Alaska
The ability to cast a ballot isn’t always guaranteed in Alaska’s far-flung Native villages
KAKTOVIK, Alaska (AP) — Early last summer, George Kaleak, a whaling captain in the tiny Alaska Native village of Kaktovik, on an island in the Arctic Ocean just off the state’s northern coast, pinned a flyer to the blue, ribbon-lined bulletin board in the community center.
“Attention residents,” it read. “In search of elections chairperson to conduct the August and November elections. … If interested please contact the State of Alaska Nome Elections.”
No one was interested, Kaleak said, and the state failed to provide an elections supervisor or poll workers.
When the primary arrived on Aug. 20, Kaktovik’s polling station didn’t open. There was nowhere for the village’s 189 registered voters to cast a ballot. Kaleak, who also is an adviser to the regional government, didn’t even try.
“I knew there was nobody to open it,” he said during an interview in Kaktovik earlier this month.
The development might have shocked voters or politicians elsewhere in the U.S., especially in swing states where any polling irregularities prompt scrutiny from party activists and news organizations, conspiracy theories spreading on social media and calls for investigations.
In Kaktovik, life went on. Some residents were frustrated, but they turned their attention to a more pressing matter: the start of whaling season.
Remote villages, few poll workers
The shuttered polling station represents just the latest example of persistent voting challenges in Alaska’s remote Native villages, a collection of more than 200 far-flung communities that dot the nation’s largest state. Many of the villages are far from the main road system, so isolated they are reachable only by small plane. Mail service can be halted for days at a time due to severe weather or worker illness.
Polling sites also did not open for the August primary in Wales, in far western Alaska along the Bering Strait. They opened late in several other villages. In Anaktuvuk Pass, the polling place didn’t open until about 30 minutes before closing time; just seven of 258 registered voters there cast ballots in person.
This year, with control of Congress on the line, the implications of any repeated problems during the November general election could be enormous. The state’s only representative in the House is Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola — the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress. She is popular among Alaska Native voters, won the recent endorsement of the Alaska Federation of Natives and is in a tight reelection fight against Republican Nick Begich.
“This congressional seat is going to be won by dozens of votes,” Peltola told a federation convention this month.
State, regional and local officials all say they are trying to ensure everyone can vote in the Nov. 5 election. In a written statement, Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections, called her agency “highly invested in ensuring that all precincts have workers and that sites open on time.” She acknowledged it can be difficult to find temporary workers to help run elections.
‘Out of sight and out of mind’
Like other Indigenous populations across the U.S., Alaska Native voters for years faced language barriers at the polls. In 2020, the state Division of Elections failed to send absentee ballots to the southwest Alaska village of Mertarvik in time for the primary election because its staff didn’t realize anyone was living there.
In June 2022, a special primary for the U.S. House was conducted primarily by mail after the sudden death of Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young. Some rural Alaska and lower-income urban districts had notably high rates of ballots disallowed — around 17% — due largely to missing witness signatures on envelopes or other mistakes the state provides no means of correcting.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Two months later, precinct locations in two southwest Alaska villages — Tununak and Atmautluak — did not open for the regular primary and special general election for the U.S. House, which were held on the same day. Ballots from several other villages arrived too late to be fully tabulated under the new ranked choice voting system the state uses for general elections.
“When these things happen in rural Alaska, when it’s out of sight and out of mind, it seems like the system just shrugs and writes it off as a character flaw for remote Alaskans,” said Michelle Sparck, with the nonprofit Get Out The Native Vote. “And we’re here saying this is unacceptable.”
Alaska allows absentee voting, but that can present its own challenges, given the sometimes questionable reliability of mail delivery in rural Alaska.
The Alaska Federation of Natives, the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska, passed a resolution last year raising concerns with mail service. It is surveying residents about their postal service, including how it affects their ability to vote or obtain medicine.
A land of caribou, whales and polar bears
Kaktovik is 670 miles (1,078 km) north of Anchorage, on Barter Island, between the Arctic Ocean and Alaska’s North Slope, an area of vast, treeless tundra nearly the size of Oregon. The temperature can dip to 20 below zero F (29 below C) during the perpetual darkness of winter. Air travel provides the only year-round access to Kaktovik, with ocean-going barges delivering goods in the warmer months.
It’s the only community in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and whether the next presidential administration will support drilling for oil in the refuge — as many villagers hope — is a major topic of concern. The nearest settlement is Deadhorse, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) west, the oil company supply stop that marks the end of the gravel road featured in the reality TV show “Ice Road Truckers.”
Kaktovik’s roughly 270 residents, mostly Inupiat, live in single-story houses laid out in a grid of about 20 blocks. They subsist by hunting caribou and bowhead whales; village whalers landed three bowheads this year.
After butchering the whales on a nearby beach, the villagers pile the bones farther away, where polar bears feast on the scraps. That’s made Kaktovik a popular spot for polar bear tourism. The village also has a polar bear patrol, led by village mayor Nathan Gordon Jr., to run the animals out of town when they get too close.
During the August primary, some residents were away hunting or fishing. The mayor was on vacation with his family in Anchorage.
Plenty of obstacles to staffing polling sites
Madeline Gordon, a former election worker, had taken a new job at a village grocery store. Gordon, the mayor’s cousin, said she told the Nome office of the state elections division in early summer that she wouldn’t be able to run the primary election, but the state nevertheless mailed a box of ballots to her home.
She gave the box to a city clerk, Tiffani Kayotuk. A state official told Kayotuk to hang onto it until further notice, Kayotuk said. The box was still in her office when she went on maternity leave on the day of the primary.
It had been clear well before then that Kaktovik would need help running the primary.
Kaleak, a deputy adviser to the top official of the regional North Slope Borough — equivalent to a county government in other states — posted the flyer seeking help staffing the election on the community center bulletin board. It was still hanging there recently, near one for the volunteer fire department and another for the local fuel depot. He also posted notices on a community Facebook page.
But the position required travel to Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow, for training. And, Kaleak said, the pay — $20.50 an hour — wasn’t enough to be attractive in a village where gas is $7.50 a gallon and other goods, shipped long distance, are similarly pricey. Small pumpkins were going for $80 apiece this month.
Taylor Thompson, who heads the legal department for North Slope Borough, said a borough official had reached out to the state elections division before the August primary to find out if they anticipated problems, and offered to fly a borough staffer to the village if needed.
“The state just didn’t take us up on it,” Thompson said.
She said she “lost it” when she learned from a news article that Kaktovik’s precinct hadn’t opened. This time, the borough is sending a worker to Kaktovik to ensure the precinct opens for the general election.
“We’re going to make sure that someone is there, no matter what, if the state’s not going to fulfill their obligations,” Thompson said.
Determined to ensure voters won’t be disenfranchised again
The borough also was trying to coordinate with the state to ensure polls will be staffed in two other villages, Nuiqsut and Anaktuvuk Pass.
Beecher, the elections division director, said the state was notified late on the afternoon before the primary that Kaktovik didn’t have anyone to run the polls. The division immediately reached out to the village and the borough in hopes of finding someone, she said.
“Unfortunately, despite best efforts, sometimes the trained staff are no longer available, requiring the division to secure other workers and get them trained in a short timeframe,” Beecher said.
The mayor said he got an earful when he returned from vacation.
“I end up coming back and hearing about how the primary wasn’t opened and how people had to miss their first-ever election,” Gordon Jr. said.
Charles Lampe, the president of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corp. and a city council member, favors getting city officials trained to work elections. That way, he said, “nothing like this ever happens again.”
For Kaleak, the disenfranchisement of Alaska Native voters should raise as much outrage as the disenfranchisement of voters anywhere else in the country.
“Every person should be able to have a vote, and it should count, and it should be fair,” he said.
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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Johnson reported from Seattle.
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From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay.
In 2001, a Canadian mining company proposed a massive gold and copper mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, a pristine water system on the coast of the Alaska Peninsula that’s home to the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. The salmon support a thriving ecosystem and are a cultural and economic lifeblood for native Alaskans, who have stewarded the land and water for thousands of years.
As the company moved ahead with plans to build the largest open-pit mine in North America, those Indigenous communities joined together to bring it to a halt. In 2023, they secured a rare “EPA veto” of the proposed Pebble Mine, and the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America recognizes an Indigenous leader in this fight.
Alannah Hurley is the executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. Her Yup’ik name is Acaq, her great-grandmother’s name. She is the winner of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
STEVE CURWOOD: Before we start talking about your work protecting Bristol Bay, paint us a picture of the bay. What makes this such a special place?
ALANNAH HURLEY: Bristol Bay is an extremely special place. It has all the different types of terrain in Alaska, in one place. Where I live, at the mouth of the Nushagak and Wood River, we have everything from tundra and wetlands to mountains, freshwater lakes, freshwater rivers, the muddy waters of Nushagak Bay, [and] the beautiful, crystal-clear ocean waters as you go west towards Togiak and Twin Hills. It’s really untouched, pristine beauty—all of Alaska’s majesty in one place. It’s so pristine you can still hunt and fish and pick berries and eat them straight from the land. You can drink right out of the lake and rivers. It’s paradise.
CURWOOD: Bristol Bay has huge environmental significance, but it’s also important to many human communities. I had been told that it produces more than $2 billion of annual revenue from sockeye salmon fishing alone, it’s also an important food source and cultural site for Indigenous communities, First Alaskans. Talk to me about what the bay means to the people in the area.
HURLEY: There are three different Indigenous groups in Bristol Bay—the Yup’ik people, the Dena’ina people, and the Alutiiq people. Our homeland has been stewarded by our people for thousands and thousands of years. They’ve taken care of this place and entrusted it to us. Our lands, our water, and everything that that entails—the salmon, the moose, the caribou, the bears, us, our freshwater fish, our berries, our plants, our medicines—we very much view it as all very connected. Anything that happens to our lands and waters happens to us. It is everything to us. It is the health of our people, physically, culturally, spiritually. It sustains us. It nourishes us. We’re so blessed to be able to live in the ways that our ancestors have lived. That kind of foundation is really critical in understanding our perspective and wanting to protect our home.
CURWOOD: In 2001, the Northern Dynasty Minerals mining company proposed the development of what’s called the Pebble Mine. It would have been the largest open-pit mine on the continent, one of the biggest, I guess, in the whole world. What would have been the environmental impact of such a project?
HURLEY: The environmental impact of the Pebble project would have been devastation. If you look at a map of Bristol Bay, there are two major river systems, the Nushagak and the Kvichak. The Pebble Mine would be located at the connected headwaters of both. You literally could not have picked a poorer location, and in my opinion, it’s [the] creator’s test to the people: What are you going to choose? But you could not have picked a worse location to put a low-grade acid-generating project that would have to store tens of billions of tons of toxic waste in perpetuity.
That picture is not a question of if something will happen, but when, especially in an earthquake-prone zone, and in a very hydrologically interconnected place. They’re like the veins of the bay—all of that water is connected. Our people, very early on, came out opposed to the project, because we knew that it would mean the utter devastation of our watershed, our fishery and our people.
CURWOOD: Some say that there are literally hundreds of billions of dollars worth of copper and gold and other minerals in the area for the Pebble Mine. Sounds like a lot of money, but you didn’t see this as good news for your community if this got developed.
HURLEY: No, we did not. Early on, before we learned about what type of ore it was, where it was located, what it would mean, what the tilings would mean, people were actually excited for some type of diversification of the economy. Fisheries can be pretty volatile, and that’s how a lot of people would survive in the cash economy as commercial fishermen.
But it did not take long to learn about those things, the dangers and the threat and the risk that that would cause to our people, and very early on, the vast majority of Bristol Bay’s people said, “No way, this is not worth the risk.” You cannot put a price tag on our water and what salmon mean to us as a people. This would be an existential threat to our ability to continue to be Indigenous people in this region, and we will not stop fighting until it is stopped.
CURWOOD: My understanding of Alaskan politics is that at the state level, there wasn’t a huge amount of pushback against this Pebble Mine proposal.
HURLEY: Our people’s concerns were really falling on deaf ears at the state level. We saw the state rewrite our area management plan illegally, without proper input or public process or consultation with our tribes. We saw the governor at the time try to pave the way for a mining district, and we’re still working to rectify some of those issues in that rewritten management plan to this day. And we’re still having issues with the state government pushing a project on Bristol Bay and Alaskans that they’ve proven for the last 20 years that they just do not support.
Because our concerns were falling on deaf ears at the state level, our tribal governments saw the federal government as the place to put some energy, and that was where the petition to the EPA came from, because the state was not listening. They were doing the exact opposite, to really grease the skids for the company to move forward.
CURWOOD: How did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency respond?
HURLEY: The tribes petitioned in 2010 to prohibit all mines like Pebble within the Bristol Bay watershed. The EPA came back and said, “We’re not going to act on a prohibition immediately under our authority under the Clean Water Act, but we are going to study Bristol Bay. We want to do an assessment. And we want to ask, is this place really unique, and what does this fishery mean to the state and people? If this type of development, large-scale hard rock mining, were to move forward, what kind of impact could that have on the waters and people?”
They took three years to do a bunch of studies. They were in a lot of different communities. There was a lot of peer review to answer those questions, and after that very long, drawn-out assessment, they determined what our people had been saying all along: that this type of development would devastate the water and everyone who was sustained by that water, and so that was really the basis for their action that came later.
CURWOOD: At the end of the day, how did things turn out with the EPA?
HURLEY: It was a bit of a roller coaster between the different administrations, but it’s really a testament to the dedication of our people and our region that regardless of the administration, regardless of winning and losing court cases, they did not give up. And so the EPA, in January 2023, finalized protections to stop the project.
CURWOOD: What’s the risk that the Trump administration number two could reverse all of that?
HURLEY: There is very much still a risk that that could happen. The company,Northern Dynasty, the state of Alaska and a few others have challenged the EPA protections in court, which we anticipated they would.
So far, the Trump administration has continued to defend [the] EPA’s action in court, but that is ongoing litigation, and we’re not putting all of our eggs in that basket with how unpredictable this administration has been in other arenas. We’re definitely remaining extremely vigilant. And we’re continuing to defend the protections in court, and we also are working on legislation that would address the other 20 active mining claims throughout the watershed.
While we’ve made great progress, unfortunately, Pebble isn’t the only mining claim in the region, and so we’re working really hard to put this type of development to bed for good, so that our kids aren’t destined to fight project by project, now into eternity.
CURWOOD: As executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, how important would you say tribal cooperation has been during this fight?
HURLEY: Tribal unity and cooperation has been absolutely critical. I think in any instance where a coalition is working to protect a place, having Indigenous people leading and center of the effort is absolutely critical. Local people need to be at the forefront of these fights, and without that unity in the bay, there’s no way we would be where we’re at today.
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CURWOOD: You were involved in building that coalition, including Native Alaskans, but also other political constituencies, the commercial fisherpeople and such. What was it like to build a coalition like that?
HURLEY: In the case of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, it was really about centering and amplifying the tribal voice and holding the government accountable for government-to-government consultation. There was real unity in that.
I think anytime you’re building a coalition, it can be challenging. I mean, it’s hard to get five people to agree to where you’re going to go to dinner, let alone 15 tribal governments from different cultural backgrounds who historically didn’t always get along, coming together to fight a common enemy for our continued existence as Indigenous people. That threat really brought us all together in ways that we had never seen before, and that also translated out to non-native groups, commercial fishermen, the conservation community. These aren’t people who usually get along. We’re used to fighting over fish, not working together to protect them, and so anytime you bring different groups together, there’s going to be bumps in the road.
At the end of the day, the connections between people, the relationships and the commitment to work [got us] through hard moments—and there were a lot of hard moments. A commitment, especially by non-native folks, to be in a respectful relationship with native people and us having that requirement that if we are going to be partners, this is how we expect to engage, helped lay the groundwork for a successful coalition. That’s never easy, it’s never pretty, but it was really the people-to-people relationships, those connections, that held us together even in the hard times.
CURWOOD: You’ve spoken about your grandmother’s influence and the values that propelled you through this journey. What lessons have you learned that have motivated you to keep going?
HURLEY: My grandmother was Mancuaq; I was raised with her in Clark’s Point in Bristol Bay. And it’s hard for me not to get emotional talking about her, because even now, even in all the different experiences in my life, everything important, the most important things that have helped me navigate life in a way that has been good and, you know, really grounded in love and respect and kindness came from her. Also the ability to persevere when things are tough. She passed away in 2019.
I obviously still miss her a lot. She provided me with the foundation of values, of how to move forward and live in this world in a good way. Our people have had those teachings for centuries—timeless, timeless teachings of what it means to be a good, real human being on the planet. And that foundation has helped me in life in invaluable and countless ways, and it continues to do so every day.
CURWOOD: What do you see for the future of Bristol Bay?
HURLEY: The future of Bristol Bay is beautiful. We are still struggling with the impacts of colonization, but we have only begun our healing, our reclamation, our revitalization of who we are as Indigenous people.
We have been so lucky that even through all of those challenges, our people have been able to remember and retain and still pass on our values and way of life. I feel like the potential to be a model of sustainability for the world led by Indigenous communities in modern society is boundless, and I’m really excited and hopeful that our region can shift from having to put our energy in defense of our homelands, to now help build something beautiful and tackle some of the tough issues that we’re facing.
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We are reviving Curious Alaska, a popular feature launched by the Anchorage Daily News in 2021.
The idea is simple: You have questions. Our reporters find answers. We share them with readers.
Maybe you’re curious about a landmark (like the Parks Highway Igloo, pictured below), or a tradition, a news event or a public figure from the past. Maybe you have a practical question about everyday life in Alaska.
On our initial run, we tackled more than 30 topics that readers inquired about.
Some examples of reader questions we’ve looked into so far include why we don’t have a Trader Joe’s here, whether there are snakes in Alaska, why sand dunes exist in Kincaid Park and the story behind cattle herds on remote islands in the state.
No topic is too offbeat for you to pitch. We’ll choose a question at a time and try our best to answer it. Send in yours using the form below. (Having trouble seeing the form? Try here.)
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- A megatsunami is an incredibly large wave of about 100 meters (328 ft) or more. These huge waves are often triggered by events such as landslides.
- In August 2025, a megatsunami in Alaska happened when a landslide entered a fjord next to South Sawyer Glacier. The event generated a wave 1,580 feet (481 meters) high.
- Scientists believe a warning system could help alert any people in the area. It would be based on seismic activity in the area.
By Michael E. West, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ezgi Karasözen, University of Alaska Fairbanks
2025 Alaska megatsunami shows need for warning system
On the evening of August 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer yacht finished taking selfies and videos of Alaska’s South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from the adjacent mountain unexpectedly collapsed into the fjord, initiating the second-highest tsunami in recorded history.
We conduct research on earthquakes and tsunamis at the Alaska Earthquake Center. And one of us serves as Alaska state seismologist. In a new study with colleagues, we detail how that landslide sent water and debris 1,580 feet (481 meters) up the other side of the fjord. That’s higher than the top floor of the Taipei 101 skyscraper. And then the tsunami continued down Tracy Arm. The force of the water stripped the fjord’s walls down to bare rock.
The 2025 Alaska megatsunami
It was just after 5 o’clock in the morning on a dreary day. And fortunately, no ships were nearby. In the months after, some cruise lines started avoiding Tracy Arm. However, the conditions that led to this event are not at all unique to this fjord.
Landslides are common in the coastal mountains of Alaska. In these areas, rapid uplift – caused by tectonic forces and long-term ice loss – converges with the erosive forces of precipitation and moving glaciers. But a curious pattern has emerged in recent years: Multiple major landslides have occurred precisely at the terminus (end point) of a retreating glacier.
Though the mechanics are still poorly understood, these mountains appear to become unstable when the ice disappears. When the landslide hits the water, the momentum of millions of tons of rock is transferred into tsunami waves.
This same phenomenon is playing out from Alaska to Greenland and Norway, sometimes with deadly consequences. Across the Arctic, countries are trying to come to terms with this growing hazard. The options are not attractive: avoid vast swaths of coastline, or live with a poorly understood risk. We believe there is an obvious role for alert systems. But only if scientists have a better understanding of where and when landslides are likely to occur.
Signs that a landslide might be coming
The Tracy Arm landslide is a powerful example.
The landslide occurred in August, when warm ocean waters and heavier precipitation favor both glacier retreat and slope failure. The glacier below the landslide area had experienced rapid calving: large chunks of ice breaking off and falling into the water. And it had retreated more than a third of a mile in the two months prior. Heavy rain had been falling. Rain enters fractures in the mountain and pushes them closer to failure by increasing the water pressure in cracks.
Most provocative are the thousands of small seismic tremors that emanated from the area of the slide in the days prior to the mountainside collapsing.
We believe that this combination of signs would have been sufficient to issue progressive alerts to any ships in the vicinity and homes and businesses that could have been harmed by a tsunami at least a day prior to the failure … had a monitoring program existed.
Escalating alerts are used for everything from terrorism and nuclear plant safety to avalanches and volcanic unrest. They don’t remove the risk. But they do make it easier for people to safely coexist with hazards.
For example, though people are still killed in avalanches, alert systems have played an essential role in making winter backcountry travel safer for more people. The collapse at Tracy Arm demonstrates what could be possible for landslides.
What an alert system could look like
We believe that the combination of weather and rapid glacier retreat in early August 2025 was likely sufficient to issue an alert notifying people that the hazard may be temporarily elevated in a general area. On a yellow-orange-red scale, this would be a yellow alert.
In the hours prior to the landslide, the exponential increase in seismic events and telltale transition to what is known as seismic tremor – a continuous “hum” of seismic energy – were sufficient to communicate a time-sensitive warning for a specific region.
These observations, recorded as a byproduct of regional earthquake monitoring, warranted an “orange” alert noting immediate concern. The signs were arguably sufficient to recommend keeping boats and ships out of the fjord.
Alerts are possible
Our research over the past few years has demonstrated that once a large landslide has started, it is possible to detect and measure the event within a couple of minutes. In this amount of time, seismic waves in the surrounding area can indicate the rough size of the landslide and whether it occurred near open water.
A monitoring program that could quickly communicate this would be able to issue a red alert, signaling an event in progress.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s tsunami warning program has spent decades fine-tuning rapid message dissemination. A warning system would have offered little help for ships in the immediate vicinity, but it could have provided perhaps 10 minutes of warning for those who rode out the harrowing tsunami farther away.
There is no landslide monitoring system operating yet at this scale in the U.S. Building one will require cooperation across state and federal agencies, and strengthened monitoring and communication networks. Even then, it will not be fail-proof.
Understanding risk, not removing it
Alert systems do not remove the risk entirely, but they are a better option than no warning at all. Over time, they also build awareness as communities and visitors get used to thinking about these hazards.
Many of the most alluring places on Earth come with significant hazards. Arctic fjords are among them. The same processes that create this hazard – glacier retreat, steep terrain, dynamic geology – are also what make these landscapes so compelling. The mix of glaciers, ice-choked waters and steep mountains is exactly what draws people to these places. People will continue to visit and experience them.
The question is not whether these places should be avoided altogether, but how to help people make more informed decisions. We believe that stronger geophysical and meteorological monitoring, coupled with new research and communication channels, is the first step.
On August 9, visitors unknowingly passed through a landscape on the cusp of failure. An alert system might have given tour companies and people in the area the information they needed to make more informed choices and avoid being caught by surprise.
Michael E. West, Director of the Alaska Earthquake Center and State Seismologist, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ezgi Karasözen, Research Seismologist, Alaska Earthquake Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Bottom line: A 2025 Alaska megatsunami sent a 1,580-foot wave of water up the Tracy Arm fjord. It revealed the need for a landslide-triggered tsunami warning system.
Read more: Landslide-triggered tsunamis becoming more common
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