Published July 9, 2026 03:00AM
Alaska
Federal program poised to provide $629M to boost internet access across Alaska
The state has won a key federal approval for its plan to award nearly $630 million to more than a dozen companies to help modernize internet service in Alaska.
The money represents the largest single chunk of federal funds ever committed to improving online access across the state, officials said.
It will extend high-speed internet to more than 46,000 homes and businesses in the state, bringing at least 100 megabyte download speeds to areas currently considered “unserved” or “underserved” when it comes to digital connectivity.
Many are located in rural sections of the state. But the program will also be deployed in the outskirts of Anchorage and other cities, improving service to houses and cellphones.
Once built, the projects will transform life even in Alaska’s most remote corners, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a statement.
“This will open up new opportunities for Alaskans to access jobs and education, start new businesses, and connect with healthcare providers in real time, which has not been possible until now,” he said.
The money is part of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, or BEAD.
Created in the bipartisan, Biden-era infrastructure bill, it seeks to bridge the nation’s digital divide.
The Alaska Broadband Office still awaits one last federal approval that’s viewed as a formality, officials say. But the 15 award recipients, ranging from the state’s largest telecommunications company to small tribal entities, should begin receiving final approval for the awards in the coming months, they say.
The companies plan 29 projects to deliver fiber, wireless or satellite services, or hybrid versions.
Large providers, such as GCI and Alaska Communications, are on deck to receive more than $100 million apiece under the program.
Tiny entities are poised to also receive grants, such as the tribal government for Atka in the Aleutian Islands, set for a $4.9 million grant to deliver wireless service to 432 homes and businesses.
Christine O’Connor — head of the Alaska Telecom Association, which represents many telecommunications providers — said internet service has improved a lot in Alaska.
Two other federal programs, ReConnect and Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, have together injected about $1 billion into the state in recent years, she said.
Those were also supported with funding from the infrastructure act.
O’Connor said this latest funding will help complete the build-out. It represents the largest federal investment at one time for improving digital connectivity in Alaska, she said.
Dozens of communities in the state still have extremely limited internet service, she said.
This will change that, allowing many families for the first time to do things like stream video-conference calls with multiple people, download movies or better promote their businesses on social media.
“If you’ve got really slow or no internet, and then all of a sudden you have a 100-megabit minimum speed, that goes from being barely able to function in the digital landscape of our world to having complete access,” she said.
“So it’s night and day when you think of everything we do online these days,” she said.
SpaceX among the winners
Space Exploration Technologies, the owner of Starlink, is set to receive $23.6 million to deliver service to more than 15,000 homes and businesses across the state.
The win for SpaceX came after the Trump administration revised rules to create what it described as a technology neutral program that gave satellite-based providers a better chance of winning a grants over fiber, considered the gold standard for internet service.
O’Connor said that even without that revision, satellite-based internet would have been part of the grant-supported programs in Alaska, given the state’s many far-flung communities.
“It’s not cost effective or even possible to reach everyone without using some satellite capacity,” she said.
U.S. Commerce Assistant Secretary Arielle Roth recently approved the state’s $629 million in proposed awards, the state said in a prepared statement.
The awards still must be approved by National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, O’Connor said. But that’s expected to be a routine review, she said.
After that, the state will have six months to finalize the contracts, which then will start the clock on a four-year period for providers to complete the projects, she said.
In total, Alaska has been allocated $1 billion under the program.
The federal government has not yet said exactly how the remainder of the state’s allocation can be spent, O’Connor said. It will also support broadband access.
Alaska Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski praised the approval of the state’s program, in a prepared statement. They had joined the late Republican Rep. Don Young in voting for the infrastructure act in 2021.
“These funds will go a long way toward the goal of connecting every Alaskan” and unlock telehealth, education and business opportunities, Sullivan said.
“Importantly, it will better allow Alaskans to connect with one another,” he said.
GCI will expand rural network
GCI, Alaska’s largest telecommunications company, is set to receive three grants, said Megan Webb, a spokesperson.
She said federal approval of the state’s proposal is a “major milestone for Alaska.”
It comes after years of planning by telecommunications companies, she said.
The largest grant to GCI, at $115 million, will help expand the company’s rural Airraq network, adding 16 villages in Southwest Alaska, Webb said.
The plan involves hybrid services using fiber and microwave, to improve slow internet speeds in those communities, she said.
The locations include Mountain Village, Chefornak, St. Mary’s, Mekoryuk, Kipnuk, Goodnews Bay and Togiak, she said.
The company also won two additional grants, totaling almost $6 million, to improve service on the fringes of Anchorage and Eagle River.
That will be useful for first responders in remote areas, cellphone users and households, she said.
“It will improve access to broadband and support improved mobile connectivity in Ship Creek, Bear Valley, Rabbit Creek and the south fork of Eagle River,” she said.
ACS adding thousands of homes
Alaska Communications is set to receive three grants totaling more than $123 million.
The company plans to deliver fiber and advanced wireless infrastructure to over 9,000 homes and businesses. It also plans to invest $26.7 million of its own capital to extend broadband to an additional 12,000 locations, said Heather Cavanaugh, a spokesperson.
The expansion will deliver speeds of up to a gigabyte in Anchorage, Bird Creek and Indian; along with communities on the Kenai Peninsula, such as Hope, and Kodiak Island, Cavanaugh said. Fairbanks, Manley Hot Springs, Salcha and Delta Junction areas will also see the improved service.
“This investment will make a real difference for families, students, healthcare providers and entrepreneurs who rely on strong connectivity to thrive,” said Paul Fenaroli, president of Alaska Communications, in a prepared statement.
Quintillion has been selected for two projects totaling $48 million, to extend its Arctic fiber network in the Lower Yukon region and on St. Lawrence Island.
“In the Lower Yukon region, Quintillion will extend connections from its Nome-to-Homer Express fiber backbone and build local fiber networks within each community,” said Michael “Mac” McHale, president of the company.
“Some locations will connect to the backbone through existing microwave links, while others will connect directly via fiber,” he said in a prepared statement.
“On St. Lawrence Island, the project will deploy fiber-to-the-home networks supported by satellite backhaul due to the island’s remote location,” he said.
SpitwSpots, launched about 20 years ago to provide hotspot service on the Homer spit, is set to receive $16.7 million. It will also invest some of its own capital to support the project.
The company plans to provide fixed wireless service in the Matanuska Valley, Kenai and Kodiak areas, state records show.
SpitwSpots, whose programs include discounted or free service for low-income households, has recently expanded into the Anchorage market, said Aaron Larson, the company’s founder.
He said there are over 2,000 unserved houses and buildings in Anchorage.
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “There’s a lot of places that don’t have any access to internet, or only have access to DSL,” he said, referring to old, slow digital subscriber lines.
Alaska
Black bear breaks into Alaskan mall, eats a peach and relieves itself on floor before leaving: video
Can bearly believe it!
A black bear was caught on camera seemingly running errands at a local shopping mall in Anchorage, Alaska over the weekend.
The bear entered the commissary mall at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson around 9 a.m. Sunday, KTUU reported, citing a JBER spokesperson.
Wild footage shows the young cub strolling through the commissary’s automatic doors and exploring all that the mall had to offer.
The hungry bear stole and ate a piece of fruit before emptying its bowels on the hallway floor on its way out of the building.
Kory Godbout, who works at the barber shop on the military base, was waiting for his first customer of the day when he spotted the furry intruder traveling through the automatic doors.
“My coworker, who is cutting hair in front of me, she yelled, ‘Bear!’” Godbout recalled.
“And I looked up from my phone and the bear was walking into the barber shop right in front of me,” the barber said. “And we all ran into the break room and shut the door behind us.”
After a few minutes, Godbout and his coworkers emerged from the break room and followed the out-of-place bear into the commissary, where it took a peach from the grocery store and ate it.
The barber recalled that a few onlookers were “going big to try and scare” the bear out of the grocery store.
But all of a sudden, the black bear returned to the barber shop.
“By that time, we were able to run back to the shop and then lock the door,” Godbout said.
“And then we were watching him from the window and then that’s when he decided to, you know, use the restroom in the hallway.”
Officers from Conservation Law Enforcement attended the peculiar grizzly scene and were able to direct the wild animal towards a river and into the woods, according to the JBER spokesperson.
JBER’s wildlife program manager Colette Brandt said in a press release that the bear had triggered the automatic doors and that Sunday’s events were entirely incidental, KTUU reported.
While there has been a decline in bear-related calls since the military base installed bear-resistant dumpsters, seven bears have been put down at JBER for public safety over the past year.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The southbound lanes of the Glenn Highway were closed Thursday morning near the S-curves due to a fatal crash, according to the Anchorage Police Department.
Police confirmed shortly after 11 a.m. that at least one person was dead. As of 12:45 p.m., one southbound lane is now open to traffic.
An Alaska’s News Source reporter on the scene said the crash took place near the Eagle River Loop Road. Video from the scene shows multiple vehicles took damage in the incident.
This is a developing story. It has been updated with new information.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
Copyright 2026 KTUU. All rights reserved.
Alaska
Did I Find a Cure for Male Loneliness? No, But I Found a Way to Embrace Solitude in the Wild.
On the longest solo trip of my life, I stepped off a two-seat float plane onto the rocky shore of Upper Twin Lake in Alaska’s Lake Clark National Park.
I had taken four flights from New Jersey to Alaska to write about the iconic cabin handbuilt by Richard “Dick” Proenneke, the self-taught naturalist whose 30-year solo life in the wilderness was captured in the beloved PBS documentary Alone in the Wilderness. Proenneke never married, never had children, and spent nearly three decades completely alone, save for the birds he fed by hand and bears that occasionally clawed at his logs.
“He must have been lonely out here,” a fellow traveler said during the park ranger’s tour of the cabin.
On that chilly June morning last year, I found myself wondering the same thing. I was just coming to a different conclusion.
Park officials told me the cabin has seen a recent uptick in visitors, which they attribute to Proenneke’s newfound popularity on social media, and to a direct flight to the property by an outback flying service. I visited the cabin as a member of a tour group led by two guides. My group included a doctor, a retired attorney, a veterinarian, and a handful of National Parks superfans. Still, I stuck mostly to myself, spending the trip deep in my own thoughts. In Alaska, I wound up pondering a life like Proenneke’s, sans the means or skills to make it happen.
According to podcasters, writers, polls, therapists, influencers, and anyone else with a mouth or keyboard, there’s a male loneliness epidemic eroding the dated fabric of masculinity, like the snake of patriarchy eating its own tail.
Remedies for this epidemic are everywhere in the media, with new ones popping up weekly. The New York Times wondered if pickleball held the answers; others have suggested buying a personal watercraft, joining a mosh pit, or taking off your shirt at a college football game, or watching a horror-comedy starring Paul Rudd. In recent months, brunch, AI-powered companion dolls, and Jack Black have been mentioned as cures.
Outside wondered whether “outdoor friendships,” volunteering, or getting a pet could work.
These cures may seem unrelated and even, perhaps, a little silly. However, the common theme between them seems to be social interaction, choosing community over individualism, a bowling league or running club over your PlayStation.
Some entrepreneurs have even launched businesses to combat male loneliness. A deep-dive earlier this year in the New Yorker revealed how fathers are paying men to turn their sons into “alphas,” while others are joining men-only retreats to be screamed at. Men are taking reams of peptides, smashing their cheekbones with hammers, and getting chin implants in an effort to chase some warped standard of masculinity.
Most of these solutions seem alien to the introverts of society, myself included. I’m not sure I’ve ever been lonely, per se, or even bored, unless I’m stuck in small talk. I’ve never loved team sports or double dates either. In school, hearing a teacher say “let’s break into groups” made me groan.
During my trip to Alaska, I realized that Proenneke enjoyed solitude but not loneliness. The former feels intentional and rewarding, as opposed to the latter, which causes anxiety and depression. He wasn’t a misanthrope. He welcomed visitors and was thoughtful enough to whittle a variety of walking sticks to match their height.
Monroe Robinson, author of The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke, spent nearly 20 years living at the cabin and maintaining it for the National Park Service. Robinson knew Proenneke, who died in 2003, at the age of 86. “He liked when people came to visit,” Robinson told me later in a call, “and he also liked when they left.”
I can relate.
My aversions to crowds and clubs have been a source of personal confusion over the years. I’m not a misanthrope, either. As a reporter, I crave deeply personal interactions with others and get invested in the people I write about to a fault. Part of me always thought loneliness was a good way to avoid heartbreak. I’ve loved deeply anyhow, and lost people in my life to suicide and divorce.
In June of 2024, I learned my then-wife was deeply unhappy in our marriage. I had a real breakdown. The ensuing algorithms of online divorce content can be toxic for men, a slippery slope greased by manosphere grifters. Well-intentioned friends and family will often just take your side during a breakup, too, and there’s not much growth in that. So I tried to avoid that noise, choosing to walk inside myself, to find a “vast inner solitude” as the poet Rainer Marie Rilke advised.
I wanted to confront my own bullshit.
I spent a few dozen nights sleeping in tents for the rest of that year, mostly in the Northeast. Sometimes I slept in single-digit temperatures. I’d reserved a tent site for my wedding anniversary, a campground where I’d wanted to renew my vows. But after my marriage began to crumble, I took my young daughter, instead of canceling. I put her in a hiking backpack to slog my way up a few summits. I kept on punishing myself too, on trail runs and difficult hikes, hoping exhaustion would tamp down the urge to beg my ex and anyone who knew her for answers. Bad cell service helped with that.
(I also found a great therapist, thankfully.)
On a long-planned family vacation to Southwest Colorado in August of 2024 that I couldn’t afford and couldn’t cancel, the San Juan Mountains loomed everywhere I went. I saw them from the window of my cabin, the dirt roads I drove along with my kids, and the hammock where I finished The Snow Leopard, in which author Peter Matthiessen joins an expedition to find the mythic beast in Nepal after the death of his wife.
The mountains felt timeless and unavoidable there, and they spoke to me, a perfect epilogue to the book’s zen message.
“Accept what’s happening” they said.
And so I accepted that my marriage was over.
In May of 2025, the divorce was finalized. A few weeks later, I was in Alaska as a freelancer, pinching myself as my plane touched down on the icy, blue lake.
Robinson, when I asked, said “feeling lonely was not a thing” for Proenneke. He was too active, too busy trying to survive. Proenneke left society, yes, but he didn’t withdraw from life. In the long winters, when no sun hit Proenneke’s sod roof, when no planes landed on the frozen lake, he would spend months penning thoughtful letters to close friends, family, and his growing legion of fans.
Proenneke cared about his cabin’s appearance too, about beauty, and that matters. He built a stone fireplace, an extra bunk for guests, and hand-carved a much-beloved Dutch door. Windows would be an inconvenient luxury in a trapper’s cabin in Alaska, but Prokenneke fashioned one that offered a grand view of the lake anyway.
While I was contemplating Proenneke’s contentment in Alaska, I was also watching contentment in action with the two young guides in charge of us there. For a moment or two, I envied both of them, the same way I envied Proenneke. Guide Dom Gawel, who is in his mid-20s, was the quieter of the two, and he led a few of us on some longer hikes while others stayed behind at camp. Later, I asked Dom about loneliness. He thought young men feel lost today “because they are comparing themselves to others in a negative way through social media” and “disconnected from nature.”
Luckily, there’s nothing close to a signal at Lake Clark National Park, no texts you feel compelled to answer, no influencers to interact with. That’s not easy to do in the United States.
I also found kinship with Dr. Adam Bolour, my kayak partner at Twin Lakes and roommate at Port Alsworth, a tiny Alaskan village on Lake Clark where we slept on our final night. We talked about fatherhood, relationships, and nature. He was traveling solo too, from California, and while he was upbeat and talkative with everyone, I watched him steal away to read some Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance by the lakeshore. I did the same with Proenekke’s book there.
I emailed to ask about male loneliness, when I got back to New Jersey.
“I cherish solo trips, whether I’m married, feeling alone, feeling super connected with someone or a big group,” he wrote. “It’s just great to get away and convene with silence and space.”
My revelations in Colorado and, later, at Proenneke’s cabin, helped me realize I must connect deeply with myself in the outdoors from time to time. Nature can’t just be an emergency room for me, either. It’s long-term maintenance for my physical and mental health, whether it’s trail running, floating in a swimming hole, or staring at mountains. It’s more than a hobby. The version of me who returns from those trips is a better father and, hopefully, a better partner someday.
Unlike Matthiessen, who spent months away from his young, grieving son in search of a snow leopard, or Proenneke, who spent 30 years away from almost everyone, I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to pull myself away from my children and responsibilities to that extreme. I have been guilty of that in the past. I’ll make do with a vow to see mountains like the San Juans as much as possible, even if it’s just a few days to convene with solitude, as Adam does. And if I can’t get to the Sawtooths or Switzerland, I’ll cut myself a break and keep exploring Pennsylvania or the Catskills.
A few months after I got back from Alaska, I tackled Pennsylvania’s Black Forest Trail. It’s the state’s most difficult hike, a 43-mile loop with a mind-boggling 8,500 feet of elevation gain. I was craving solitude, again, and found the trail emptier than the Alaskan backcountry. I saw as many rattlesnakes as people on that trip.
On my final night of the hike, after pushing hard for about 18 miles, I took off my boots and socks and stretched out on a shady vista as the sun began to sink. Two hikers came in, a father and son, after their own long day. They hoped to camp there too and asked if I minded. I said it was fine and then, a few minutes later, reached for my socks and boots.
I shouldered my heavy pack, wished them a deep sleep, and pushed on to find solitude, that little bit of loneliness all the world says is a problem.
Jason Nark is a reporter who covers the outdoors for the Philadelphia Inquirer and and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, The Alpinist, Adventure Journal, National Geographic, Dwell, and other outlets.
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