This story is the first feature in a new Vox special project, Changing With Our Climate, a limited series exploring Indigenous solutions to extreme weather rooted in history — and the future.
Alaska
What 6 degrees of warming means for a community built on ice
When Priscilla Frankson thinks about home, she thinks about ice — thick sea ice stretching out toward the horizon.
Frankson, an Iñupiaq masters student in Tribal Leadership and Governance at Arizona State University, is from Point Hope (Tikiġaq), Alaska, a small city about 125 miles above the Arctic Circle and one of the northernmost communities in the United States.
“For us, the ice is a part of land, even though every single year it changes and it’s always different,” she said. “I think of the way that my boots kind of crackle over the ice, or the different sounds that it makes when there’s a very thin kind of sheet of snow on the top, and how it’s a little bit softer.”
In Point Hope, where summer temperatures rarely break 60 degrees, ice and cold are a part of life. Thick, reliable sea ice is essential for harvesting whales, a key part of the subsistence diets, a lifestyle built around harvesting wild foods for personal and community use, of Point Hope’s Iñupiaq residents.
Growing up, even when temperatures reached 40 below zero, Frankson would bundle up to go play outside in the snow or go hunting on the ice, while whales passed by. And on cold, cloudless nights, the northern lights would be spectacularly clear, flashing and dancing across the sky. It was a sight that Frankson said still seems too incredible to be real — even after years of observing it.
But climate change is threatening all of this.
Alaska is warming up to three times faster than the rest of the world, and the Arctic is warming nearly double that. Alaska’s North Slope, where Point Hope is located, saw an average annual temperature increase of 6 degrees since 1971. Since 1970, the US as a whole has warmed by 2.6 degrees.
Although the difference between, say, a day that is 0 degrees and one that is 5 degrees may seem like no big deal, the impact of these rising averages is immense.
Sea ice is forming later in the year than usual and is not as predictable as it used to be. As the permafrost thaws, siġlauqs — the traditional ice cellars carved into the land — are caving in or flooding. The animals that people rely on for food and goods — whales, fish, caribou — are also growing harder to find.
Despite the challenges, Frankson, who researches the social impact of declining caribou populations, says that Iñupiaq people are not going to change their entire way of life, but instead are making small adjustments to changing conditions. “We’re not scared enough to stop hunting, we’re not scared enough to stop going out on the ice, we’re not scared enough to do any of this,” she said. “We’re just learning how to adapt, as we always have.”
To adapt to the warming climate, Indigenous people in Alaska are relying on their deep understanding and respect for the land, a kind of humility developed over countless generations. “You can’t really change the Arctic,” Frankson said. “You can only change with the Arctic.”
Yes, daily life in Alaska — with its northern lights, its dependence on ice and the movement of caribou — may feel unrelatable. But this way of living in tune with the environment and gracefully adapting to a changing climate is becoming increasingly essential for the rest of the country. The strategies that Indigenous people in Alaska are developing show that sometimes the best forms of climate adaptation are achievable, local solutions.
Generations of extreme conditions have equipped Alaska Natives with the willingness and ability to embrace this kind of adaptation. As the impacts of climate change grow increasingly severe in the rest of the country, we could all learn from that.
Swimming may not seem like an adaptation to global warming. But in Alaska, it is.
Hundreds of miles south of Point Hope, in Bethel, Alaska, the Kuskokwim River is the heart of the community, providing food, transportation, employment, and community throughout the year.
The only way to get to Bethel is by plane, which can be very expensive, or by the river. In the winter, snow machines zip through town, heading up and down the frozen river to the dozens of villages that depend on Bethel for food, supplies, health care, and much more. In the summer, people travel by boat to spend days at their fish camps on the river, smoking salmon to eat throughout the rest of the year. In between, when the ice is forming or beginning to break up, the river can be dangerous: too frozen for boats, but too unstable for snow machines and cars.
“You can’t really change the Arctic. You can only change with the Arctic.”
Lately, those shoulder seasons have been shifting, extending, and becoming terrifyingly unpredictable.
Every year, flooding and erosion get worse, fish are dying, and the winter ice is becoming more dangerous. Kevin Whitworth, the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, says declining salmon populations are especially concerning. “It’s hard times,” he said. “Our people are subsistence-based people. They’re not economy-based people. They rely on the river as their grocery store. Their life is the river.”
According to the Federal Subsistence Management Program, rural Alaskans harvest 295 pounds of wild food per person, more than the 255 pounds of domestic meat, fish, and poultry that the average American consumes per year. Fifty-six percent of the statewide subsistence harvest is made up of fish. Beyond its cultural and community importance, subsistence is crucial for Alaska Natives because of the high cost of groceries. In a study of 261 urban communities across the country, the Council for Community and Economic Research found that the three most expensive places for groceries were Juneau, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. Prices in more remote communities like Bethel are often even higher.
Salmon’s drastic decline can be attributed to a number of causes, including warming waters and increased offshore trawling. Every year, ocean trawlers fishing primarily for pollock catch, kill, and discard about 141 million pounds of salmon, halibut, and other species, an extraordinarily wasteful practice that Indigenous people and other groups in Alaska have been rallying against. Meanwhile, communities upriver are severely limited in the number of salmon they can take from the river. “Right now, the salmon are crashing and we’re seeing big changes with the climate,” Whitworth says.
Bethel Vice Mayor Sophie Swope, who also sits on the Orutsararmiut Native tribal council, says that river conditions have become more dangerous for fishing and travel. “It used to be pretty dependable that you could just go drive out during the winter and it would be fine and safe,” Swope said. “Now, you have to keep an ear out for what the river conditions are.”
Whitworth, who is Athabascan from McGrath, says that because of salmon’s increasing scarcity, people are taking greater risks to get fish even though the river ice forms later in the season and is less reliable, leading to accidents and drownings.
So, facing declining salmon populations and a dangerous river, Indigenous people in the region are shifting their norms, too. While chinook and chum salmon are restricted, sockeye salmon, a less traditionally popular and available fish, has become an increasingly viable alternative.
Chinook has been a staple of Indigenous subsistence diets for generations, but people are doing what they must to use what is available now. Traditional salmon fishing techniques make it hard to separate different species of salmon, so Whitworth and the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission have been encouraging local fishers to use dip nets, large circular nets that allow people to target sockeye.
In the commission’s 2023 end-of-season report, sockeye made up about 40 percent of the estimated total salmon harvest on the lower Kuskokwim, a number that Whitworth says is much higher than it used to be.
As warming continues to impact the river, the local community has also been taking steps to protect its people.
In 2014, Yup’ik elder Beverly Hoffman and others finally succeeded in a decades-long effort to build a community pool in Bethel, which is now a resource for people throughout the region to learn how to swim, preparing them for an increasingly unpredictable river. Hoffman and others recognize that they cannot control the river, but they can help prepare the community to survive its dangers.
Swimming lessons and dip nets might sound like tiny changes in the face of global climate trends, but these are the kinds of local adaptations that will help communities thrive in a warming world. Outside of Alaska, planting trees to create more shade in urban heat islands or hiring more lifeguards for public pools could have a similar impact.
But these solutions are within reach and meaningful; they literally save lives.
Such approachable adaptations mean understanding that although we have a limited ability to change the climate, there are many more options to change our own behavior.
“This is what Indigenous knowledge is”
As temperatures continue to rise, Alaska Natives are turning to intergenerational knowledge and community observations to build a wealth of data that they hope will urge non-Indigenous decision-makers to listen to what they have to say.
In Unalaska, the largest city in the Aleutian Chain, the Qawalangin Tribe is gathering community feedback on climate change and what the people are experiencing. The tribe will then use these observations to help develop its climate resilience plans, which include culture camps with traditional dances and classes on kayak making, traditional food nights, and water quality testing programs.
Vera Metcalf is the executive director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission, which represents 19 coastal communities. Metcalf says that Indigenous walrus hunters have adapted to climate change by participating in research projects led by agencies like the US Fish and Wildlife Service. “In the past, we were largely ignored in research occurring in our homeland and waters,” she said. “When you combine the two ways of thinking, it really becomes a rich resource of information.”
Changing With Our Climate: A limited series exploring Indigenous solutions to extreme weather rooted in history — and the future
There’s no easy fix for the planet, but Indigenous people have simple solutions rooted in the depth of their knowledge. This story is the first installment of a new Vox series exploring frameworks for responding to extreme weather and the climate crisis. Every month through October, we’ll be publishing a new feature that centers an Indigenous community responding to various aspects of climate disasters, from major storms like hurricanes and typhoons, to extreme heat, rising seas, wildfires, and spreading aridity.
Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, Iñupiaq from Utqiaġvik, is the project coordinator and community liaison at the Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub, where she works with observers from four communities in the Alaskan Arctic.
Community observers share details like air temperature, wind speed, ice conditions, and animal observations, sometimes sending in photos of animals being harvested. Glenn-Borade and her team then take this data and share it with agencies like the US National Weather Service, which releases forecasts for the region. Glenn-Borade says that, historically, these forecasts prioritized larger ships offshore rather than Indigenous people living on the coast and hopes that using local observations will lead to better forecasts for Indigenous communities. “That kind of foresight of what the conditions will be can really make a difference between life or death,” she said.
Glenn-Borade also says this kind of local observation provides invaluable historical context about how the coast and the ice have changed over the years, what is within normal ranges, and what is unexpected.
“That’s what Indigenous knowledge is,” she said. “It is constant tracking and understanding and monitoring what’s going on and being prepared to respond on the fly.”
As the world warms, these examples from Alaska offer a warning that we can’t simply do everything the way we used to. Saudi Arabia, for example, can no longer ignore the deadly impacts heat is having on Hajj. Places like the Pacific Northwest can no longer count on mild summers and will save lives by investing in cooling infrastructure. But they also offer hope that if we can shift away from trying to change the environment to suit us, instead of the other way around, there may be a chance of finding creative, unexpected ways of changing with our climate.
When I spoke with Glenn-Borade recently, she told me she and her people are proud “that we’re still here. We’re not going to die off. Our languages aren’t going to die off. We will adapt. We’ll continue to adapt our lifestyles as the environment changes.”
Alaska
Alaska is awash in oil but lies on an even more valuable resource — Switzerland has just started to produce it in a frenzy
Alaska’s energy realm has been dominated by oil resources, but with the state awash in oil, Alaska is relying on another valuable resource. Buried beneath the layers of snow lies one of the most underestimated sources of clean power. Since Switzerland has set the tone of relying on solar power enhanced by snow itself, the country is offering some light on how snowy regions can depend on this valuable resource as well. With Alaska being filled with snow, the state could even become fossil fuel independent by relying on solar potential and its snow.
Swiss solar invention considering the strength of snow power
Switzerland has considered solar energy technology created for snow climates. Researchers as well as engineers have seen that solar panels in the Alps do benefit so much from the snow that their performance is improved. Shocking enough, solar panels perform well during the winter months when energy demand tends to be high.
The discovery of solar panels’ feat is because sunlight reflected off snow improves the radiation that reaches the panels. The best way this effect is reflected is through the AlpinSolar Project on the Muttsee Dam. The site can produce 3.3 GWh every year, which is rather similar to the energy generated by solar systems at low elevation levels. These alpine-based panels generate three times more electricity than installations in Switzerland’s lower regions, and this is mainly the case due to the snowy reflected layer.
It has been found that perhaps steep angles and panel spacing optimize sunlight absorption, as this placement enables snow to slide off panels easily whilst ensuring sunlight capture from reflective panels.
Alaska is looking at relying on the snow’s potential
According to research, the bifacial solar panels, which collect sunlight on both sides, can capture more reflected energy and show better solar output in comparison to traditional single-sided panels. This will be a great idea in Alaska, where snow cover exists for many months.
Tests conducted in Alaska were promising, and snow build-up on panels was effectively managed. Teams at the University of Alaska and Sandia National Laboratories created transparent ice- and snow-phobic coatings, where panels could shed snow and ice and improve solar energy production. In fact, energy production was improved by 85% during tests. While there is hope of solar success, the challenge seems far harder in Alaska in comparison to the Swiss Alps. With low sun angles being a reality in winter months, energy storage needs to be improved, should solar be a reliable clean energy source for Alaska.
Three lessons learnt from Switzerland that can be used in Alaska
Switzerland’s successes in alpine solar technology provide an incentive for Switzerland to tap into underrated clean energy sources, too. However, the lessons learnt in Switzerland can be used in Alaska as well:
- Installation design matters considerably: Steep panel angles and higher frames enable snow shedding while ensuring better reflection of surfaces.
- Adapted technologies, including bifacial panels and those with special coatings, optimize solar capture: In high latitude and snow conditions, such innovations tend to improve solar power capture.
- The solar system must be integrated with storage and grid systems: This ensures that solar becomes a strategic investment in places, like Alaska, where winter darkness seems to be apparent all year long.
If Alaska keeps these core solar lessons in mind, the state can tap into this form of renewable energy.
Alaska will be able to tap into its renewable energy potential
Alaska needs to consider the snow as an asset in its solar mission, as opposed to seeing snow as a foe to the renewable energy agenda. Alaska, like Switzerland, can move forward with this renewable energy resource. While Switzerland has been relying on this resource for a while with favorable results, Alaska, too, can embrace the snow. Soon, the Alps will be covered with solar panels with amazing results.
When it’s time to plan a trip, there are a couple of key considerations: How do you get there and how much does it cost?
Alaska travelers take it for granted that most big trips include a stop and a layover in Seattle. That’s certainly true for more international journeys, unless the trip includes a flight to Frankfurt on Condor’s nonstop from Anchorage.
But that mandatory Seattle stop is changing, even though there will be 27 nonstop flights each day this summer.
While ticket prices change on the fly, the process of blocking out where a plane will fly takes time and effort. There are many moving parts, including crew, ground handling and maintenance.
So the airlines have been working on new summertime flights since earlier this fall. And the lineup is pretty good. There’s also some welcome news on the airfare front.
Just a few days ago. Alaska Airlines announced plans to fly nonstop from Anchorage to three new destinations this summer: Boston, Spokane and Boise. Travelers prefer to fly nonstop. It’s faster and there are fewer opportunities to avoid missed connections, lost bags and other possible trip interruptions along the way.
The flights to Boston start on Saturday, June 13, 2026. There’s just one flight per week this year, which is one way Alaska Airlines tests out a route.
Alaska Air plans two flights per week (on Wednesdays and Saturdays) between Anchorage and both Boise and Spokane, starting on Wednesday, June 10.
Two other nonstop routes from Anchorage that had once-a-week service last summer now will get two flights per week: Anchorage-San Diego, starting May 16, and Anchorage-Sacramento, starting June 13.
Three Alaska Air destinations will get one flight per day, starting May 13: Anchorage-San Francisco, Anchorage-Denver and Fairbanks-Portland. That’s the same date that Alaska upgrades its Anchorage-Las Vegas from two flights a week to daily service, in response to Southwest Air’s nonstops starting May 15. The Anchorage-Los Angeles schedule also increases on that date (May 13) from one to two daily flights.
More nonstops come online on June 10: Anchorage-Minneapolis and Anchorage-New York/JFK. Also on that date, the Anchorage-Chicago schedule increases from one to two daily flights.
Alaska Airlines also offers daily nonstops to Phoenix and Honolulu. Between Anchorage and Portland, Alaska offers five daily flights during the summer.
Delta Air Lines is resuming several popular nonstop flights from Anchorage in May: Anchorage-Detroit (May 21), Anchorage-Salt Lake City (May 16) and Anchorage-Los Angeles (May 22).
Delta offers year-round nonstops from Anchorage-Seattle (3-6 daily flights), Fairbanks-Seattle (1-2 daily flights), Anchorage-Minneapolis (1-3 flights per day) and Anchorage-Atlanta (Saturdays only).
Delta’s Anchorage-Atlanta flights feature a wide-body Boeing 767 plane with lie-flat “Delta One” suites, one of just a few domestic routes. Delta resumes daily Anchorage-Atlanta flights on May 21.
American Airlines’ nonstop flight from Anchorage to Dallas operates through Jan. 6, 2026. Then there’s a two-month gap before the flight start up again on March 8.
On May 21, American Airlines resumes daily service on two routes: Anchorage-Chicago and Anchorage-Phoenix.
United Airlines flies from Anchorage to Denver each evening year-round. On May 21, United will start flying three times each day, in response to Southwest Air’s new nonstop which starts on May 15. On June 26, Denver adds a fourth daily Anchorage-Denver nonstop, just in case Southwest didn’t get the message.
May 21 also is the day United resumes its daily nonstops to Newark, Washington, D.C., and Houston.
On March 5, United resumes its nonstop flight from Anchorage to Chicago. On April 30, United adds a second flight for the summer.
Up in Fairbanks, United resumes daily flights to Chicago on April 30 and to Denver on May 21.
[Workouts at the airport? Some fliers can already smell the sweat.]
Other airlines planning nonstops to Anchorage include Sun Country, with one to two daily flights to Minneapolis starting May 16, WestJet with two weekly nonstops from Anchorage to Calgary and Southwest, with daily flights to both Denver and Phoenix. Condor Airlines plans three flights per week from Anchorage to Frankfurt starting May 16.
A big driver for the additional flights is the cruise industry, which is on track for a robust 2026 season. There are several new entrants in the cruise market, including MSC cruises, Virgin Voyages, Windstar Cruises and Azamara.
Still, airline watchers speculate there will be plenty of capacity in the interstate jet market, which means fares will be cheaper.
One example right now: Delta offers Basic Economy fares between Anchorage and Seattle for $196 round-trip. Travel between Jan. 12 and March 31. The upcharge to Main Cabin for advance seat assignment and mileage credit is $80 round-trip. Alaska Airlines quickly matched the Basic fare, but Alaska charges more for the upcharge to Main: $100 round-trip.
United Airlines is getting in on the discount fares, offers cheap rates to three Florida destinations from Anchorage: Tampa, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. All are available for $336 round-trip is Basic Economy. Remember, with United, you cannot even take a small carry-on aboard without getting charged extra. The upcharge to Main is $100 round-trip.
After Delta dropped the fare to Seattle, Alaska Airlines dropped its rates to Delta hubs in Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Detroit. But there’s a twist.
Between Anchorage and Atlanta, Alaska Air is offering Basic fares for as little as $343 round-trip. Fly between Jan. 21 and Feb. 14. But the upcharge to Main is crazy: $175 round-trip. The price from Anchorage to Detroit on Alaska Air is compelling: just $341 round-trip. But the upcharge to Main is a buzzkill: $198 round-trip.
The Basic rate on Alaska Air between Anchorage and Salt Lake is sweet: $264 round-trip. The upcharge to Main is sour: $169 round-trip.
[Smaller items don’t go in overhead bins. Flight attendants are cracking down.]
In fairness, Delta also is guilty of overcharging for the upcharge to Main.
Between Anchorage and Boston, Delta is offering Basic seats for $336 round-trip, traveling between Jan. 9-March 31. The upcharge to Main is $100 round-trip.
But it’s a different story with tickets to Washington, D.C. Delta dangles a great price for Basic: $344 round-trip. But then comes the sticker shock on the upcharge to Main: $180 round-trip.
There still are a couple of golden rules when it comes to shopping for airline tickets:
1. When airlines are mad at each other, the traveler wins.
2. The big print giveth and the fine print taketh away.
Some of Alaska’s scenic rivers and streams look downright apocalyptic this year because they turned a flagrant orange color — but it’s not due to local pollution, according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In actuality, the orange tinted water is rust, released as the frozen ground in Alaska thaws out due to unchecked greenhouse gasses driving global warming. And it’s leaking into the state’s waterways, according to NOAA’s annual report on the Arctic region, where it’s posing a danger to local wildlife, residents and commercial fisheries.
The day-glo rivers are also a bright orange flag that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world. The massive defrosting is also anticipated to increase sea levels and screw up weather patterns, according to scientists who talked to NPR.
“When the Arctic thaws and warms, it’s having an impact on the global climate,” Matthew Druckenmiller, lead author of the report and senior scientist with the Boulder, Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the broadcaster.
The planet is already showing signs of distress from global warming, such as large-scale forest fires and extreme summer temperatures outside the Arctic, which Druckenmiller described as a giant fridge for the planet.
“The Arctic is warming several times faster than Earth as a whole, reshaping the northern landscapes, ecosystems, and livelihoods of Arctic peoples,” reads the NOAA report. “Also transforming are the roles the Arctic plays in the global climate, economic, and societal systems.”
Zooming back to Alaska, people started noticing the orange waterways in 2018, according to NPR.
“ We heard from people who live in the region — pilots who are often flying over, people in the national parks,” US Geological Survey research hydrologist Josh Koch told the broadcaster.
As temperatures heats up in the most remote parts of Alaska, permafrost — ground that usually stays continuously frozen — is melting, and that’s unlocking iron in the soil, which oxidizes from exposure to water and air, causing rivers and streams to turn orange. Surveys revealed that this contamination is far reaching, covering hundreds of miles of terrain in Alaska.
“It’s often not orange until it reaches the stream, and then all the iron and other metals can precipitate and create this iron staining,” Koch added.
It’s not clear if residents are being harmed from the polluted water, but local scientists are monitoring the situation, NPR reports.
The other problem with these rusty rivers is that they increase the acidity level in the water, according to the NOAA report, and this may harm fish like Dolly Varden char, whose juvenile offspring have experienced a sharp decrease in numbers most likely due to iron in its aquatic habitat. And that’s pretty bad for everybody in Alaska.
“The food chain is connected to the lives of people living in the Arctic,” Druckenmiller said.
More on climate change: Melting Glacier in Alaska Floods State Capital
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