Strips of sockeye salmon harvested from the Kuskokwim River are seen on July 19, 2017. Sockeye salmon, also known as red salmon, is among the species harvested for subsistence. (Photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering whether to change Alaska’s unique system of hunting and fishing, which gives rural residents priority on federal land in Alaska.
According to a notice published Dec. 15 in the Federal Register, the Interior Department is conducting “a targeted review” of the program mandated by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
While no specific changes were identified in the notice, it prompted the Alaska Federation of Natives to react with concern.
In a message to members, it called the new proposal “a serious threat and a major step backward” in fish and game management within Alaska, according to a report Tuesday by the Anchorage Daily News.
Federal law requires rural residents to receive a priority when subsistence hunting and fishing, but because Alaska’s constitution prohibits the state from operating a system that gives one resident priority over another, the federal government uses one set of rules for hunting and fishing on federally controlled waters and lands, and the state uses another set for state-controlled water and land.
That has frequently led to conflicts between the state and federal government over management, and several lawsuits over the issue are currently in progress in federal court.
The Daily News reported that the suggestion to revise the two-tiered program came from Safari Club International, a large sport-hunting organization that has frequently sided with the state in lawsuits against the federal government.
Information posted online by the Interior Department indicates that the agency may consider:
Changing the makeup of the board that regulates subsistence hunting and fishing on federal land;
Reconsidering the rules that determine what parts of the state are “rural” and thus eligible for preferential treatment;
And the role of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the program.
NORAD- 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, NORAD tracks everything that flies in and around North America in defense of our homelands. On Dec. 24, they have the very special mission of also tracking Santa.
NORAD has been tracking Santa since 1955 when a young child accidently dialed the unlisted phone number of the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, believing she was calling Santa Claus after seeing a promotion in a local newspaper.
The commander on duty that night, was quick to realize a mistake had been made, and assured the youngster that CONAD would guarantee Santa a safe journey from the North Pole.
Thus a tradition was born that rolled over to NORAD when it was formed in 1958. Each year since, NORAD has reported Santa’s location on Dec. 24 to millions across the globe.
Thanks to the services and resources generously provided by numerous corporate contributors and volunteers, NORAD Tracks Santa has persevered for more than 60 years.
Each year, the NORAD Tracks Santa Web Site receives nearly fifteen million unique visitors from more than 200 countries and territories around the world. Volunteers receive more than 130,000 calls to the NORAD Tracks Santa hotline from children around the globe.
Children and the young-at-heart are able to track Santa through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
Commercial fishing and recreational vessels are docked in the Homer harbor on Oct. 23, 2025. The commercial fishing industry endured a series of challenges over the year, some of them imposed by the new Trump administration. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
For Alaska’s fishing industry and fishing-dependent communities, 2025 was a year of turmoil and uncertainty, much of it imposed by ideological pursuits from the new Trump administration.
The short-lived agency called the Department of Government Efficiency hacked away at federal funding for science across the board. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in particular was in its crosshairs; the Heritage Institute’s Project 2025 blueprint for the second Trump administration heaped scorn on NOAA, saying its National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” The NMFS’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which does the bulk of the research on which fishery managers depend, was among the agencies that suffered deep budget and staffing cuts.
The prospect of more cuts is unsettling, some officials said. “I guess now we’re getting to a point that I’m getting really concerned and almost freaked out about how much data that we’re potentially losing that we’re used to having,” Anne Vanderhoeven, a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said on Dec. 4 during that body’s December meeting.
Even as the Trump administration cuts the support fishery management, it is demanding that the industry harvest more fish, in line with an administrative order issued by the president on April 17.
The federal government shutdown created more problems for fisheries managers, but the North Pacific Fishery Management Council used data from last year to set next year’s harvest limits for Alaska pollock — the nation’s top-volume commercial seafood — and other groundfish in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Hannah Scholosstein, international marketing and grants manager for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, works in her office in Juneau on May 22, 2025, amid promotional materials. A legislative task force has recommended boosted funding and support for ASMI, among other actions. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska’s seafood industry continues to endure a variety of economic challenges — competition in markets that are glutted, rising costs, declines of some important fish stock and labor shortages, among them. There are fewer people harvesting seafood commercially in Alaska than at any time on record.
Alaska legislators have tried to address some of those woes. A legislative task force made numerous recommendations about financial systems, marketing, industry diversification, workforce development and other subjects. Those recommendations produced a series of bills. Two of them passed during the 2025 session, gaining unanimous support, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed one of them, which would have shored up the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank. The Legislature has the opportunity to address the subject again in the coming session.
The Dunleavy administration ran into trouble with two of its other fishery-related efforts. The governor introduced a bill that would legalize salmon farming, which is widely disdained in the state. The bill went nowhere. The administration is also continuing to try to overturn federal subsistence management on federal sections of the Kuskokwim River, but it has lost in court so far.
There were some notable improvements in 2025.
Bering Sea snow crab stocks are starting to rebound after a massive crash that closed harvests for two years, the first. However, there has been a puzzling boom in the number of snow-tanner crab hybrids. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is treating the hybrids as snow crabs for harvest-management purposes.
The overall salmon harvest was much bigger and more lucrative than last year’s dismal totals. Bristol Bay reds were not as small as last year’s record tiny fish, and the region also had a bigger run than predicted. However, salmon runs in the Yukon River continue to be poor.
But trouble is brewing in the marine and freshwater environments that support fish.
In areas of thawing permafrost, particularly Northwestern Alaska, a phenomenon called “rusting rivers,” has released such high levels of metals that conditions at times are toxic for fish. The thaw creates acid rock drainage, similar to the type of pollution that can come from hardrock mining. Iron and other metals that are freed through the process turn clear waters orange or red. The problem is serious enough to have merited a chapter in this year’s Arctic Report Card, issued on Dec. 16 by NOAA.
A member of a multi-organization team combatting the spread of invasive European green crabs holds one of the crabs trapped in Southeast Alaska in the summer of 2023. The invasive crabs were first discovered in Alaska in 2022. The Metlakatla Indian Community is leading the effort to combat their spread, and this year workers in the program trapped more than 40,000 of the crabs. (Photo by Ginny Eckert/Alaska Sea Grant)
Alaska scientists have also confirmed that invasive northern pike, a bane to native salmon runs in Southcentral Alaska, can swim across Cook Inlet to colonize new territory. The freshwater pike, which gobble up salmon fry and other fish, are too entrenched in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to be eradicated from waterways there. Biologists have been working to keep Kenai Peninsula pike-free and believed they were successful in 2018, until scientists discovered that pike are able to survive the relatively short swim through the inlet’s saltwater into new freshwater sites. The eradication work has continued, and state biologists believe the peninsula is again pike-free.
Another looming threat comes from the south. Resource managers with the Metlakatla Indian Community, the tribal government in Alaska’s most southeastern spot, have been battling what its officials term an “explosion” of invasive European green crabs. The first Alaska discovery of the invasive crabs, which can devastate native fish stocks, was in 2022 in the Metlakatla area. At first, there were only a few shells. But this year, workers in the tribal program trapped more than 40,000 of the crabs, which have been steadily expanding north.
“I voted” stickers are seen on display at a polling station in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
One of Rep. Nick Begich III’s uncles is endorsing his main Democratic opponent, Matt Schultz, in next year’s election. Tom Begich’s name was atop a list released to the Alaska Beacon by Schultz’s campaign this month.
Begich’s endorsement of his nephew’s opponent won’t surprise people familiar with Alaska politics — he’s a longtime figure in the state’s Democratic scene, has been publicly critical of his nephew’s actions and is running as a Democrat in the governor’s election — but Schultz’s list and a similar list of endorsements by Republicans for Begich III shows how the state’s political establishment is settling on a two-person race for U.S. House, unlike the crowded contest for governor.
“It will be awkward. It’s always awkward,” Tom Begich said of the endorsement, “ but my mom taught us to learn to live with disagreement, to move beyond it. It doesn’t change the fact that I love my nephew. Just, I’m not supporting him in this election.”
Tom Begich is among 14 people — 12 Republicans and two Democrats — who have registered to run for governor in next year’s election.
Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run.
While there are plenty of candidates for the governor’s seat, the number of people running for federal office is tiny. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, doesn’t have a well-known challenger yet. Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has been rumored as a possible opponent but has yet to file.
The same is true on the Democratic side, where support for Schultz appears almost entirely united.
“I’m very pleased to support him and glad he’s running,” said state Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage and the other Democratic candidate in the governor’s race.
“I think he’s more connected with the general, broad spectrum of values in Alaska, more connected with some of the challenges we’re facing. He’s really looking carefully at how we’re dealing with homelessness, and I think he’s concerned about some of the affordability issues that are particularly a challenge in rural Alaska,” Claman said of Schultz.
Among the other people endorsing Schultz are independent state Rep. Alyse Galvin, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House in 2020 and 2018, and Forrest Dunbar, a Democratic state senator who ran unsuccessfully for House in 2014.
One notable absence is Peltola, who held Alaska’s U.S. House seat for one term before Begich III defeated her in the 2024 election.
Also missing is longtime Democrat Mark Begich, the incumbent Republican’s other uncle and Alaska’s U.S. senator from 2009 to 2015.
“There’s definitely been a lot of support from Democrats all around the state, and I’m very grateful for that. It seems to be a lot of coalescing support,” Schultz said by phone.
A pastor in Anchorage, Schultz spoke on the day that the U.S. House announced that it would not vote to renew subsidies for health insurance policies purchased on the federal marketplace.
Without those subsidies, the prices of many policies will spike with the start of the year.
“That’s really, really sad and disturbing,” Schultz said. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer that you start out by making sure that people can afford their lifesaving medicine.”
Schultz said that as he’s gone around seeking early support for his campaign, he’s found joy and excitement among people who want to find a common good.
“It really is this wonderful excitement to say — just like we pulled together as a nation to go to the moon, we can pull together as a state to provide food and health care to people. It’s a goal that matters so much and is so basically good at its heart that people can’t wait to start working for it,” he said. “I think there’s a hope out there that has felt absent in the last decade or so.”
NOTN- Capital City Fire/Rescue responded to another trailer fire in the Switzer Creek area earlier today, and according to a statement released on their social media, extremely cold temperatures have complicated firefighting and emergency response operations.
The post said the severe cold can cause firefighters to fatigue more quickly and can even lead to equipment freezing or malfunctioning. Accessing structures also proves more difficult due to weather conditions.
CCFR reported receiving medical calls during the fire, stretching available resources and requiring crews to triage incidents as the fire response continued.
The statement said, “If it’s not a time-sensitive emergency or they are in a clinic setting, we will have to delay responses and get to them as quickly as we can, we apologize for some of the delays, however that’s the reality of a small town without neighboring departments to help fill it.”
NOTN- Juneau’s Parks and Recreation Department has a full slate of programs this winter, even as city officials prepare for difficult budget decisions that could affect long-term funding.
Mark Wheeler, recently appointed director of City and Borough of Juneau Parks and Recreation, said as the City and Borough of Juneau continues discussions on its upcoming budget, funding remains the department’s biggest challenge.
“Our biggest constraints are funding with our budget.” said Wheeler, “If you care about parks and Rec, we would love to have your voice be heard.”
Parks and Recreation operates multiple facilities and programs across the community, and future citywide cuts could force some difficult decisions.
The city will roll out a three phase public engagement process to better understand community priorities, facing next fiscal year.
“We are doing a public process, we will try and figure out what we need to know from the residents and how they can engage with us about these services and other things that are going to be affected by the budget cuts.” Said Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon, “So what we hope to achieve is basically gathering community input to have a deeper understanding and depth of knowledge of our CBJ services.”
In January, residents can expect an online survey, with QR codes distributed throughout the community for easy access.
The final phase will involve in-person engagement, featuring small interactive workshops, limited to 25 participants each for deeper discussion as well as a community listening session where citizens can testify about the budget.
Even facing the upcoming funding challenges, the department is promoting several winter offerings designed to keep residents active through Juneau’s bitter cold this December, including its winter recreation pass.
The Parks and Recreation winter pass is available for $200 and provides unlimited access through March 31 to city pools, the Treadwell Arena, the Dimond Park Field House and the Mt. Jumbo Gym. Wheeler described the pass as one of the department’s best values.
“It’s a great bargain,” he said.
Parks and Recreation staff are also encouraging residents to follow the department online for updates on programs, facility schedules and upcoming events as the season progresses.
NOTN- A 38 year old man has died following a residential structure fire Saturday night in Juneau.
According to an information release, the Juneau Police Department said officers were called to a report of a structure fire in the 6500 block of Glacier Highway at about 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 20, after a caller reported that a resident might still be inside the home.
Police and Capital City Fire/Rescue responded to the scene. After firefighters extinguished the blaze, they located the body of a 38-year-old man inside the residence.
Sunday, first reported by the Juneau Independent, the deceased was identified as Calvin Olsen. Next of kin have been notified.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Cook Inlet near Clam Gulch is seen on Oct. 23, 2025. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Trump administration on Friday affirmed a controversial federal Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale held at the end of 2022, asserting that impacts to endangered beluga whales and other resources were adequately considered and no changes in the leasing plan are needed.
In a Federal Register notice scheduled to be published on Monday, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced its decision to uphold Lease Sale 258 as held. The decision “balances the national policies mandated by Congress to expeditiously and safely develop the natural resources of the (Outer Continental Shelf), subject to environmental safeguards, in a manner that is consistent with the maintenance of competition and other national needs,” the notice said.
The lease sale, mandated by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, offered 193 blocks over nearly 1 million acres, but it drew only one bid. The sole bid was from Hilcorp, the dominant oil and gas operator in the inlet.
The auction went through a tumultuous history and remains a subject of debate.
Planning for the sale started in 2020, but two years later, the Biden administration canceled it, citing a lack of industry interest. The sale was resurrected by a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that was inserted by then-Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia. That provision required Lease Sale 258 to be held by the end of 2022; it was ultimately held on Dec. 30 of that year.
Environmental groups that sued to block the sale secured a victory after it was held. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in July 2024 that pre-sale studies failed to properly analyze impacts to endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and other resources. Gleason ordered BOEM to do the new analysis of beluga and other resource impacts, putting the sole lease that was sold into suspension.
The agency considered three additional alternatives that would have increased protections for belugas and other resources, but it rejected those and kept the original plan in place, according to the document.
“As LS 258 has already occurred, selecting any alternatives other than those described above would not affirm that lease sale and would void the one lease issued as a result of it,” the Federal Register notice said.
In its supplemental environmental impact statement, BOEM asserted that the risks of leasing and the development that would result from it are minor for Cook Inlet belugas and other marine mammals.
“The likelihood of a large oil spill affecting Cook Inlet marine mammals is relatively low, but the consequences could affect some populations. Sea otters face the highest vulnerability from a large spill due to their dependence on fur for insulation, resulting in a moderate impact level. Cook Inlet beluga whales are at risk due to the small population size, but geographic and temporal factors substantially reduce the risk of exposure to a large spill, yielding a minor overall impact level,” the document said.
The agency’s impact statement also describes impacts of noise as minor. While Cook Inlet belugas are highly dependent on hearing other whales’ calls to navigate the murky waters, ship and industrial noise that would drown out those calls “are expected to be temporary, with anticipated localized effects on beluga behavior and no anticipated long-term effect on survival or fitness.” Additionally, no injuries to belugas are expected from lease-related activities, the document said.
A beluga mother, in front, and her darker calf swim in Cook Inlet waters in this undated photo. A federal judge ordered the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to do more to analyze oil leasing impacts on the endangered Cook Inlet beluga population. (Photo by Janice Waite/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
The three new alternatives that BOEM considered would have added new protections for marine mammals and for subsistence and commercial fishing. Those alternatives would have reduced the available leasing territory in different increments, ranging from about one fifth to nearly half, according to the document.
The environmentalists who sued to overturn the lease sale criticized the decision and the lack of public participation leading up to it.
“BOEM’s decision to conduct the whole process in secrecy represents the federal government’s new approach to cutting the public out of decisions about our waters, and favoring the billionaire class and giant corporations over the people who call this place home. We are disgusted by this rushed and sloppy process on this final SEIS,” Bridget Maryott, co-executive director at Cook Inletkeeper, said in a statement, referring to the agency’s just-published supplemental environmental impact statement.
Hannah Foster, an attorney for Earthjustice, the environmental law firm that represented the plaintiffs, called the process leading to the decision a “black box.”
“We won our challenge against this lease sale because Interior failed to adequately consider sale alternatives and the impacts to the endangered beluga whales that will be harmed by blaring vessel noise and other oil industry operations. Yet BOEM has now reaffirmed the sale without seriously considering new alternatives or imposing any new measures to protect belugas,” she said in the statement.
Foster said Earthjustice and its clients are still reviewing the information about BOEM’s decision.
Including the lease sold in 2022, there are currently eight active leases in federal waters of Cook Inlet, all held by Hilcorp.
The Trump administration has already started planning a new Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale, the first of six nearly annual sales mandates for the inlet through 2032 under the sweeping budget bill that was called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Additionally, the administration included five Cook Inlet lease sales among the 21 it has proposed for federal waters off Alaska through 2031. Those 21 sales are proposed in the administration’s five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing plan, released last month. It envisions oil development in nearly all federal waters off the state’s coasts.
The five-year plan drew praise from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Trump ally.
“Once again, the Trump Administration is leading the way to American energy dominance by restoring confidence in the federal government’s offshore leasing policies,” Dunleavy said at the time in a post on the social media site X.
NOTN- Santa Claus will come to Juneau this weekend aboard a Capital City Fire/Rescue engine.
According to Capital City Fire/Rescue the Santa Run will take place tonight from 5:30 to 7:45 pm and tomorrow from 4:00 to 7:55 pm.
There has been adjustments due to the weather, instead of walking the routes, CCFR is inviting residents to join Santa at one of the designated stops throughout Juneau.
On Saturday, Santa will stop at Gruening Park, the Tram parking lot and will conclude his visit at Gastineau Elementary schools.
Firefighters say Santa will be accompanied by the Grinch, and candy canes will be handed out to children throughout the evening.
Event details and stop information are available on the Capital City Fire and Rescue Facebook page.
T.J. Duffy Organist and musician at the Alaska State Office Building, photo courtesy of T.J. Duffy
This story has been corrected, the Organ was stationed at the Gross Alaska Theater, not Goldtown.
Longtime Juneau organist and State employee T.J. Duffy will perform his final noon organ concert tomorrow, closing a chapter that has spanned nearly 16 years of weekly performances in downtown Juneau.
Duffy, who has been a fixture of Juneau’s music scene since arriving in 2009, said the concerts have been one of the great joys of his career.
While he is retiring from the series, he emphasized that he is not stepping away from music entirely.
“I have loved giving these concerts.” Duffy said, “But since I’m retiring, I’ve got my sights set on some other things.”
The noon organ concerts trace their roots back decades. The instrument is housed in an office building but it has lived in other locations across the capital city including at Gross Alaska Theater.
The organ was donated to the city on the condition that it remain in Juneau.
Early performances sometimes coincided with visits from dignitaries.
Over the years, Duffy’s concerts have drawn a wide range of listeners, Duffy is a classically trained musician and has played across genres in his career, with his noon concerts showcasing classic rock anthems from Metallica to Twisted Sister.
One memory stands out for him involved a concertgoer who was both deaf and blind.
“He comes to the concerts. And when he does, he likes to press his body up against the instrument and feel the vibrations.” Duffy said.
As he prepares for his final performance, Duffy expressed hope that the tradition of noon organ concerts will continue with a new generation of musicians.
“Organists, we’re a dying breed, what I hope is any promising music student who’s in music school right now, might come up for a visit and consider staying.” Duffy said.
Duffy said his final concert will be a celebration. He plans to invite the audience to sing along and will provide lyric sheets featuring familiar Christmas music.
“I’m really hoping for a big crowd,” said Duffy, “If you love to sing, come out tomorrow.”
The concert will mark the end of an era for a longtime Juneau musical tradition, one that Duffy helped sustain and shape for nearly two decades.
