The U.S. Forest Service is asking Alaskans to share the Great Land’s culture with all of America in the form of Christmas tree decorations.
After a tree from Alaska’s Tongass National Forest was chosen as the 2024 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree earlier this year, residents in Alaska will also have the chance to spruce up the tree before it goes up in D.C.

Cook Political Report, which analyzes races across the country, has shifted the Alaska U.S. House race from the “Lean Democrat” category to “Toss Up,” in the latest ranking.

The change explains why Democrats, who have their own polling, are now suing the state Division of Elections to save the Rep. Mary Peltola, who is facing Republican Nick Begich in the general election, in her reelection bid.

Along with Peltola now being at risk in the general election, Cook Political Report says that Peltola’s “rural Antifa” colleagues in the House Blue Dog Democrats — Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Rep. Marie Glusenkamp-Perez of Washington — are also facing tough elections. The new toss-up list for Democrats, per Cook Political Report, is here:

• AK-AL Peltola
• CO-08 Caraveo
• ME-02 Golden
• MI-07 OPEN (Slotkin)
• MI-08 OPEN (Kildee)
• NC-01 Davis
• NM-02 Vasquez
• OH-13 Sykes
• PA-07 Wild
• PA-08 Cartwright
• WA-03 Perez

Cook Political Report has seemed reluctant to move Alaska into the toss-up category due to Alaska’s weird open primary and ranked-choice general election scheme. But a recent poll by Cygnal shows that Begich is now even with Peltola. Alaska’s is the most Republican seat in the House that has a Democrat in it and is seen as a strong likelihood to flip back to Republican in November.

Working against Peltola is her own party, which has decided to sue to keep another Democrat, Eric Hafner, off of the November ballot. The Alaska Democrats have hired the nation’s top Democrat election lawyer, Marc Elias, known for sowing chaos in elections.

The lawsuit drains enthusiasm from the party and embarrasses its Alaska voting membership, since it makes Peltola look desperate and conniving. Peltola would have most certainly approved the party going forward with the lawsuit that is intended to be her life ring.

Also working against Peltola is that the National Republican Congressional Committee is now showing Alaskans Peltola’s actual record in Congress, which has her in the same radical category as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, voting against the interests of Alaskans time and again. Peltola has never had to run against her own immediate voting record and political judgment in the past, but has been able to rely on her personality, personal story, and looks.

Sacred Acre is kicking off its 2024 festival with three days of music and exploration from Sept. 6 to 8. This year’s lineup features Peekaboo, The Glitch Mob, Wreckno, Zingara and more in the midst of the Alaskan landscape. While the event itself is quite isolated, the festival’s directors Chris Miller and Hannah Stearns managed to find a way to make it all happen. The two built off of their sister event, SalmonFestl, and its previous infrastructure.

“The challenge of marketing an event, especially in such a rural location, is a hurdle in itself,” Miller tells Pollstar. “Many people have this wanderlust they want to fulfill, but it’s really hard to make people take a leap of faith. This year, over 40% of ticket sales are from out of state, so I think we’re doing a good job at capturing that out of state market. It reminds me of when Jim [Stearns, festival director for SalmonFest] and Hannah were sitting around Jim’s table talking one year about, let’s book CloZee and LSDream, and we did it. But we got a lot of Fyre Festival comments right out the gate, it was really rough because we were in the middle of nowhere. There’s so many events that are popping up everywhere, and we have seen a lot of events that have taken a hard nose dive or had weather hit them really hard. People look at Alaska and they’re like, it’s going to be freezing cold or it’s going to be hard to get to. That hurdle has been a big one for us. Thankfully we had SalmonFest to help us with getting our foot in the door in a lot of regards on the lineup and artists and people to come work at the event. We already have a plug-and-play facility. It’s been really amazing to walk above some of those first-year struggles because of the SalmonFest team.”

The festival’s mission is to combat factory trawling, which damages the Arctic ecosystems. Factory trawling scrapes the ocean floor, which in turn harms ecosystems and leads to the capture and discard of unwanted marine life. Throughout the festival, Sacred Acre hosts workshops, including ones that focus on the harmful fishing practice.

The festival also features the biggest laser show in Alaska, performance art and fire dancers. Fans can also embark on excursions to see all the nature Alaska has to offer.

“We have helicopter flights leaving right from the festival site,” Stearns says. “You can go for 30-minute tours or half-day tours to a glacier. We have our Bumping on the Bay tour, which is a three-hour tour in Homer with a national DJ. There’s 24-hour programming in that space where you can go and do workshops and simply do self-improvement. Really getting in touch with yourself, that is something you can do without experiencing any of the bass music.”

In order to build the festival, SalmonFest will utilize steamships and semis. Sacred Acre uses much of the same setup as SalmonFest, making the build a bit easier. Load in takes 10-12 days, and they’ll use up to 53 semis. This year’s laser production is coming straight from Burning Man, making for a quick turnaround with the shipping process.

“SalmonFest has been able to parlay the challenges of getting here and the remoteness of it into a bit of a mystique,” Stearns says. “Last year, we sold tickets in 48 states and 17 countries. Sacred Acre has the same goal in mind, to make this a destination festival.”