Alaska
Rolling down the Yukon River through a blank spot on the map
RUBY — Beneath a bulbous waxing moon, we roll along on a ribbon of packed snow. The clear river ice beneath our tires is four feet thick.
That ice we can’t see is the crystal memory of so many cold days of the winter of 2025-26. The remaining spruce pile of our Tanana friends Charlie Campbell and Ruth Althoff was small enough to be covered by a single tarp.
To get to Tanana, Forest Wagner and I pedaled to Alaska’s largest river via a newish road from Manley Hot Springs.
When I first saw Forest backdropped by that massive expanse of chunky white, my jaw dropped to my chest in a real-life cliché. You forget how big this river is when you haven’t seen it for a while.
Forest and I are pedaling the White Lonely for the next week and a half, two ants crawling over a cold moon. We never get very close to shore.
In our attempt to ride from home to Nome, the section from the village of Tanana to Ruby is the one that kept me up at night in January. People just don’t travel it much. We are dependent on a packed trail, which Hudson Stuck noted was the greatest gift one northern traveler can give another.
While we float at the speed of a canoe, we shove our bikes off the trail to allow passage of a few snowmachiners each day. Between Tanana and Ruby, they all fit the same profile: one man wearing a praying mantis helmet driving a modern black machine with a plastic red jug of gas strapped behind his seat. Only one stopped to chat. Most waved or gave a thumbs-up in passing while surfing the deep snow around us.
“Travelers,” Forest said.
The 120-mile stretch between Tanana and Ruby features a few log cabins separated by many miles of frozen river and a few more structures that were once there when I skied this stretch with Andy Sterns 25 years ago. That’s long enough for floods to wash some away or for leaky roofs to collapse.
While we were in Tanana, our hosts remembered summers past during which they harvested king and chum salmon. Those fish were once so numerous beneath our wheels in their pinky-size fry stage, waiting for the river to break up so they could torpedo to the ocean.
In the largest natural-history change in recent times in Alaska, salmon numbers have nosedived to the point that no one can fish for them anymore. The spruce fish wheels anchored now in deep snow will remain at the Tanana boat landing again this summer. Ruth called it a fish-wheel graveyard.
Being out here reminds this urban Alaskan of what we have all lost with the end of those runs of swimming protein and soil nutrients that seemed infinite. Tanana, once famous for its number of dog teams that ran on dried chum salmon from the river, is down to a limited number of aging veterans whose owners can afford to feed the expensive imported-from-America kibble that my wife and I feed our dogs.
The ghosted-out fish camps we pass on this section of the river tell a story of that huge change, when we pay attention to it. But sometimes we just daydream and stand on the pedals to get off the seat. Every hour, we stop rolling, plant our boots on the trail and eat. When we pause to stop chewing, the hum of utter silence wraps itself around us like a hug.
When my satellite tracker is on, you can see our arrow creeping across the landscape here: https//share.garmin.com/NedRozell.
A bill seeking to increase civil legal aid for Alaskans who can’t afford attorneys has become law without Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s signature.
The measure, introduced by Juneau Democratic Rep. Sara Hannan, passed earlier this month with support from 27 out of 40 House members and 17 of 20 Senate members.
Under the new law, one-quarter of court system filing fees can be appropriated each year to an existing civil legal services fund, which subsidizes attorneys for low-income Alaskans who need legal representation in civil cases.
In effect, that will direct roughly $400,000 in additional state funding next year toward those legal services, potentially allowing hundreds of additional indigent Alaskans to receive free assistance on matters that include domestic violence protective orders, applications for government benefits, and child support.
The civil legal services fund was created in 2007 and updated in 2018, when lawmakers agreed to appropriate up to 10% of annual court fees toward the fund. Since then, the need for legal aid has outpaced the state’s spending, according to Hannan and other supporters of the measure.
A similar bill passed the Senate but stalled in the House near the end of the 2024 session.
Recent annual appropriations to the fund, which depend on court filing fees and other figures, ranged from $280,000 to $360,000. The new law will more than double the allowable annual appropriation from court filing feeds the fund, to a total of $766,000, according to the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.
The funding goes toward the Alaska Legal Services Corp., the only organization in the state dedicated to assisting low-income Alaskans with civil matters. The nonprofit corporation reported this year turning away half the Alaskans who asked for its help due to a lack of resources.
It reported handling 5,455 cases involving nearly 15,000 Alaskans in 2025, up from 2,880 cases involving just over 6,000 Alaskans in 2016.
The Alaska Legal Services Corp. has an annual budget of roughly $10 million, only a fraction of which comes from the state. Other funding sources include the federal government, tribes and private donations. In addition to its allocation from the civil legal services fund, the corporation has received an annual $400,000 state grant since 2022, down from $450,000 in preceding years.
The corporation’s director, Maggie Humm, estimated that for every additional $100,000 in funding, it can help 182 additional Alaskans.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Williwaw Social, a downtown Anchorage entertainment venue that hosted concerts, parties and community events for nearly 10 years, announced on Facebook that it will close its doors on Friday.
In a post from the venue’s official account, Williwaw Social thanked Anchorage residents, artists, staff and guests for supporting the business over the past decade. The announcement described the venue as a gathering place for live music, celebrations, rooftop events and nightlife in downtown Anchorage.
The post did not state a reason for the closure.
Showdown Alaska, which has partnered with Williwaw Social for events, posted a separate statement saying the closure came as a surprise to its team. The organization clarified that Showdown Alaska and Williwaw Social are separate entities that operate independently.
Showdown Alaska said its Sundown Summer Concert Series will continue as scheduled on F Street. In the caption of its post, the organization said Drake Night and Showdown Throwdown will be rescheduled at new venues, and ticket holders will receive more information by email.
Williwaw Social’s announcement thanked Anchorage for its support and described the closure as the end of a chapter for the venue.
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Avalanche forecasters say spring’s slow-moving arrival in Southcentral Alaska has led to potentially dangerous conditions for hikers heading into the mountains for the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
The Friends of Chugach Avalanche Center posted an alert Thursday warning of a large slide blocking the road to the Crow Pass trailhead in Girdwood. Many popular trails within the Chugach National Forest, such as Byron Glacier and Crow Pass, continue to pose an avalanche hazard risk “as we can’t quite shake this cold, wet spring,” according to the alert from the nonprofit group affiliated with the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Center.
Avalanche forecasters last week warned hikers to be aware of numerous large avalanches releasing as spring conditions slowly arrived. Trails will continue to be dangerous as long as there’s snow covering higher terrain, they said.
“One of the biggest hazards during spring is not just traveling on steep slopes, but traveling below them,“ the avalanche center wrote in an alert last month. ”Many popular summer trails pass directly beneath avalanche paths. As temperatures warm, the snowpack weakens and avalanches can release naturally, running all the way to valley bottoms and across trails that appear dry and safe.“
The avalanches can carry heavy, wet snow “capable of burying a person, even far from where the slide started,” the alert said.
The forecast for the Anchorage area calls for continued cool, mostly cloudy and occasionally rainy weather with the potential for sun on Monday.
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