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.
Alaska already has glaciers, whales, old gold-rush towns, wild seafood, and mountains. But Princess Cruises is taking the year by storm with something bigger than a standard summer schedule. The line is sending eight ships to Alaska, adding new North-to-Alaska programming, and giving travelers more ways to turn their trip into a full land-and-sea adventure.
Princess Is Going Bigger Than Ever
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The 2026 Alaska season gives Princess its largest presence in the region to date, with eight ships, 180 departures, and visits to 19 destinations. Travelers are not boxed into a narrow route or one small batch of dates. The ship lineup includes Star Princess, Coral Princess, Royal Princess, Ruby Princess, Grand Princess, Emerald Princess, Discovery Princess, and Island Princess. For anyone comparing Alaska cruise options, that much capacity means more itinerary choices.
Star Princess Gives The Season A New Headliner
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Star Princess is the newest ship in the Princess fleet. This matters because Alaska cruising can easily feel like a trade-off between destination and ship experience. Princess is putting one of its newest vessels into one of its most important regions. Star Princess also hosts the new Après Sea experience inside The Dome, a high-positioned venue designed around big views.
Glacier Days Get The Full Main-Event Treatment
Credit: Getty Images
Glacier viewing has always been one of Alaska cruising’s biggest draws, but Princess is giving it extra structure through “The Glacier Experience: A Signature Princess Day.” On select Glacier Bay sailings, guests get close-up glacier views, live narration, and Park Ranger commentary from the bridge and open decks. There are also theater presentations and Junior and Teen Ranger programming. VIP viewing areas and bowfront access add another layer for guests who want the best possible look at the ice.
The Trip Can Extend Deep Into Alaska By Land
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Princess has long built part of its reputation around cruisetours that combine time at sea with inland travel. A seven-night sailing can deliver a strong Alaska trip in itself. However, inland travel opens the door to scenic train journeys, Princess Wilderness Lodges, and routes to places such as Denali, Kenai, and the Mt. McKinley lodge area. The 2026 season continues to lean into sea-and-land travel.
North To Alaska Makes The Ship Feel Local
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Princess first introduced its North to Alaska program in 2015, and in 2026, every Princess ship sailing in Alaska will carry the new programming. The whole idea is to bring local culture, food, personalities, and storytelling on board so guests learn something about Alaska between ports. This includes Native Alaskan speakers, naturalists, enrichment presenters, and destination-focused events that connect the trip to the place outside the ship. Names in the speaker series include Tlingit voices, Alaska Native educators, writers, and photographers.
Alaska Seafood Gets A Bigger Seat At The Table
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Princess is leaning into Alaska’s food identity with “A Taste of The Great Land.” The 2026 specialty restaurant offerings feature sustainably sourced, wild-caught Alaskan seafood created with regional suppliers. Crown Grill offers dishes such as Wild King Salmon, Alaskan Jumbo Lump Crab Cake, and Jumbo Lump Crab paired with Butter-Broiled Lobster Tail. Sabatini’s Italian Trattoria also brings Alaskan fish into an Italian-style setting.
The Entertainment Has Alaska In Its Bones
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
This season also features “Candlelight Concert Series: Fire & Ice,” with Alaska singer-songwriters performing in a candlelit setting twice per voyage. This gives the onboard entertainment a stronger sense of place than a generic music night. Returning favorites add a livelier side, including Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show elements with axe-throwing recruits, trivia, and timber-sports storytelling tied to Ketchikan. Select sailings also feature Deadliest Catch captains and crew members sharing Bering Sea crab-fishing stories. The lineup draws from Alaska’s labor, music, weather, and folklore.
Families Get More Than A Pretty View
Credit: Tripadvisor
Younger travelers are getting special attention, not a watered-down version of the adult trip. Glacier Bay Junior Rangers let kids complete activity books, attend presentations, and earn a badge and certificate through a partnership with the National Park Service. Gold Rush Adventures pulls families into a shipwide Klondike-style search, while Great Alaskan Expedition offers youth and teens a three-hour team-based experience across land, sea, and air. As puppies in the Piazza also return on ships visiting Skagway, guests get to see Alaskan Huskies and sled-dog culture.
Après Sea Gives Alaska A Stylish Cooldown
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
After a long day outside, Princess is adding a dedicated wind-down ritual through Après Sea. The setup is inspired by après-ski culture. Guests can expect warm drinks, happy hour, and panoramic views after they return from exploring. On Star Princess, the experience is in The Dome, and it provides a strong visual setting at the top of the ship. A relaxed lounge concept gives the evening its own personality, and guests don’t have to jump straight from adventure into dinner.
MedallionClass Keeps The Whole Trip Moving Smoothly
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Alaska days can get busy fast, with early excursions, glacier viewing, dinner plans, family meetups, and plenty of time spent moving around the ship. The Princess Medallion Class setup helps cut down on small hassles. The wearable Medallion supports contactless boarding, keyless stateroom entry, onboard ordering, contactless payment, ship navigation, and locating travel companions through the app. When the day already includes ports, wildlife, ice, and dinner reservations, fewer friction points onboard can make a real difference.
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the week with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed.
First, you may have seen some headlines last week about an outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship. Here to tell us more about what happened is Tanya Lewis, SciAm’s senior desk editor for health and medicine.
Tanya, thanks so much for coming on to walk us through this.
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Tanya Lewis: Yeah, no, thanks so much for having me.
Feltman: Why are we talking about hantavirus and this cruise ship? What happened?
Lewis: Just to catch people up, this outbreak was first noticed about a week ago on a ship called the MV Hondius, which was a cruise ship departing from South America, Argentina. And the people that were sickened and unfortunately passed away, two of those individuals were a married couple who had been traveling—it was a Dutch couple—we think were infected in Argentina and then boarded the ship. And then subsequently, multiple other people have been infected. As of May 7 the number of people on this cruise ship who had been infected with hantavirus was eight people. So that probably could still change.
But you might not have heard of hantavirus before, but it is a virus family that people have been sickened with before, and it’s generally spread by rodents, like rats or mice. And this commonly happens in places where people are exposed to the feces of these animals.
And it causes pretty severe disease. It can cause anything from respiratory distress and fluid in the lungs to some forms of it can be more of, like, a hemorrhagic fever, kind of like Ebola. But the kind that we’re seeing on this cruise ship is more the respiratory kind.
But yeah, this is a virus that, while it is fairly rare to be infected with it, it’s quite lethal. The estimates of its lethality vary, but anywhere from, like, 30 percent to even 50 percent of people infected have died of it.
Feltman: Right, well, and like you said, it, it’s usually spread through rodent feces. But unfortunately, the specific virus we’re talking about, with regard to this cruise ship, is one of the rare instances where it is technically possible to spread from human to human. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Lewis: Basically, these individuals on the ship were thought to be infected by human-to-human transmission. At least, that’s the working hypothesis right now. And the reason has to do with the exposure routes.
As I mentioned two of the people were a married couple, so we’re talking about, like, very close contact. This is not something like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, where it’s, like, in the air and wafting around for hours or something. This is something that you would probably need to be, like, breathing very closely, in the same space. And of course, cruise ships are, like, kind of the perfect petri dish for that.
Feltman: Yeah.
So I think there are two things to talk about. There’s, one, why experts are not immediately super concerned about pandemic potential from this specific thing, but also why it is reasonable that I think so many of us, when seeing this news, went, “Uh-oh. We’re—this is a reminder of public-health paradigms I do not wanna be reminded of.”
So let’s start with the good news: Why are experts not freaking out about this?
Lewis: Yeah, so we have to remember that this is a virus that is very different than a lot of the pathogens that have caused respiratory pandemics in the past. In order for a pathogen to be a major pandemic concern, it needs to be very transmissible, and that is something that we have not yet seen with this hantavirus.
I should say, this particular strain is the only strain that has been shown to transmit human to human; it’s called the Andes strain. Most hantaviruses are not thought to spread that way. So the good news is, it’s kind of rare. The bad news, maybe, is that it does appear to have spread, at least, you know, in a limited way, between people.
But yeah, in terms of why experts are not, like, immediately concerned that this will spark a larger epidemic, I think the reason is just that this type of virus and the way it spreads is not conducive, as far as we know, to that type of outbreak. And it’s also happening in a very contained space, so although there have been reports that several of the people on board the ship have disembarked and we are still following that closely, at this point there is no indication of wider community spread, which is what we call it when people are getting infected who have not had direct exposure to the infected individuals.
Feltman: Is there any concern that the time that this virus spent, you know, in such a perfect petri dish may have given it the opportunity to mutate and be better at jumping from person to person?
Lewis: I think what virologists would tell you is, like, the more opportunities a virus has to jump between people, the higher the risk of it developing, like, a concerning mutation that makes it more transmissible.
That said, we’re still talking about a relatively small number of individuals. I mean, eight people sounds like a lot, but, you know, when you’re talking about this being very close quarters on a ship, this is not like, oh, you’re walking into a giant city like New York City and infecting everyone around you or something. So I think that is a little bit reassuring, perhaps, at this point.
But that said, we’ve been humbled before, and I think if there’s one lesson we can take from the COVID pandemic, it’s that we shouldn’t panic, but we should definitely pay attention. And at least scientists wanna know and learn more about this virus and understand it better.
Feltman: I think a lot of people are getting a little freaked out by this news. [Laughs.]
Lewis: Yeah, and I mean, I would be the first to say, like, something like this you hear about, it’s, like, instantly puts you back in that fearful space of 2020. And of course, there was the famous cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, where some of the early COVID cases happened. So that is always concerning.
On the other hand, you know, we have to sort of put it in perspective and remember this is a rare virus and it is something that people have been infected with in the past, so it’s not a completely new virus, unlike SARS-CoV-2, which we had never seen before. So we do have some idea of how this virus works, and while we don’t have any specific treatments for it, we do at least have experts who study it. So that should hopefully give some reassurance that, like, this is not a complete unknown. We are not starting from square one.
Feltman: Thanks for that, Tanya.
Now, listeners, keep in mind we had this conversation on Thursday, May 7. But you can always go to ScientificAmerican.com for more up-to-date science news.
Now for new research on micro- and nanoplastics—but this isn’t the health story you might be expecting. According to a study published last Monday in Nature Climate Change, these tiny bits of broken-down plastic could be contributing to our planet’s warming temperatures.
For starters, just in case you are blissfully unaware: yes, there are, unfortunately, microplastics in the sky. According to a study published in 2021, some of these particles swirl up into the air from the road, where tires and brakes frequently shed small pieces of plastic.
Now, the idea of microplastics permeating the air and even seeding clouds into existence is creepy enough, in my opinion. But this new study suggests they can also have a warming effect on the atmosphere.
Here’s how that would work: if you’ve ever spent time on a patch of blacktop on a sunny summer day, you know that black material absorbs heat. Conversely, white material reflects heat. The same thing happens when you scatter bits of dark and light plastic into the atmosphere, which is what humanity has inadvertently done quite a bit over the past few decades.
Unfortunately, according to this new study, any cooling effects we might get from light microplastics are probably vastly outweighed by the warming effects of dark microplastics. While the estimated effect is a small percentage of the warming fueled by soot from coal power plants, the results are still worrying.
As Jackie Flynn Mogenson reported for SciAm last week, we don’t actually know the concentration of micro- and nanoplastics currently in our atmosphere. But the authors of the new study argue that global climate assessments should do more to factor in these tiny plastic bits. And their findings serve as a great reminder that when we talk about the downsides of plastic, we should recognize that there may be impacts far less concrete and obvious than creating growing piles of trash in landfills.
Now I’ll turn the mic over briefly to SciAm’s chief newsletter editor, Andrea Gawrylewski. She’s gonna tell us about the science behind a tsunami that caught Alaska by surprise.
Andrea Gawrylewski: Thanks, Rachel.
Last summer, in August, a small cruise boat called the David B spent the night in an inlet about 50 miles from Juneau, Alaska. They were supposed to be at anchor nearer to Juneau in this beautiful fjord called Tracy Arm, but bad weather had forced them to pick another place to stay. And it turns out that detour may have saved their lives.
In the morning, from where they were anchored, the boat’s owners noticed seawater rolling over the nearby [sandbar] and shoreline. It was weird because the tide was supposed to be out at that time, and they had no idea why the water was so high.
When scientists heard about the strange sea-level rise, they began examining seismic data, they looked at aerial footage and satellite images, and determined that a massive landslide had occurred at the top of the Tracy Arm fjord.
So what had happened?
The South Sawyer Glacier at the top of Tracy Arm has been steadily shrinking and retreating for the last 25 years. In the spring and summer of last year the ice retreated inland several hundred feet, exposing so much bare rock that it ultimately caused a landslide.
That big slide hit the water and sent a tsunami racing through the fjord—like, so much water that the tsunami surged more than 1,500 feet up the sides of the fjord and sloshed back and forth, like in a bathtub.
That event also produced a seismic signal equivalent to a magnitude 5.4 earthquake. Scientists found smaller seismic events in the data that had occurred at least 24 hours before the big one, and they were increasing exponentially in intensity in the six hours before the landslide.
So now the question is: Could these early seismic signals be used as a warning system? One scientist at the Alaska Earthquake Center has been testing a landslide detection algorithm, and so far it’s detected 35 landslides in near real time. Sending out warnings within three to four minutes of big events could make all the difference to people who live in the area, so scientists are working to improve tools like these.
If you want more updates like this, sign up for my free daily newsletter, Today in Science, at SciAm.com/#newsletter.
Feltman: That’s all for this week’s science news roundup. We’ll be back on Wednesday to talk all about protein. Why is it everywhere all of a sudden? We’ll cut through the hype so you can just enjoy your tofu in peace.
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!
As former mayors of Anchorage, we each had the responsibility of leading Alaska’s largest city through moments of challenge and opportunity. While our administrations differed in time and approach, one priority remained constant: ensuring that Anchorage and Alaska have access to reliable, affordable energy.
Energy keeps our homes warm through long winters, powers our schools and hospitals, and fuels the businesses that employ our neighbors. It literally fuels every aspect of our economy and our quality of life. When energy becomes uncertain or unaffordable, the consequences are felt immediately by families, employers and communities across the state.
Today, Alaska faces a generational energy challenge. Cook Inlet natural gas production has been declining for decades. Like the frog in a pot on the stove, the problem around us has slowly grown but is about to reach a raging boil. Declining supplies of inexpensive Cook Inlet gas, rising demand and a lack of long-term certainty jeopardize the stability we rely on. Without action — right now — we will lose control over energy costs and availability.
We have faced moments like this before. During his tenure as mayor, Dan Sullivan recognized early the urgency created by declining Cook Inlet gas production. He convened an Energy Task Force that brought together industry leaders, policymakers and stakeholders to confront the issue directly. That work helped lay the foundation for the Cook Inlet Recovery Act, which the Legislature passed quickly to spur new investment and extend the life of the basin. It showed what is possible when Alaska acts with focus and urgency. It also showed the legislature can move fast when aligned on policy.
This is not a new conversation. For years, studies commissioned by both the Alaska Legislature and multiple administrations have identified the need to modernize Alaska’s tax structure and energy policies to remain competitive for large-scale investment and infrastructure projects. Again and again, those reviews reached the same conclusion: If Alaska wants to attract and keep transformational projects, the state must provide a stable, competitive framework that reflects the realities of modern energy development.
The Alaska LNG project is the only viable path to meet that need. It would deliver a stable, long-term supply of natural gas to Southcentral Alaska, helping ensure that homes, schools and businesses have dependable energy at predictable prices. It would also create jobs, strengthen the economy and generate revenue that supports essential public services.
For Anchorage and the entire Southcentral region, the stakes could not be higher. As the economic center of the state, Anchorage depends on dependable energy to sustain growth and opportunity. Utilities, employers and families all need certainty to plan ahead.
If the Legislature fails to pass meaningful property tax reform for Alaska LNG, this opportunity will slip away like other projects have done. Alaska’s property tax system was not designed for a megaproject like Alaska LNG. Because of that, tax reform legislation was introduced in March that will lower our energy bills and speed the delivery of natural gas from the North Slope. Our legislators must act quickly on a targeted solution and avoid making changes that raise energy costs or slow this project. Otherwise, Anchorage and all Southcentral Alaska will be forced to rely on imported gas for decades.
That outcome exposes us to higher and more volatile costs, shrinks our economy, prevents job growth and sends billions of dollars out of state.
Every day of delay increases that risk. As our electric and gas bills made clear this winter, costs are already rising. Without fast action, consumers should be prepared for increases of 30% to 40% or more. Our state will become an even harder place to start a family or a business.
A project of this scale requires careful consideration and responsible decision-making. But waiting carries its own consequences. The longer Alaska delays, the fewer options remain and the more expensive those options become.
As former mayors of Anchorage, we each had unique approaches to problem-solving. But now we speak with one voice: State leaders and legislators must act with urgency and purpose to enact tax changes that propel this project and unlock the revenue, economic, energy security and other benefits from our North Slope natural gas. Decisions now will shape the state’s economic future for generations.
George Wuerch (Anchorage mayor from 2000-2003) previously served as governmental affairs manager for the Northwest Alaskan Gasline, was founder/president of Fluor Daniel Alaska Engineering and served as vice president of corporate affairs for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
Mark Begich (Anchorage mayor from 2003-2009 and U.S. senator from 2009-2015) is a strategic consulting adviser hired by Gov. Dunleavy’s office to help advance the Alaska LNG project.
Dan Sullivan (Anchorage mayor from 2009-2015) previously served on the Regulatory Commission of Alaska and the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority board.
Dave Bronson (Anchorage mayor from 2021-2024) is a candidate for governor of Alaska.
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New Jersey7 minutes ago24 hours with 3 teenage birders: Welcome to the World Series of Birding
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New Mexico13 minutes agoSummerlike heat settles into New Mexico this week
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North Carolina19 minutes ago
Proposed NC property tax cap, affordable housing exemption set for debate
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North Dakota25 minutes agoNorth Dakota tourism sites get $4M after music fest declines funds
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Ohio31 minutes agoMatt Patricia Shares Major Health Update Following Neurosurgeon Visit During Ohio State Offseason Break
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Oklahoma37 minutes agoWhy Oklahoma GM Jim Nagy Thinks a Freshman Salary Cap Would be a Good Idea
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Oregon43 minutes agoPacifiCorp proposal aims to shield Central Oregon customers from large energy user costs