Alaska
A view from the dunes
KOTZEBUE — It’s spring here, sunny and bright, and deceptively cold. Outside it’s minus 7, with a west wind off the sea ice drifting snow and torturing the frozen air, creating fog out of clear blue sky. The sun glints on falling crystals and the endless white snow. My fingers are cracked, my nose sunburnt and frosted, and, as usual in spring, I’m packing while also still unpacking — tools, rope, mittens, muktuk and dried caribou — after weeks guiding NASA and Southwest Research Institute scientists at the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes.
In mid-March, we headed upriver with three snowmobiles and four sleds, myself and two other guides from Arctic Wild who I’d never met before, Pat Hendersen and Tim Pappas. They are big, tall, young capable white guys and I had my work cut out pretending I was even one or two of those things.
There’s a lot of snow this year, and I worried about the river above Kiana. It’s often soft and deep, with overflow and sinkholes, not the best place to be dragging heavy sleds without a trail. I had called ahead to Ambler and couldn’t stir my adopted nephews, but my niece, Andrea Kelly, offered to set off immediately, alone, to help pack a trail down the river.
The first 100 or so miles went well. The next hours were harder, with us struggling to get off the river, through willows and trees, and up a steep face onto the snow-covered sand. It was dark and late when we made it to the old Ferguson allotment on Ahnewetut Creek. We pitched tents, and in the morning stepped out into the huge awesome presence of the dunes. It wasn’t a tan sandscape like in summer — virtually no sand was exposed on the entire 25-square-mile surface. It was more like waking up on a cold, white alien planet. Through sparse spruce, just across the creek, a wall with heavy cornices towered against the sky, blocking the rising sun, and to the west, the slopes of taller dunes hid those horizons, too.
For the rest of the day, we prepared camp: making trails, cutting wood and setting up tents and woodstoves for the scientists to arrive the next morning. Tim and I scouted out a long flat inter-dune area for an airstrip, and he headed back to camp to work while I packed a 60-foot-wide and 2,000-foot-long airstrip as requested by Jared Cummings of Golden Eagle Outfitters, to land equipment and passengers in his turbine Otter on skis.
The landscape shifted colors as I snowgoed back and forth, beautiful blues and moody grays shifting under patches of moving sunlight and clouds. Along the northern horizon, the white diamonds of the Brooks Range sprawled, and closer, the Jade Mountains reached against the sky, friendly and familiar. Below the Jades, I could see a tiny line of white, the high tundra where caribou migrate south in the fall toward Onion Portage, and under that a dark line marking the timbered bluff of Paungaqtaugruk, where I was born and raised. It felt strange to be driving back and forth, going nowhere, and staring at my past only 15 miles away. I longed to head home. I pictured my family in my youth, working around our small sod igloo, shoveling snow, checking traps, feeding the dogs, hauling wood and water, and disappearing inside for the night, shutting out the cold as best we could. Was that this same person?
The next day, the feeling on the dunes changed again, with the arrival of people. Eric Sieh, of Arctic Backcountry Flying Service, landed early in his Super Cub to drop off a videographer from Smithsonian’s “Ice Airport Alaska,” who wanted to film the arrival of the NASA and SWRI scientists. Eric is a longtime friend, more than an expert at flying, and as I’d predicted, could land anywhere. Sure enough, he ignored my strip and landed beside it. It was good to see him. We joked and chatted briefly. He was in a hurry to return for the next load.
Jared arrived soon afterwards, touching down with a huge load in open snow. Tim and Pat and I helped him lower down heavy wooden crates, and we sledded loads back to camp while Eric and Jared flew two more trips each from Kotzebue, ferrying eight scientists — four women and four men — and another ton of gear. It was a cold day, with the sun hanging in the sky, and the passengers climbed down unacclimated, unaccustomed to bulky clothing and large boots, moving awkwardly at first, stumbling and sinking in the snow.
I was bundled up in my fur parka and hat, and heard someone say, “There you are.” A woman gave me a hug. A tall man followed, smiling. It was Cynthia Dinwiddie and David Stillman, two remaining members of the NASA project I guided when they first journeyed to the Arctic to study the Kobuk Sand Dunes. I hadn’t seen either since March 2010 when I snowgoed their crew to a ski-plane on the river ice.
Cynthia was the principal investigator, then and now, coordinating this study of movements of dust and sand, and the mysteries of perched water in these dunes, searching for clues needed for any future travel to Mars, I think. She looked the same, pretty, younger than her age, and a little nervous. David, who is tall and ceaselessly good-natured, and deploys robotic projects on the Moon, was an older version of the blue-eyed, smiling young man I’d known — minus a certain amount of head hair. I kept my hat on. I knew I didn’t look the same either. Standing there smiling, I glanced quickly toward the Jades, trying to sort out which years had passed since I last saw these friends, and which were the ones further back.
I remembered Clarence Wood had rented NASA his cabin below Kavik Creek. He was old, though still roaming, and stopped in on his way from Ambler to Kivalina, to have coffee and check what the white guys were up. My lifelong friend and brother, Alvin Williams, was alive then, too, young and handsome, just 43. He brought supplies down, and his 12-year-old son Kituq came along, and his girlfriend, Pearl Gomez. Alvin and I laughed a lot, as we always did, told stories, and discussed animals, guns and our boots. I remember cooking outside on a Coleman (we all hated the cook’s sour, expired packaged food), frying caribou, muskox, lynx, rabbit and ptarmigan for the scientists, and letting them try muktuk. Later, Andrew Greene came into camp with a wolverine on his sled. After the project ended, I headed north to Midas Creek and the upper Noatak country.
Quickly, I rushed to load luggage and red and blue coolers on my sled, to get these nice cold smart people out of the way before Jared’s powerful propwash manufactured a blizzard.
• • •
Things got busy after that, and complicated. We were a big camp. Each scientist had their own specialty, and they moved back and forth unpacking crates of radar and equipment, firing up a generator and a Starlink. Tim and Pat and I had our hands full too, chopping wood, tending camp, repairing things and helping them. We settled in to long work days out in the cold — what I think of as fun.
The weather stayed cold, minus 25 some nights, sunny most days. To me it was perfect, although mornings were not as easy as when I was younger, with my food and water and everything in my tent frozen solid. The scientists had their own difficulties: a hole melted in the science tent, and the first night, the tent with two Davids — Camp David — filled with toxic smoke from air mattresses touching the stove. Pat and Tim were concerned about our first-day trajectory toward fire. Me, I had predicted difficulties; mixing nylon tents and woodstoves takes practice. In my small tent, my homemade stove was ice cold, followed by frighteningly hot. I was sympathetic and loaned the guys my spare mattress and cotton blanket, and kept my caribou hide.
I worked daily with David, setting up radar equipment. Once we had things ready, a researcher named Jani Radebaugh and her cheery young student Emma Gosselin accompanied us criss-crossing nearby dunes and inter-dunes at slow speed, dragging ground-penetrating radar. Over and over, their GPR and Ohm-Mapper units went on the blink (or no blink), and we had to return to camp to thaw things out. Cynthia joined us occasionally, though she mostly had to stay in camp and download data we gathered, to guide the drilling team.
The drill team was having a tough go of it, too, making slow and no progress with a hand auger, until finally Pat had Tim take over more cooking and wood duties, and he worked long hours to help the team get down past caving sand and frozen layers.
I kept hoping to make a trip home, glancing in that direction like a hungry wolf, but every minute was filled, mechanical difficulties plagued us, and Cynthia and David were relentless in their desire for more data. I’d been waiting 15 years for their return, and was relentless, too, in my efforts to make this work out for her and her team.
Morning and evening, we gathered in the chilly meal tent to eat great food Tim and Pat somehow cooked, compared notes, tell stories and plan out the following day’s work. Slyly, I brought along my muktuk and dried caribou, and did my best to hide my bad hip and other infirmities. I’d turned 60 the previous month, and my dad turned 90 while we were there. I was feeling a surprising number of years piling up around me, and more than once, I went ahead and took advantage of my elder status.
“You people don’t respect the cold enough,” I said, after days and days of dead batteries, blank screens, an iced-up generator, snapped wires and other difficulties.
It didn’t appear that anyone heard, or wanted to hear. Nerves were starting to fray. But David began carrying big batteries in his jacket — and in mine — and Cynthia asked me to help drag a GPR unit into her and Jani’s tent to thaw. And slowly our progress picked up.
One day, I overheard Cynthia telling the group that I’d taught her to shoot a rifle and a pistol. Really? She started archery after that, she said. Faint memories drifted back: the Anchorage Museum had shown Cynthia and my photographs; they’d flown us at separate times to Anchorage to present our work. Suddenly, I realized, she’s on the cover of my fourth book! How and when had my life gotten so convoluted that I forgot all this?
“I remember you soldering broken wires on the GPR with a Bic lighter,” David said, smiling. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told that story. We were miles from camp, out in the cold and you fixed the GPR.”
It made me feel good — trusted — and I went out and banged ice out of my sled, to haul one more load of water from the creek. When I was done, I drove to the top of a dune for a few minutes to watch the mountains settle in after sunset. I heard a buzzing. Emma’s drone hovered overhead, the little insect face staring, then the props whirred and it shot north to map another dune.
The land glowed in the evening light. I got out my iPhone to take a photo. I checked to see if the Starlink reached this far. It didn’t. The mixed scene felt incongruous and made me think of my brother Kole and I, reading science fiction novels when we were kids: Kole liked “Dune,” and “The Martian Chronicles,” and Edgar Rice Burroughs books. I read Asimov, but preferred “real” stories. I pictured us brothers skinning muskrats, eating muskrat for dinner, gnawing the boiled hairy skin off the tails. My primitive hunter-gatherer past felt close, and so incredibly distant. Even the concept of studying this ancient sand to try to understand the surface of Mars felt different, and I realized those little boys would have seen this life of mine as a science fiction.
The camp looked peaceful from there. A few stars were out, and I took one more photo of the distant mountains before I headed back down to continue my chores in the cold and falling darkness.
Seth Kantner is a commercial fisherman, wildlife photographer, wilderness guide and is the author of the best-selling novel “Ordinary Wolves,” and most recently, the nonfiction book “A Thousand Trails Home: Living With Caribou.” He lives in Northwest Alaska and can be reached at sethkantner.com.
In exchange for living in what is perhaps the country’s most beautiful state, Alaskans sometimes have to do without: professional sports teams, Trader Joe’s and, well, sunlight for half the year. But we make up for it with the Iditarod, reindeer sausages and chasing the aurora borealis. In other words, we often have to make our own fun. And by “fun” I mean “beer.” Those words are interchangeable, right?
Beer is a big part of life for Alaskans. We hike with it, camp with it, boat with it, cook with it and pair it with foods like the stuffiest of sommeliers. We throw it monthly birthday parties like the First Tap events at Broken Tooth Brewing Co. (otherwise known as Bear Tooth Theatrepub and Moose’s Tooth Pub & Pizzeria), complete with national musical acts like Modest Mouse, Clinton Fearon, and Norah Jones. We even occasionally do yoga with it (at downtown’s Williwaw Social). In other words, we take it everywhere and we take it seriously.
Beers from the state’s biggest brewery, Alaskan Brewing Co. based in Juneau, might already be in your refrigerator if you live in one of the 25 states where it’s available. Established in 1986 by Marcy and Geoff Larson, it was the 67th independent brewery to open in the country. With a steady line of signature brews, including their most recent “Wildness” beer, it’s the most well-established of all the state’s breweries. Expect seasonal specialties that incorporate ingredients like cranberries, raspberries, locally roasted coffee, locally grown white wheat from the Matanuska-Susitna area and even Alaska spruce tips. Ubiquitous around Alaska, this is our Papa Beer, if you will (I’ll show myself out).
But Alaskan Brewing is just one out of the more-than 50 breweries, distilleries, meaderies and cideries in the state (for an excellent list visit brewersguildofalaska.org). And while almost half of them are in Anchorage or within a short drive of our state’s largest city (including the relatively populous communities of Girdwood, Eagle River, Palmer and Wasilla), some of our most remote ports of call and tiniest towns are also in on the brewing action (I’m looking at you, Cooper Landing Brewing Company in Cooper Landing, population 231).
The ever-expanding Denali Brewing Co. in Talkeetna (population 997) may be a small-town hero, but it’s anything but small. Their four signature beers — Mother Ale, Chuli Stout, Single Engine Red and the ever-popular Twister Creek IPA, as well seasonal brews like Slow Down Brown and Flag Stop Milepost #3 — are year-round mainstays of summer barbecues and winter bonfires around the state.
This brewery is also home to the more recently established Alaska Cider Works, Alaska Meadery (featuring “Razzery,” a mead made with raspberries, sour cherries and apples) and Denali Spirits (featuring vodka, gin, whiskey, and “smoke” whiskey), because when you’ve fermented one, why not ferment them all?
(Denali Spirits’ canned cocktails, especially their blueberry mojito, have been so popular in Anchorage that at one time there was a Facebook page largely dedicated to tracking them down. Luckily, supply has since caught up with demand.)
Some breweries are even more remote. Ports of call and island hopping here can be one way to get your fill of hops. Breweries can be found in Ketchikan (Bawden Street Brewing Co.), Kodiak (Kodiak Island Brewing & Still, Double Shovel Kodiak Cidery, and Olds River Inn), Homer (Homer Brewing Co. and Grace Ridge Brewing Co. for beer, and you can also check out Sweetgale Meadworks & Cider House for hard cider and locally sourced meads featuring ingredients like nagoonberry), Sitka (Harbor Mountain Brewing), Seward (Seward Brewing Co. and Stoney Creek Brewhouse), Valdez (Valdez Brewing and Growler Bay Brewing), and Skagway (Klondike Brewing Co. and Skagway Brewing Co.).
Of course, many trips to Alaska begin and end in Anchorage. And if, during your travels, you’ve foolishly left some beers untasted, you can make up for lost time in our state’s biggest city which boasts — let’s face it — a ridiculous number of exceptional craft breweries.
Downtown’s Glacier Brewhouse specializes in oak-aged English and American West Coast-style beers, 13 of them, from blondes to stouts. Beneath the floor of the Brewhouse is a “Wall of Wood” comprised of casks of special release beers that are conditioned in oak barrels once used to age wine and bourbon. The history of the oak imparts “mother tongue” flavor characteristics, like vanilla and coconut, into these limited edition brews. Opt for one of these unique beers or choose from their flagship choices like raspberry wheat, oatmeal stout, imperial blonde, Bavarian hefeweizen or a flight that includes them all.
Down the street is 49th State Brewing Co., which expanded into Anchorage from its original location in Healy, at the edge of Denali National Park and Preserve. If you are unable to visit their flagship location, where you can sip beer while playing bocce or horseshoes on the lawn, you can catch up with them here. There’s a unique selection that includes beers like Smok, a smoked lager, as well as seasonal offerings like the Tiger’s Blood Sour, an homage to shave ice described as ”ferociously fruity.” Or there’s “Apple Fritter Ale,” with hints of cinnamon, icing, caramel, and vanilla. This location also boasts some of the best views in Anchorage and an expansive outdoor rooftop patio.
Just about all of the full-service restaurants in downtown Anchorage proudly feature some variety of Alaskan beers. In the heart of downtown, Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse prides itself on a huge selection of beers, both international and local. Tent City Taphouse offers a diverse and carefully curated list of 24 rotating local brews, including their house beer, Tent City Tangerine IPA brewed by Glacier Brewhouse. Tent City regularly hosts “Taste of the North” beer dinners featuring Alaskan brewers. One, in collaboration with Grace Ridge Brewing Company, featured smoked salmon canapes with Black Pepper IPA, classic beef Wellington with an Oystercatcher stout and roasted honey lamb chops with a Winter Cranberry Ale.
If you have transportation around the city, treat yourself to a brewery tasting-room tour. Found in unassuming little side streets in the more industrial areas of Anchorage, some of our best beers can be sipped and savored at the source. Finding these funky little spots can feel like being invited to a secret party. And it’s a glimpse into Anchorage’s most authentic beer culture.
In midtown, Onsite Brewing Co. has unique, small-batch brews in a funky relaxed environment. Further south, King Street Brewing Co., Turnagain Brewing, Cynosure Brewing, Magnetic North Brewing Company, Brewerks, and one of our newest, Ship Creek Brewing Company are all within a stone’s throw of one another. If you’re lucky, you might run into one of Anchorage’s popular food trucks parked outside, so you’ll have something to wash down with your flights. Depending on the day, you might find reindeer sausages, pad Thai, cheesesteaks or pupusas. On the weekends, Anchorage Brewing Company features a top-notch in-house pop-up restaurant, called Familia, with a rotating menu featuring local Alaskan ingredients.
One of the newest and furthest south breweries, while still in the Anchorage bowl, is Raven’s Ring Brewing Company, which is a brewery/winery and meadery. From a traditional IPA to a Concorde grape wine called Grape Juice to a rotating Vintner’s pour like Sweet Peach Jalapeno mead, this ambitious operation is challenging the notion that you can’t please everyone.
Other Anchorage points of interest for non-hoppy but still home-grown adult beverages include Anchorage Distillery, Zip Kombucha, Double Shovel Cidery and Hive Mind Meadery.
If your travels are over and you still haven’t had your fill, check out the Silver Gulch Brewing & Bottling Co. inside Terminal C at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on your way out of town. An offshoot of the flagship Silver Gulch brewery in Fox, Alaska (about 10 miles north of Fairbanks), this location has a bar and restaurant, and a retail shop carrying growlers of their own brews as well as those of other Alaskan brewers and distillers. Last-minute souvenir shopping never tasted so good.
Before you start your great Northern beer safari, bear in mind that tasting rooms often have limited and varying hours, so always double-check before planning a visit.
Whether your travels take you to fine-dining restaurants, low-key alehouses or even rustic cabins in the woods, make like an Alaskan and fuel your adventures with one of our beloved, home-grown brews. When in Alaska, drink as the Alaskans do.
Mara Severin is a food writer who writes about restaurants in Southcentral Alaska for the Anchorage Daily News.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that the first two Arctic Security Cutters will be homeported in the State of Alaska. Anticipating delivery of the first Arctic Security Cutters by the end of 2028, the Coast Guard has begun planning to ensure necessary infrastructure and support are in place to receive two icebreakers. Ensuring these vessels are supported by trained and ready crews, and ready homeport facilities including housing, will be essential to delivering full, enduring operational capability required to meet emerging Arctic security challenges.
“Homeporting these two Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska is a decisive step forward in securing America’s Arctic frontier,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. “I want to thank President Trump for his bold leadership and vision in directing this critical investment, as well as Senator Sullivan and the entire Alaskan Congressional delegation for championing the funding that made these icebreakers possible. These vessels will deliver the enduring operational presence our nation needs to protect sovereignty, deter foreign adversaries, and safeguard vital resources for the American people..”
The homeporting of the first two Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska builds on the historic expansion of the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet and underscores an unprecedented investment in the Arctic. This announcement marks a national milestone in U.S. Arctic capability, following contract awards for up to 11 Arctic Security Cutters. Fueled by $3.5 billion in funding in the Fiscal Year 2025 Reconciliation Bill and facilitated by a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Finland in October 2025, the acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters will fulfill President Trump’s directive to rapidly deliver America’s newest icebreaker fleet.
“Homeporting Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska underscores the United States’ leadership as a maritime power in the Arctic,” said Adm. Kevin E. Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard. “By strategically positioning these state-of-the-art icebreakers in Alaska, the Coast Guard will maximize our ability to defend our northern border and approaches, while reinforcing America’s maritime dominance in a crucial region of strategic importance.”
Through contract awards to Rauma Marine Constructions Oy of Rauma, Finland, Bollinger Shipyards Lockport, L.L.C., and Davie Defense, Inc. of Vienna, VA, the U.S. will immediately benefit from our Finnish partners’ icebreaker expertise while coordinating the onshoring of that expertise and shipbuilding to the United States. Under the MOU, Finland will construct up to four ASCs for the U.S Coast Guard. U.S. shipyards will build and deliver up to seven additional ASCs. Delivery of the first Arctic Security Cutters is expected by the end of 2028.
Arctic Security Cutters will form the backbone of a revitalized U.S. icebreaker fleet, strengthening American maritime dominance in the Arctic. Fielding specialized capabilities, these icebreakers will defend U.S. sovereignty, secure critical shipping lanes, protect energy and mineral resources, and counter foreign malign influence in the Arctic region. A robust icebreaker fleet will enable the Coast Guard to control, secure and defend U.S. Alaskan borders and Arctic maritime approaches, facilitate maritime commerce vital to economic prosperity and strategic mobility, and respond to crises and contingencies in the region.
Acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters supports the Coast Guard’s ongoing modernization, through which the Service is transforming into a more agile, capable and responsive fighting force.
Memorandum on ASC Homeporting
###
Alaska
‘We never forgot her’: Friends, family of longtime Alaska teacher gather for 100th birthday celebration
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Phyllis Sullivan has certainly led a life worth celebrating.
Born in 1926, Sullivan moved to Alaska with her husband and three children in 1959 to teach, first in the village of Kwethluk in Western Alaska and later at Wendler and Mears Middle Schools in Anchorage.
All the while, she left strong impressions with countless students and acquaintances, some of whom gathered in the basement of Anchor Park United Methodist Church in Anchorage Saturday to celebrate Sullivan’s century of life.
“Education has been the primary thing in her entire life,” her son Dennis Sullivan said. “She’s always been a school teacher and she’s been one of the sweetest people in the entire world.”
As a slideshow featuring vintage photos from her life and time in Alaska played, Phyllis, wheelchair-bound but high in spirit, stopped to chat with every new person who entered the room, some of whom she hadn’t seen in years.
“It’s impressive that this many people are here,” she said. “That’s very encouraging. Makes me think maybe I did something right along the way.”
Aside from family members, most visitors were there because of the impression Phyllis Sullivan left on them during her many years in the classroom.
“She gave us this one assignment: to memorize a poem,” former Mears student Tina Arend recalled. She said Phyllis Sullivan was her 8th grade English teacher.
“And when she gave us the assignment, she said, ‘I’ve had students come back many, many, many years later and recite the poem to me.’ And we actually still remember the poem,” Arend said of her and her husband, who was also in attendance. They both went on to become teachers at Mears as well.
Matthew Nicolai, whom Phyllis Sullivan taught in Kwethluk, has similarly fond memories.
“The Bureau had ordered that teachers do corporal punishment for speaking Yup’ik,” Nicolai remembered. “Even though we spoke Yup’ik, she never did that, never cracked our hands. Other teachers did, but not her. That’s why we never forgot her.”
In addition to teaching, Phyllis Sullivan also found time to open her home to those in need. She and her husband once took in a family with seven kids who had been displaced by flooding in Fairbanks in 1967.
“It touched our heart because they bought us a lot of stuff that we needed because we lost a lot of stuff during the flood,” David Solomon, one of those seven kids, said. “We stayed there for over three years.”
Phyllis Sullivan said she is enjoying life and is doing fine.
“My mother made it to 103,” she said. “So, I’ve got a while yet.”
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