Alaska

The great hollow of Minto Flats

Published

11 months ago

April 3, 2025

MINTO FLATS — Within a vast bowl bordered by blue hills, I rolled along on a trail scratched into ice by snowmachines. That deceptive basin — Minto Flats — is big enough to swallow Denali, if the big mountain happened to stumble in here and fall.

Just over a ridge west of Fairbanks, Minto Flats is an oval of swampy lowlands larger than Anchorage. The flats are a quiet expanse that has for longer than anyone’s memory produced moose, beavers and northern pike for local villagers. It has also intrigued oil and gas developers, as well as seismologists who know the self-healing surface hides the scars of large earthquakes.

As the sun rose over the flats and reflected off the wind sculpted snow, teams of sled dogs and their drivers passed me and my fatbike. I was one of three human-powered racers in a contest called the T-Dog. Competitors that day raced from the village of Minto — perched on a hill to the west of the flats — to Fairbanks, 100 miles away.

I signed up for the T-Dog to do something new, and to draw a new line on my map that crossed the flats.

Instead of dog mushers, a few bikers and a skier, in a few months Minto Flats will be loud with quacks, honks and splashes. Scientists once calculated 213 ducks per square mile existed here during one spring/summer breeding season.

“Minto Flats constitutes one of the highest quality waterfowl nesting and staging habitats in Alaska, and possibly in North America,” wrote Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists in the Minto Flats State Game Refuge Management Plan in 1992.

In 1961, a geologist named David Barnes of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, described something extraordinary about the sprawling wetland: The force of gravity is not as strong in the center of Minto Flats as it is in the surrounding hills. That “gravity low,” achieved in part because the Earth isn’t a perfect sphere, means that the force holding dogsled runners to the snow there is a little weaker than on the ridges. It also means that Minto Flats is sinking.

Scientists have calculated that the descending basin of Minto Flats is 56 miles long, 7.5 miles wide and 4.5 miles deep. That would allow the flats (if you scooped out all the muck) to swallow Denali, at 20,310 feet a little less than four miles tall.

The basin, however, is now full. Over millions of years, rivers have pumped in ground-up rock, filling Minto Flats with sediment and amplifying the effects of big earthquakes. Those include magnitude 7.2’s in both 1937 and 1947 and a 6 felt by many Fairbanks residents in 1995.

Carl Tape of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and his colleagues installed seismometers near Minto village and in spots along the adjacent Tanana River during the last 10 years. They have determined that earthquakes in Minto Flats and the larger Nenana Basin (of which it is a part) feel stronger to the observer than earthquakes that shake people standing on more solid ground.

That intensified earthquake shaking is typical of towns and cities built upon sedimentary basins, among them Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

When the faults beneath Minto Flats slip, Fairbanks can rattle with a magnitude 7 earthquake. Other population centers adjacent to the flats are Minto village (150 people counted in the 2020 census), Manley Hot Springs (169) and Nenana (380).

In the middle of the flats in March, there seemed to be no one except those traversing it along a blue/white line of trail. Besides that big-sky feeling a person gets while driving across South Dakota, another sensation came to mind when biking Minto Flats: They are nice and flat.

It also helped that the snowmachine trails were hard as pavement. And that the 50 miles from Minto to the town of Nenana features a 40-foot elevation drop. From there, it’s slightly uphill to Fairbanks upon trails pressed into the frozen Tanana River by a few hundred Iditarod dogs in early March.

In 100-plus miles from the village of Minto to my home (to which I pedaled), the total elevation gain was just 56 feet. Add to that the imperceptible boost of riding through the flats where gravity wasn’t giving its best shot, I had no excuses not to make it home.

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Alaska

Musician performs under the aurora in Nenana — without gloves, in 17 degrees

Published

6 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Musician performs under the aurora in Nenana — without gloves, in 17 degrees

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A musician with Alaska Native roots recorded an hour-long live set in Interior Alaska beneath the aurora.

Chastity Ashley, a drummer, vocalist and DJ who performs under the name Neon Pony, celebrated a year since she traveled to Nenana to record a live music set beneath the northern lights for her series Beats and Hidden Retreats.

Ashley, who has Indigenous roots in New Mexico, said she was drawn to Alaska in part because of the role drums play in Alaska Native culture. A handmade Alaskan hand drum, brought to her by a man from just outside Anchorage, was incorporated into the performance in February 2025.

Recording in the cold

The team spent eight days in Nenana waiting for the aurora to appear. Ashley said the lights did not come out until around 4 a.m., and she performed a continuous, uninterrupted hour-long set in 17-degree weather without gloves.

“It was freezing. I couldn’t wear gloves because I’m actually playing, yeah, hand drums and holding drumsticks. And there was ice underneath my feet,” Ashley said.

“So, I had to really utilize my balance and my willpower and my ability to just really immerse in the music and let go and make it about the celebration of what I was doing as opposed to worrying about all the other elements or what could go wrong.”

She said she performed in a leotard to allow full range of motion while drumming, DJing and singing.

Filming on Nenana tribal land

Ashley said she did not initially know the filming location was on indigenous land. After local authorities told her the decision was not theirs to make, she contacted the Nenana tribe directly for permission.

“I went into it kind of starting to tell them who I was and that I too was a part of a native background,” Ashley said. “And they just did not even care. They’re like, listen, we’re about to have a party for one of our friends here. Go and do what you like.”

Ashley said the tribe gave her full permission to film on the reservation, and that the aurora footage seen in the episode was captured there.

Seeing the aurora for the first time

Ashley said the Nenana performance marked her first time seeing the northern lights in person.

“It felt as if I were awake in a dream,” she said. “It really doesn’t seem real.”

She said she felt humbled and blessed to perform beneath the aurora and to celebrate its beauty and grandeur through her music.

“I feel incredibly humbled and blessed that not only did I get to take part in seeing something like that, but to play underneath it and celebrate its beauty and its grandeur.”

The Alaska episode is the second installment of Beats and Hidden Retreats, which is available on YouTube at @NeonPony. Ashley said two additional episodes are in production and she hopes to make it back up to Alaska in the future.

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Alaska

Over $150K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

Published

18 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Over 0K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – An Alaska drug task force seized roughly $162,000 worth of controlled substances during an operation in Juneau Thursday, according to the Juneau Police Department.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) approached 50-year-old Juneau resident Jermiah Pond in the Nugget Mall parking lot while he was sitting in his car, according to JPD.

A probation search of the car revealed a container holding about 7.3 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, as well as about 1.21 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl.

As part of the investigation, investigators executed a search warrant at Pond’s residence, during which they found about 46.63 gross grams of ketamine, 293.56 gross grams of fentanyl, 25.84 gross grams of methamphetamine and 25.5 gross grams of MDMA.

In all, it amounted to just less than a pound of drugs worth $162,500.

Investigators also seized $102,640 in cash and multiple recreational vehicles believed to be associated with the investigation.

Pond was lodged on charges of second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, five counts of fourth-degree misconduct involving a substance and an outstanding felony probation warrant.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

1 day ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

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