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I even spoke at a couple of forums where people brought him up as somebody that they really opposed for a number of reasons. A controversial appointee to the Alaska Judicial Council steps aside from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Monday, April 27th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, why the legendary Chilkoot Trail remains unhikable.
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It's just colossal failures at the government level. You know, that's really what it boils down to.
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Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. Four Alaskans appointed by governor Mike Dunleavy to serve on various state boards and commissions recently resigned ahead of a legislative confirmation vote expected next week. Dunleavy told legislators in a series of letters on Friday and today that the four had left their seats. Two were the subject of significant controversy. A Dunleavy appointee to the Alaska Police Standards Council, Veronica Lambertson of Bird Creek, made headlines last week when senators questioned her on a number of fringe beliefs she's posted about on social media. Here she is at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. She was questioned by Sen. Matt Clayman, an Anchorage Democrat.
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Do I believe something happened at the Holocaust and a tragedy and a lot of people died? Yes, I believe that actually happened. Are we being told the true story about it all? No, I don't believe we're being told the true story about it all.
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What do you believe is the true story?
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That I don't know.
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Yet another senator questioned whether Lambertson was even eligible. Dunleavy appointed her to a seat reserved for people from small communities, and Lambertson lives within Anchorage's municipal boundaries. Another resigning appointee, Alaska Judicial Council member John Wood, also faced questions over whether he was eligible to serve. Wood is a former attorney and was appointed to a seat reserved for non attorneys. A Superior Court judge found he was eligible, though an appeal remains unresolved. House Judiciary Committee Chair Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat, says he'd heard from many Alaskans opposing the appointment. We received a lot of emails, phone calls, actually, I even spoke at a
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couple of forums where people brought him
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up as somebody that they really opposed for a number of reasons. Wood, though, says he's not resigning over the controversy, nor was he asked to step aside. Wood says he'd simply rather not have to schedule family reunions around the Judicial Council's activities.
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I'm going on 80 years old next month and you know, you've got a limited amount of time on this earth, and I've decided I'm going to reserve that time for what John Wood wants to do. When John Wood wants to do it.
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The other two resigning appointees are North Pole resident Victoria Acree, who Dunleavy appointed to the Board of Massage Therapists in November, and Board of Nursing appointee Ashley Shawley. Neither faced a public hearing. Legislators have the power to reject nominees with a simple majority vote. For millennia, Tlingit traders, gold prospectors and modern adventurers have hiked between southeast Alaska and Canada on a rugged route known as the Chilcoo Trail. Or at least they used to. In 2020, the trail shut down due to the pandemic. And more recently, amid rising geopolitical tensions, the US And Canada have barred hikers from crossing the international border at all. As Avery Elfelt reports for the Alaska Dusk, the closure interrupts the trail's long, famous history and is hitting the local tourism economy.
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Tim Borsi has hiked the Chilkoot Trail more times than he can count. For three decades he owned a Skagway based guiding company that brought clients along. Among them have been everyday tourists, film crews and at least one time US Senator Lisa Murkowski.
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We guided her over the trail on her 50th birthday.
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Borsi sold his company a few years back, but he's among those reeling over the reality that hikers have not been able to trek the 33 mile trail in its entirety for six seasons, going on seven.
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It's just colossal. Failures at the government level, you know, is really what it boils down to.
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The first disruption came in 2020 during the pandemic. The trail's Canadian section reopened in 2021, but the US side remained closed due to flood damage. Both sides finally reopened last summer, but hikers couldn't cross the border. The same applies this year. Both countries border agencies said in emailed statements that hikers would not be able to complete the full trail because its international boundary, which sits atop a rugged mountain pass, is not an official port of entry. Here's Oliver Clark of Parks Canada.
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What we've been told by Canada Border Services Agency here is that they expect for this to last for a couple more years.
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The decision comes amid an increasingly tumultuous relationship between the two countries. That's partially due to ongoing trade disputes and President Donald Trump's repeated statements that the U.S. should annex Canada. Murkowski, for her part, tried to intervene. In a letter last June, she urged relevant agencies to find a solution. She called the trail a living monument to indigenous heritage. Kristi Noem, the then head of the Department of Homeland Security, replied in September. She said all hikers are required to cross the border at an official port and emphasized the agency's focus on national security threats, including, quote, foreign terrorists. Kerry Whitmer is the acting superintendent of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic park in Skagway.
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Hikers can hike the trail on the US Side. They can hike the trail on the Canadian side, but hikers must turn around at the border. The border's not open.
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The decision, whatever the rationale, disrupts the trail's long and storied history. That includes the Klondike Gold Rush, during which thousands of stampeders trekked the trail to get from coastal Alaska to Canada's interior. But the Chilkoot's legacy extends long before then, the trail served as a crucial trade route for the coastal Tlingit people. The Chilkoot Trail had been traveled by Tlingit people since time immemorial. That's Jamie Bricker. She's the president of a local tribe, the Skagway Traditional Council. And to not have that route open in an area that traditionally didn't have borders is just really heart wrenching. Bricker is also the borough's tourism director. She says the Chilkoots closure has had ramifications there, too. It's also crippled our ability to attract independent travelers to that outdoor museum, that place that's so rich in history and rich in natural beauty. In the three years prior to 2020, the trail drew more than 3,000 hikers, according to data from Parks Canada. But last year, less than 400 people hiked the Chilkoot. Borsi, the longtime guide, says hiking just half of the trail is simply less appealing and in some cases, more logistically complicated. As he sees it, the closure's impacts go far beyond the local economy.
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We survive up here with, with, you know, our Canadian neighbors, right? And that's the way it's always been and it's the way it should always remain.
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Borsi is among those who say it's a shame that border politics have disrupted travel on the remote trail that's long connected the two regions. Reporting in Haines, I'm Avery Elphelt.
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Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, the true origin of a mysterious golden orb found at the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska.
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There were jokes about it being a mermaid's egg or, you know, the things that also don't make biological sense.
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The truth is out there. Stay with us. The remains of a woman found in a wooded area in the Spenard neighborhood in Anchorage last week have been identified as Kelly Hunt, a 19 year old college student from Shaktulik missing since January. Anchorage police say the search for Hunt ended in a ravine near Lois Drive and West 36th Avenue on April 20. Hunt had been staying at a home in the same neighborhood and was last seen leaving on the morning of January 7th. Her family reported her missing four days later. Advocates for missing and murdered indigenous people have questioned the police response that followed. Michael Livingston, a retired Anchorage police officer and MMIP advocate, says Hunt's case reflects a pattern he's seen too often, far too often.
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When a young Alaska Native woman is reported missing, it's too late and we are now looking at human remains.
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Livingston says several red flags in Hunt's disappearance should have prompted a more aggressive investigation. He says Hunt had left her purse behind with money inside as well as clothing signs she did not plan to be gone long.
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Was there any more that anybody could have done to try to have located her early on in the game to see whether or not any video surveillance cameras or people in the neighborhood might have seen anything suspicious?
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Livingston says he would like to see an investigation into the police response. Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case says he would be happy to discuss this with advocates, but for now, the ability of investigators to talk about the case is very limited.
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Some people look at that as a missing person and we should put all that information out to the public and make everything publicly available so everybody knows what we're doing. But the problem is that can really cause challenges if it does become a criminal investigation later on.
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Case says one of the challenges was the four day gap between the time that Hunt went missing and her disappearance was reported. Case says he doesn't blame anyone for the delay, that there were apparently reasons for that.
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But as soon as we found out that she was missing, we took the report and detectives took over that case and treated that case as a critical or a high risk or a case that there was definitely concern over. And so we had detectives involved in that case from the beginning and we investigated that just in case that was turned into a crime.
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Case says police followed up on numerous leads, including vehicles and people of interest. He says the department's crime scene team continues to process evidence and as investigators wait for the chief medical examiner to determine the exact cause of death. So far, no arrests have been made. Alaska based telecommunications company GCI announced plans to acquire Quintillion in a $310 million deal. If state and federal regulators approve the deal, the companies say they'll be able to merge their network infrastructure, making Internet service across huge swaths of the state more reliable. GCI senior Vice president of corporate development Billy Weiland says the company doesn't plan to raise rates to cover the cost of the deal.
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We value the Quintillion business based on their current financial performance and some savings that GCI will be able to recognize by integrating the Quintillion business into gci.
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Quintillion, which is based in Anchorage, has become a household name in northern and western Alaska in part because of its fast but fragile fiber optic Internet network. In the last three years, its thin subsea cable has been knocked offline twice by shifting sea ice as recently as January 2025. If ice takes down another cable, Quintillion says it will now be able to route Internet traffic away from the break. That flexibility caught the attention of gci, which has been developing its own subsea fiber network called ihuc. It runs up the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta coastline parallel to Quintillion's. Quintillion President Mac McHale says with the acquisition, the two networks will eventually combine to provide further redundancy.
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Bolting these two networks together creates a resiliency and a redundancy that neither one
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of us could accomplish on our own, mchale says. Quintilian explored refinancing its debt last fall and ultimately decided to pursue new investors. He says a potential green light on the deal from regulators is expected to take a year. Well, Pioneer park in Fairbanks will soon go by the name Alaska Land once again. The Fairbanks Northstar Borough assembly voted last week to revive the former name of the iconic public park after a debate about history, inclusivity and the meaning of the word pioneer. KUAC's Patrick Gilchrist reports.
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The park abuts the Chena river and sits by the junction of two major Fairbanks roads. The pioneers of Alaska helped found it in the 1960s to feature historical exhibits and called the location Pioneer Memorial Park. The grounds also hosted the 1967 event celebrating the centennial of the purchase of Alaska from Russia after the infamous Fairbanks flood. Also in 1967, the park changed hands, going to the city of Fairbanks and then to the borough. Years later, it went by Alaskaland until the Borough assembly adopted the name Pioneer park in 2001. Borough assembly members Scott Krass and Liz Reeves in December introduced an ordinance to reverse that change. The ordinance says the borough's 2021 Pioneer Park Master plan described the name as controversial, and Krass and Reeves cited letters from major Alaska Native organizations that support restoring the name Alaskaland. Krass says names make a difference and that the colonial connotations of the word pioneer can alienate Alaska Native people.
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Some folks don't understand the significance of a name, but names matter. They shape expectations, they signal identity, and they define what a space is for.
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In a previous meeting, Krass also invoked the initial membership requirements for the Pioneers of Alaska, according to the organization's website. When it got started, only white men who came to Alaska before 1900 could become members. The website says race requirements were dropped in 1982. Members of Pioneers of Alaska have been outspoken against the name change, and many of them turned out to the meeting last week. They argued the name Alaskaland has the false connotation of a theme park, something the master plan says as well. Members also argued the name Pioneer park reflects the contents of the park and said that Pioneers of Alaska members have poured time and resources into its upkeep. Member Linda Conley says she doesn't think the name is discriminatory.
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I think that there are the definition of a pioneer.
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There are Pioneer Native people.
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They are the ones who developed where they lived, the things that they had.
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The ability to live in this state, in this climate in early days for everybody was difficult.
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But for many Alaska Native people, the term pioneer doesn't reflect a shared sense of heritage. That's according to Tanana Chiefs Conference Chief and Chairman Sharon Hildebrand, who wrote to the assembly that the word can instead represent, quote, a period of hardship, displacement and loss, end quote. And Krass says the name of a public space shouldn't be amplifying those sorts of feelings.
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Your neighbors are telling you that they don't feel welcome there and how you can deny that? I do not understand. I do not understand how you can shut your ears to your neighbor saying that they don't feel welcome in what you're calling your house and it is the people's house.
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The assembly approved the name change in a 7:2 vote. The decision comes after the Borough Parks and Recreation Commission last month recommended the assembly either merge the two options or find a new name instead of picking between Pioneer park or Alaska Land. Assembly members who voted against the name change last week said the process leading up to the vote didn't get enough formal community input. Assemblymember Brett Roderman said that somebody somewhere is always going to be offended by something, and he said putting the question to voters would be the best path forward.
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If we wanted to be true leaders here tonight, I'll tell you what we would do. We'd kill this thing and then we'd all get together tomorrow and we'd figure out how to get this Put on the ballot, this next ballot, and then we would know.
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The transition to Alaskaland will go into effect Sept. 4 and will cost $18,000, according to an updated estimate. In the version of the ordinance that passed, the initial estimate was $50,000. In Fairbanks, I'm Patrick Gilchrist.
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Last month, someone poached a musk ox near the Kuskokwim river community of Lower Kalskag. As Kyuk's Samantha Watson reports, the herd is growing there, but state managers say it's not yet large enough to hunt and the poaching isn't helping.
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In late January, the city of Lower Calskag got a call about a dead animal in the woods. Here's Mayor Henry Aloysius.
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On the wood Trail about a half mile north of Low Calgary.
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It was a musk ox. And while the herd has grown here in recent years, it's illegal to hunt them. So the death was unexpected. The city contacted the Alaska State Troopers to launch an investigation. According to a report from the Alaska State Troopers, the animal had been shot and none of its meat had been salvaged.
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And after that they told us we could harvest it. But then we sent some people over there with our loader and try to get it. But when they cut the stomach open, it was so. Smelled really bad and spoiled the meat.
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Troopers arrested 42 year old Joseph Kamaroff, a resident of Lower kalskag A. On March 10, Kamaroff pleaded guilty to one count of taking muskox in a closed season and one count of wanton waste of big game. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison with 173 days suspended, placed on two years of probation and had his hunting privileges revoked for two years. It's illegal to hunt muskox on most parts of the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. Permit zones exist only on Nunavac and Nelson Islands where the animals were reintroduced in the 60s. In the years since, some of the animals migrated to the mainland by walking across the frozen sea ice. Now two populations live on the mainland. One of them resides near the hills of Upper and Lower Kalskag.
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So far to date, we have not had a hunt on the mainland.
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Wildlife biologist Patrick Jones works for the state Department of Fish and Game.
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The population's just getting big enough that we could hunt it. So that's why we're putting this extra effort into understanding it better so that we can start hunting it in the near future, he says.
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Last year, the state received funding to collar and begin monitoring the Kalskog area. Muskogs populations. Understanding their populations and how it's increasing could help fish and game confidently open a hunt there in the future. He says the Cal Skag population is doing pretty well right now. There are about 70 muskox known to reside there, and another 485 live on the YK Delta flats between the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. But Joan says poaching has been actively slowing their population increase. To start, muskox typically only produce one calf per breeding season, unlike moose, who are prone to twins. It's also common for muskox to take a year or two off from breeding.
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We could have had a huntable population a long time ago if people would have left them alone, but we're getting there now, I guess.
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Jones says they've seen illegal harvesting actively bring population numbers down in certain areas, leading to ripple effects in breeding. He says if no more illegal poaching were to happen, he could see a mainland hunt opening in as soon as three years. But right now, it's important to let the population grow. It's something Henry Aloysius says the community takes seriously.
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They shouldn't be hunting those muskox. They know about it.
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Aloysius says in recent years, the village has seen more of the animals in the hills and on the tundra, but not so many legal Musk ox hunting on the mainland could be years away, but it is something residents of Upper and Lower Kalskag will likely see in their lifetimes. And for locals that rely on subsistence, the historic hunt remains an exciting prospect. In Bethel, I'm Samantha Watson.
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Remember that mysterious golden orb that government scientists found at the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska in 2023? Was it an egg? A sponge? Remnants of a space alien? Scientists were baffled, but two and a half years later, they say they figured it out. KCAW's Hope McKinney reports.
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So picture this. Some scientists aboard this research vessel called the Okeanos Explorer are huddled around a screen that shows a remote underwater vehicle prodding at a shiny golden mass.
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I just hope when we poke it,
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something doesn't decide to come out. It's like the beginning of a horror movie.
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Pretty sure this is how the first episode of the Exile started.
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The golden orb was discovered two miles deep by the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship while mapping the ocean floor.
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There were jokes about it being a mermaid's egg or, you know, things that also don't make biological sense, like a dolphin egg or, you know, stuff like that. I think there were some aliens, hypotheses too.
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Dr. Alan Collins is the director of the NOAA Fisheries Lab at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He's nibbled away at the mystery for two and a half years.
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It just spawned all these kind of crazy ideas and then media interest.
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This mysterious golden specimen was found during a deep sea expedition in the Gulf of Alaska.
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When you touch it, it's smooth, soft, feels like flesh. You can even see a hole in it, as if something escaped from there.
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But what, you know, I was shocked. But it's always nice when people are interested in the deep seas.
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Collins says the team on the Okeanos Explorer, as well as scientists all over, were baffled when they first spotted the 4 inch wide golden lump stuck to a rock. But they collected it for further investigation.
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That's not the first time that people have been looking in the deep sea and said, what's that? I have no idea what that is.
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But Collins says it was a bit unusual. How long it took to identify it required what he calls morphological, genetic, deep sea and bioinformatics expertise to solve. Eventually, his team was able to compare it to two other specimens collected by deep sea biologists in other parts of the world. The conclusion? The golden orb is the base of a giant sea anemone called Relicanthus daphniae. The anemones have a deep colored trunk about a foot wide and pale pink and purple tentacles that can stretch up to six and a half feet. Collins says scientists have documented about 30 sightings in the deep sea from the Antarctic Ocean to the Aleutians to the central Pacific.
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If you look under the base of the anemones and then right on the side, often you can see this golden colored cuticle sticking out from the bottom. So we're like, he was right in front of us kind of like the whole time and never, never even noticed.
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He was happy to finally solve the mystery, but also a bit disappointed.
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I was sort of like, oh man, now no one's going to care because it's, it's not as interesting as a mystery. It's now it's like an anemone, you know.
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Collins says the discovery has opened up other questions about the species, like whether the golden base is related to reproduction and whether the anemone died or let go and reattached itself somewhere else. Collins says they've submitted a paper on the golden orb to a scientific journal for review. But the Relicanthus daphniae is just one specimen out of hundreds he works to identify.
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What we want to do is contribute this and say, hey, let's collect more of these weird things and see what they tell us about the deep sea.
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Next on his plate, the formal scientific identification, naming and documenting of. A carnivorous sponge species and a new jellyfish species also found in Alaska waters. Reporting in sitka, I'm Hope McKenney.
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And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. We had reports tonight from Eric Stone and Juneau, Avery Elfelt and Haynes, Rhonda McBride in Anchorage, Patrick Gilchrist in Fairbanks, Ben Townsend in Nome, Samantha Watson in Bethel, and Hope McKinney in Sitka. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newsalaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde. I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.