River Bridge in 2027, followed by the Gerstle River Bridge in 2029.
It is unclear at this point how much of the bridge replacement project’s cost will be covered by the federal funding.
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Alaska B4UDIE Comedy Festival
Thursday-Sunday, locations throughout Alaska
The biggest comedy festival in Alaska wraps up its sixth year during the fest’s final weekend. It includes dozens of comedians, from national acts to the best of Alaska’s comedy scene.
The remainder of the fest will feature shows at Koot’s, The Broken Blender, The Whale’s Tail and Bear Tooth Theatrepub. Check the festival’s site for full schedules and ticketing information.
Welcome Home Alaska’s Olympians
5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday; Town Square Park, 544 W. Fifth Ave.
Anchorage and community partners will host this free event to welcome home the city’s 2026 Winter Olympians. Attendees will receive an official event poster to be signed by the Olympians at the event. There will also be food trucks, music and family-friendly activities.
Disney ’80s-’90s Celebration in Concert
7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Atwood Concert Hall, 621 W. Sixth Ave.
This live stage show features some of the best Disney and Pixar hits from two iconic decades. There will be selections performed from “Toy Story,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Newsies,” “Aladdin,” “Tarzan,” “The Lion King,” “Mulan” and more. Tickets start at $39.
The Beat of Us
6-8 p.m. Saturday; Alaska Native Heritage Center, 8800 Heritage Center Drive
This celebration of World Drummers Day features famed bucket drummer Jared “Choclatt” Crawford and will blend local traditions with global grooves. Tickets to support the event vary in price from $15-$25, but there are a limited number of free Community Beat tickets available.
Emerging Voices
2:30 p.m. Saturday; Discovery Theatre, 621 W. Sixth Ave.
Alaska Dance Theatre, UAA’s Dance Program, West High’s DanceWest and East High’s Dance Contempo unite for this very special show. Tickets are $16, or $13 for 18 and younger.
Sink or Skim Pond Skim Celebration
3 p.m. Saturday; Hilltop Ski Area, 7015 Abbott Road
It’s $20 to enter this pond skim contest with the field limited to the first 60 sign-ups. A costume is required and the theme is party animal. Registration starts at noon and there’s an afterparty with Posterchild.
Bear Grillz
10:30 p.m. Saturday; Williwaw Social, 609 F St.
EDM favorite Bear Grillz hits the stage in Anchorage with local support from Saxafras and Hephay. General admission tickets start at around $34 with VIP options available.
First Friday
Anchorage Museum: Featuring a gallery talk on Iñupiaq and Eastern Siberian cultural belongings; the launch of the “Alaska Literary Field Guide” with speakers Nancy Lord and Marybeth Holleman; and the Planetarium show “The Incredible Sun,“ 625 C St. Free entry from 6-9 p.m.
Stephan Fine Arts: Featuring Kaitlin Vadla, Sierra Armstrong, Kara Oestgaard and Kelly Curtis. Plus live music by Pete Nolfi, 939 W. Fifth Ave., 5:30-10 p.m.
The Kobuk: Featuring Shannon Hartley, 504 W. Fifth Ave., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Turnagain Ceramics: Featuring Christina Barber and Susanna Mishler, 1343 G St., 6-8 p.m.
IGCA: Featuring exhibits by Amy Meissner, Simonetta Mignano and the UAA Camera Club, 427 D St., 5-8 p.m.
Akela Space: Featuring artist Forrest Leo’s “The Venus Project, Vol. 1,″ 320 W. Sixth Ave., 6-9 p.m.
Sevigny Studio: Featuring Richard Rearick with live music by Steve Hendricks, 312 G St., 6-9 p.m.
Turnagain Brewing: Featuring Sara Allen of Laughing Lupine Studios, 7920 King St., 5-8 p.m.
Wildbirch Hotel: Featuring artist Crystal Worl, 410 W. Third Ave., 6-8 p.m.
Cyrano’s Theatre Company: Featuring author Sandy Harper, designer Rick Miller and Cyrano’s Theatre Company resident playwright Dick Reichman to celebrate the launch of Harper’s new memoir, “The Little Theatre That Could and Did,” 3800 DeBarr Road, 5-9 p.m.
Ravens Ring Brewing: Featuring Emily Rose Carman from Alaska Wild Rose Co., 12150 Industry Way, 5-8 p.m.
Disney’s 25th episode of season 13 aired in a salute to Alaska’s 100th anniversary on April 2nd, 1967.
The animated episode, named just that, “A Salute to Alaska,” aired a brief history of the state.
It also aired the final episode that Walt Disney opened and introduced, he had died five months earlier.
The episode was directed by Hamilton S. Luske and Ward Kimball, and was a mix of animation and archival footage depicting the purchase of the land, the state’s flag and wildlife such as Killer Whales chasing Sea Otters, fishing, and a recognition of the state’s finest aviators.
Walt finished the epicode saying, “That’s another story.” There would not be another human host on Disney for two decades.
April 1, 2026
2 min read
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The Alaskan permafrost is thawing. Here’s why that’s so worrying
A Wisconsin-sized region of frozen soil is thawing fast, releasing three trillion more gallons of water per year than it did just four decades ago
By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron
Dead and slumping boreal forest Alaska birch trees rest in floodwaters amid thawing permafrost and snowmelt at Creamer’s Field in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2023.
Thawing permafrost is among climate science’s worst “positive feedback loops”: As the world warms, permafrost—essentially frozen soil—thaws, releasing fresh water and carbon into the environment. That release further fuels climate change, driving more warming. (Thawing permafrost has also raised concerns about unleashing new pathogens on humanity.)
And in Alaska, the loop seems to be speeding up. In a new study, researchers track how thawing permafrost in the North Slope region of Alaska—an area the size of Wisconsin—has added fresh water and dissolved organic carbon to estuaries off the Alaskan coast between 1980 and 2023.
In more recent years, the region released nearly 12 cubic kilometers (three trillion gallons) more water per year than it did in the 1980s. That’s enough to fill more than 4.5 million Olympic swimming pools, estimates Michael Rawlins, lead author of the study and an extension associate professor of Earth, geographic and climate sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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Fresh water is a problem for the ocean—it disrupts sea ice formation, alters the salinity of coastal lagoons and bays, could threaten global ocean circulation and carries carbon that’s later released into the atmosphere.
From the early 1980s to 2023, the amount of carbon that northern Alaska’s rivers release into the ocean every year has risen from about 120 gigagrams to about 170 gigagrams—an increase of about 50,000 metric tons of carbon.
“Some of that carbon has been locked up for tens of thousands of years. It’s now thawed, mobilized in the rivers, gets to the ocean, where some of it becomes part of the atmosphere,” Rawlins says, comparing this to fossil fuel extraction. “Outgassing”—the release of methane or carbon dioxide—can happen from rivers directly before it reaches the ocean, too.
The study could help researchers better understand permafrost-fueled carbon emissions across the Arctic, a region that is warming about three times faster than the rest of the planet, scientists estimate.
“As we try to better understand the amount of carbon in the ocean, we need good estimates of the amount coming out of these rivers,” Rawlins says.
The findings were published on Wednesday in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
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