Alaska News Nightly: Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Summary

Alaska News Nightly: Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Podcast - Alaska Public Media

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Overview

This episode of Alaska News Nightly offers an in-depth look at the ongoing recovery efforts in Western Alaska following ex-Typhoon Ha Long, the science and logistics of avalanche forecasting in Juneau, a spectacular aurora display driven by major solar flares, a local farm boosting food security in Haines, a retrospective on Dick Cheney’s quietly memorable fishing trip in Bethel, and an uplifting tale of nine abandoned puppies quickly finding new homes in Fairbanks.

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Key Stories & Discussion Points

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1. Recovery Efforts in Bethel After Ex-Typhoon Ha Long

[00:19 - 06:16]

• Community & School District Efforts:

  • Relief operations in Bethel involve social workers, nonprofits like Team Rubicon, and the Army National Guard.
  • Over 130 students, displaced by the storm, have entered Bethel and Lower Kuskokwim School District schools.
  • Relief supplies—ranging from winter coats to basketball shoes—are being distributed directly to affected villages.
    • “Next round is basketball shoes, everyone's asking for.” (Alex Solomon, 02:21)

• Supply Logistics:

  • A network of warehouses and hangars are repurposed to store relief goods.
  • The National Guard is moving tons of building supplies using Chinook helicopters, prioritizing insulation, plywood, and essential infrastructure repairs.
    • “I know we've sent out last week...560 bundles of insulation...about 800 sheets of plywood.” (Mark Conde, 04:14)
  • Local involvement has been critical:
    • “There's been a huge turnout from locals that have come to offer time, equipment, and materials of their own.” (Senior Airman Scott Nord via Narrator, 05:18)

• Scale and Challenges:

  • The cost and extent of recovery are still being calculated, with state and federal disaster assistance in early stages.
    • “From the ground in Bethel, one thing is the recovery effort is enormous.” (Evan Erickson, 06:11)

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2. Avalanche Forecasting in Juneau

[06:16 - 11:07]

• Scientific Monitoring & Technology:

  • Avalanche forecasters at Alaska Electric Light and Power and Alaska DOT are reinstalling advanced sensors on Mount Roberts.
  • Devices include snow height sensors, precipitation gauges, temperature probes, and net radiation meters.
    • “That white cylinder with the black top, that's a heated tipping bucket, and that measures precipitation.” (Narrator, 08:52)
    • “That particular sensor is important for understanding when we're getting...weak layers forming at the surface." (Narrator, 09:15)

• Risk Modeling:

  • Data will feed into a Swiss snowpack model for better avalanche prediction across Alaska's vast, under-monitored terrain.
    • “That's especially relevant in Alaska, where we have limited high elevation monitoring sites, but we have miles of roadway that we're forecasting.” (Patrick Dreier, 10:21)

• Forecasting Limitations:

  • Despite advances, forecasters acknowledge the challenges of local variability and the risks of imperfect predictions.

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3. Anchorage Pedestrian Fatality Update

[11:16 - 12:19]

• Incident Report:
  • A man, Jason Felder, died after being struck by a pickup truck in South Anchorage, marking the 14th pedestrian fatality of the year.

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4. Dazzling Aurora & Triple X-Class Solar Flares

[12:19 - 15:22]

• Eyewitness Accounts:

  • Residents and new arrivals in Fairbanks braved -10°F to witness a rare, vivid aurora display.
    • “‘It's my first time actually seeing even faintest of the faintest.’” (Fatin Pasha, 12:41)

• Scientific Context:

  • The event was driven by an unusual series of three powerful “X-class” solar flares, including one dubbed “Cannibal,” disrupting satellite and monitoring equipment.
    • “Unfortunately, the spacecraft sensors are all a little bit disruptive at the moment. I suspect that we just got hit by that third one." (Mark Conde, 14:08)

• Impacts & Rare Opportunity:

  • Past events have knocked out satellites and disrupted power grids.
  • The speed and scale of the current flares are historic:
    • “The flares...are traveling at the highest speed he's ever seen, about 870 miles per second.” (Shelby Herbert, 14:36)
    • “‘So the event we're experiencing right now...is certainly something that is not an everyday event by any stretch of the imagination.’” (Mark Conde, 14:44)

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5. A Community Farm Blooms in Haines

[15:22 - 18:54]

• Food Security Efforts:

  • A new farm in the Chilkat Valley turned vacant land into a thriving source of fresh food, producing nearly 3,000 pounds this season.
    • “I’m going to use every freaking leaf of every cabbage that I harvest and if…and the pieces that I can’t are going to go into compost to make my cabbages next year.” (Liz Landis paraphrased, 15:42)

• Distribution & Community Impact:

  • Produce is given through trade, for free, or to senior centers, food pantries, and volunteers.

• Future Goals:

  • The lead farmer hopes for more volunteers, expanded fields, and “the first all-Alaskan gumbo”—dependent on okra’s growth next year.

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6. Remembering Dick Cheney’s Bethel Fishing Trip

[18:54 - 22:59]

• Anecdotes From the 1991 Visit:

  • As Defense Secretary, Cheney visited Bethel for a low-profile fishing vacation, dodging media and enjoying down-to-earth hospitality.
    • “By ordinary standards, maybe not a vacation. You're never not. Secretary of Defense.” (Dick Cheney, 20:08)

• Local Color:

  • Stories included multimillion-dollar helicopter pizza runs, chocolate cake on a private jet, and Cheney’s pride in a well-used fishing lure.
    • “And this little hook has got all these feathers and stuff on. It was completely wore out. Monster smile with this hook, he says. I got at least 20 fish on this hook.” (John Wallace via Mark Conde, 22:26)

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7. All Nine Dumped Puppies Adopted in a Day

[22:59 - 25:36]

• Discovery and Shelter Response:

  • Nine German Shepherd mix puppies were rescued from the Fox transfer site and brought to the Fairbanks animal shelter.
    • “They're about 13 weeks old right now and about £15 apiece. They'll be a bit bigger, but my goodness, are they sweet and cute and calm.” (Narrator & Mayor Greyer Hopkins, 23:48)

• Adoption Success:

  • After waiting for an owner, all nine puppies were vaccinated, checked, spayed/neutered, and adopted the same day they became available.
    • “We have a warm building here that they can get all that care that they need and then find those homes and not have to stay at the transfer site in a cold cage.” (Sandra Hill, 24:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Community Response:
  “There's been a huge turnout from locals that have come to offer time, equipment and materials of their own…”
  – Senior Airman Scott Nord, [05:18]

• On Aurora:
  “So I'm hanging around in this negative weather hoping to catch a glimpse.”
  – Fatin Pasha, [12:50]

• On the Solar Storm:
  "The event we're experiencing right now...is certainly something that is not an everyday event by any stretch of the imagination."
  – Mark Conde, [14:44]

• On Local Food Production:
  "Generally I got to go around and be the little vegetable fairy. And some say thank you for the time that you give to other people. Here's a bag of peas."
  – Liz Landis (Paraphrased), [15:42-18:54]

• On Cheney's Alaskan Approach:
  “By ordinary standards, maybe not a vacation. You're never not. Secretary of Defense.”
  – Dick Cheney, [20:08]

• On Puppy Adoptions:
  “All nine...had all found new homes.”
  – Patrick Gilchrist, [25:24]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Bethel storm recovery & relief logistics: 00:19 – 06:16
• Avalanche forecasting technology & interviews: 06:16 – 11:07
• Anchorage pedestrian fatality: 11:16 – 12:19
• Aurora & X-class solar storm science: 12:19 – 15:22
• Chilkat Valley community farm: 15:22 – 18:54
• Dick Cheney’s Bethel fishing trip (reminiscence): 18:54 – 22:59
• Dumped puppies adopted in Fairbanks: 22:59 – 25:36

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Tone and Style

The episode blends factual reporting with vibrant local color and interviews, maintaining a community-focused, informative tone that highlights the resilience, resourcefulness, and warmth found across Alaska. Personal stories and scientific explanations intertwine, giving a voice to those impacted and those responding, all while capturing the unique spirit of the state.

Transcript

[Casey Grove]

Support for Alaska Public Media On Demand comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two US territories.

[Narrator/Reporter]

There's been a huge turnout from locals that have come to offer time, equipment and materials of their own. One month after ex Typhoon Ha Long A look at the Bethel based recovery efforts from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Wednesday, November 12th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, it's a good but chilly week to be an Aurora hunter. I'm hanging around in this negative weather hoping to catch a glimpse. Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. A month after ex typhoon Ha Long struck western Alaska, the flow of relief supplies for the displaced and building materials needed to shore up villages is going Strong in Bethel. KYUK's Evan Erickson reports.

[Evan Erickson]

Inside a large warehouse past the concessions counter of Bethel's movie theater, social workers with the Lower Kuskokwim School District tape closed boxes of relief supplies. The district's lead social worker, Megan Crow, lists communities where the boxes are headed.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

Tunt, Sifornic, Nu Tuk, Tunnunnock, Tuksuk.

[Evan Erickson]

Most of these communities suffered serious damage from the remnants of typhoon halong. All are housing families that were evacuated.

[Narrator/Reporter]

In the big boxes we've got child.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

Sandals, woolen blankets, two boxes each of.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Adult winter coats, snack.

[Evan Erickson]

Crow says even before the storm, one of her key roles for the district was ensuring equal access to educational opportunities for students who have lost housing. With Ha Long, that number has shot up. More than 130 students have re enrolled in schools in Bethel and across lksd. Now that Crow's group has nearly finished breaking down dozens of pallets of relief supplies, the district is using federal funds for items it still needs to get students through the winter. Crow says that not only means outdoor gear, but some precious indoor gear as well.

[Alex Solomon]

Next round is basketball shoes everyone's asking for.

[Evan Erickson]

With supplies mostly checked off, Crow says her department's priority is helping students adjust to their changed realities. Many affected families across the region still need essentials for daily living. Standing in a city owned garage in Bethel, Maggie Coit says there is plenty to go around.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

We have sleeping pads and for a while we had mattresses, but I believe those all went out yesterday. We've got some shop vac.

[Evan Erickson]

Coit is with the veteran led nonprofit Team Rubicon. She says the garage has filled up and emptied of goods multiple times during the relief effort. Coit says Team Rubicon has been working closely with the association of Village Council Presidents to more Precisely meet the of communities.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

We work with the requests directly from the villages. We really are working to make sure things don't simply become trash later on.

[Evan Erickson]

Robert Ray has also been busy coordinating with an Alphabet soup of organizations in Bethel to get relief supplies to the right place.

[Casey Grove]

Probably left with another what's out here? Plus on the floor, probably another £16,000.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Of clothes, food and gear.

[Evan Erickson]

Ray stands in the center of an airplane hangar owned by a local charter service. It's being used to store goods that his employer, UTE Commuter Service, has paid to have freighted into Bethel so far on its own dime and distributed to villages. In the hangar, Ray and other volunteers have set up a one stop shop for anyone in need.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It's not just people that have been affected by the typhoon.

[Casey Grove]

It's also Bethel residents that are hard on their luck.

[Narrator/Reporter]

You know, snap didn't get re put up.

[Casey Grove]

Some folks are out of jobs.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

It's getting cold.

[Casey Grove]

They're freezing out there.

[Evan Erickson]

The cold weather is an immediate concern for villages hit hardest by the storm. In Bethel, literal tons of building supplies are being sent out as quickly as they arrive. Army National Guard Sergeant Matthew Carrolls has been overseeing logistics at a giant warehouse on the Bethel riverfront. The warehouse was long ago a fish processing plant full of Kuskokwim river salmon. Now it's filled with the things that it takes to rebuild a village.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

I know we've sent out last week.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I think it was 560 bundles of insulation.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

A rough count is about 800 sheets of plywood. And that was just from the one.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Order we had for Napakiak Carrolls.

[Evan Erickson]

Make sure those orders get where they need to go. First to the Bethel Readiness center and then on the flight line at the National Guard armory to be loaded into Chinook helicopters.

[Narrator/Reporter]

This is definitely, I don't know if it's the appropriate term, but the bottleneck because everything has to go here before it gets out.

[Evan Erickson]

Senior Airman Scott Nord stands among giant bundles of plywood known as bunks. They can take three bunks in one.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Flight and still have payload to spare. That's with the crew. And then they'll throw insulation on top as space permits.

[Evan Erickson]

Nord says three to four loads of supplies have been leaving Bethel daily via helicopter. The aim is to have Guard personnel on the ground in four communities at a time assisting with immediate infrastructure needs. He says the level of support, especially from organizations based in Bethel, has stuck with him.

[Narrator/Reporter]

There's been a huge turnout from locals that have come to offer time, equipment and materials of their own to push out to the villages and help where they can. They've helped in key moments. They've shown up out of nowhere and offered their help for exactly what we needed.

[Evan Erickson]

Across the region, homes are being dried out and repositioned, boardwalks pieced back together, and critical infrastructure needed for the winter is being prioritized for repairs. Alongside the guard, a slew of agencies and vendors have been contracted for the rebuild effort. A full picture of the amount of state and federal disaster assistance is still unavailable. The state says the effort to calculate the costs of rebuilding and begin processing reimbursements has only begun. From the ground in Bethel, one thing is the recovery effort is enormous. In Bethel, I'm Evan Erickson.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Juneau's avalanche forecasters are gearing up for winter. The local electric utility and the state Department of Transportation recently reinstalled scientific instruments to help them predict avalanche risk at their largest research site in town. KTOO's Alex Solomon went along to see what it takes to make accurate forecasts.

[Alex Solomon]

After riding up the Gold Belt tram and taking a short walk, Mike Jaynes pulls on a harness and climbs up a metal weather tower on the north facing slope of Mount Roberts in the pouring rain.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Just can you get me like a box end wrench? This should be in that red tool bag.

[Alex Solomon]

Jaynes is an avalanche forecaster at Alaska Electric Light and Power. He's reinstalling sensors that will help predict the threat of avalanches once Juneau's famous rain turns to snow. Mount Roberts and Mount Juneau loom over downtown. The steep slopes are marked by a history of avalanches and landslides written in vertical shoots and tree rings. Avalanches are frequent in Juneau, but only a few have been disastrous. In 1962, an avalanche hit dozens of homes in the Barrens neighborhood downtown.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It is quite fantastic way to wake up at five, ten in the morning with snow and glass in your face and a screeching wind smothering with snow all over the place.

[Alex Solomon]

That's Murray Walsh, Juneau's former community development director. He's reading a letter from his aunt whose house was damaged in the 62 avalanche, for a KTOO documentary. And then in 2008, a massive avalanche took out AELNP's main power line to Juneau, forcing the city to rely on diesel generators for two months. Since then, the utility has built barriers to protect energy infrastructure. Jane says avalanches occur when a weak, unstable layer of snow forms, causing the layers of snow that accumulate on top to slide off. The different instruments he installs will help him understand when that weak layer forms, and where in the snowpack it is. First, he attaches a snow height sensor to a pole about 15ft up the tower.

[Narrator/Reporter]

That's vertical.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

That looks pretty close.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I can go just temporarily send it out, and I can always bring it back. It looks like it's not quite lined up.

[Alex Solomon]

It sends down sound waves which bounce off the snow and back to the sensor, measuring its height. Then he hangs a string vertically from the tower. It has nodes to measure temperature throughout the layers of snow. Next, Jaynes points to an instrument sticking off the side of the weather tower.

[Narrator/Reporter]

So that right up there, probably one of our most important instruments, that white cylinder with the black top, that's a heated tipping bucket, and that measures precipitation.

[Alex Solomon]

It's heated to melt snow, so forecasters can measure how much water is in the snowpack, then heat. He points to a small double cylinder sensor called a net radiation meter.

[Narrator/Reporter]

That particular sensor is important for understanding when we're getting, like, weak layers forming at the surface that are gonna become problems later.

[Alex Solomon]

How? Let's break it down. The Earth gives off heat called long wave radiation, which travels up through the snow and air and then gets reflected back down to earth by clouds that act as a sort of thermal blanket. But on a clear night, the heat escapes into the atmosphere and can cause the top layer of snow to get really cold really fast. Jane says that makes it become sugar like.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And then if that stuff gets buried, then it becomes like a future weak layer that avalanches can run on.

[Alex Solomon]

This year, aalp, the Alaska Department of Transportation, and other agencies will feed all of this data and more into a Swiss snowpack model. Patrick Dreier is an avalanche and geohazard specialist at dot. He says using the Swiss model could help Alaskans better predict how layers of snow are forming at high elevations.

[Narrator/Reporter]

That's especially relevant in Alaska, where we have limited high elevation monitoring sites, but we have miles of roadway that we're forecasting.

[Alex Solomon]

He says using the emerging technology can help them make more informed decisions. Those decisions include things like setting off explosives to trigger avalanches before they become too big, or putting up barriers to protect infrastructure in areas where avalanches happen frequently. But Dreier says there's a lot of variability between where they collect data and all the places where avalanches can occur. Plus, snow dynamics change, so no prediction is perfect. In Juneau, I'm Alex Solomon.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, the story of a batch of puppies found at a Fairbanks dump station.

[Evan Erickson]

They're about 13 weeks old right now.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And about £15 apiece.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

They'll be a bit bigger, but my.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Goodness, are they sweet and cute and calm. That's ahead. Stay with us. A man died after being struck by a pickup in South Anchorage Monday night. Anchorage police say Officers responded around 10:20pm to the incident on King street near the East 94th Court intersection. Officers say a driver was going northbound when he struck the man, later identified as 46 year old Jason Felder, who police say was not crossing at a marked or unmarked crosswalk. Police say the driver of the truck stayed on scene and cooperated with officers. Felder was taken to a local hospital where he died shortly after. He's the 14th pedestrian in Anchorage killed by a vehicle this year. Last year, 15 pedestrians were fatally struck by vehicles. Powerful solar storms brought a dazzling light show to the skies above the Northern Hemisphere last night. And if you missed it, scientists say tonight's aurora could be even more impressive. The Alaska Desk's Shelby Herbert reports. Even scientists who have observed the aurora for decades say this storm is something special.

[Shelby Herbert]

It was 10 below in Fairbanks on Tuesday night. But undeterred, a crowd of people flocked to a popular aurora viewing spot at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. Fatin Pasha stands outside his car shivering with a fur trapper hat pulled down over his ears. He just moved to Fairbanks from Missouri, and he says the lights are part of what brought him here.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

It's my first time actually seeing even faintest of the faintest. Yeah.

[Shelby Herbert]

Are you getting anything quite yet?

[Rhonda McBride]

Just a tad reddish.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

Not a whole lot yet.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I've seen some beautiful pictures, though. So I'm hanging around in this negative weather hoping to catch a glimpse.

[Shelby Herbert]

At first, it's hard to tell if the faint glow is the aurora or just a trick of the city lights, the exhaust from our cars or the fog of our breath. But about a half hour later, the pink haze deepens into scarlet and. And pillars of lights dance across the sky. Those same lights were visible all over the country, even as far south as the Florida Panhandle. On Tuesday night, Minneapolis resident Hillary shepherd could see the aurora from inside her downtown apartment.

[Alex Solomon]

Yeah, look at how pink it's getting.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

That's insane.

[Shelby Herbert]

The light show is part of what UAF scientists are calling an unusual triple whammy of X class solar flares, including one unsettlingly named Cannibal. X class flares like these are the most intense. They can disrupt satellite communications, GPS systems, power grids, and yes, even trigger radio blackouts. Mark Conde is a space physicist at uaf. He says this threefold hit is one of the most significant events he's observed in his career. The third wave of the massive solar event hit right in the middle of our interview, disrupting the monitoring systems he was looking at.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

Unfortunately, the spacecraft sensors are all a little bit disruptive at the moment. I suspect that we just got hit by that third one in the last while we've been talking.

[Shelby Herbert]

He says the last time a solar storm of the scale happened back In February of 2022, it knocked out about 40 SpaceX satellites.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

To be clear, they were unlucky because they so they put them in this low altitude orbit first and they happened to experience a storm right when the satellites were at their most vulnerable.

[Shelby Herbert]

The flares from this solar storm are traveling at the highest speed he's ever seen, about 870 miles per second.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

We might get another one or two of these before the solar cycle calms down, and then we'll have to wait another 11 years to get the next one. So the event we're experiencing right now and is ongoing perhaps for tonight is certainly something that is not an everyday event by any stretch of the imagination.

[Shelby Herbert]

Conde says the best Aurora forecasts are on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but the lights should continue to shine for the next few days. Reporting in Fairbanks, I'm Shelby Herbert.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Haines like the rest of Alaska, relies heavily on food that's grown far away, preserved as much as possible, and then shipped north. But a new farm in the Chilkat Valley is working to chip away at that reality. This year, that meant nearly 3,000 pounds of fresh produce for locals. And as Avery Elfelt reports for the Alaska desk, hopes are even higher for next year.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

Just off Main street in Haines, a large field sits in the shadow of Mount Ripinski. For a few years that land sat empty, and during that time, local Liz Landis says she'd look at it and think, why isn't that full of food? Look at its glorious. Now it's teeming with food, or at least it was earlier this fall on a walk through the rain soaked property With Landis at the tail end of the harvest season. This is leeks. There was also fennel, a couple kinds of kale, and bunching onions here. To the left are strawberries. Beyond that are asparagus and wormwood. The effort is a bright spot for the local foodstuff system and more broadly for southeast Alaska, which relies heavily on food that's shipped in from incredibly far away. That process results in less fresh, nutritious produce, Landis says, and leads to extraordinary amounts of waste. As she sees it, Nothing encourages cutting down on waste more than toiling in the soil week after week. She points to some healthy looking purple cabbages, which she says require a lot of time and effort to grow. That's amazing. I'm going to use every freaking leaf of every cabbage that I harvest and if and the pieces that I can't are going to go into compost to make my cabbages next year. This year was the farm's first full season. As of early November, seeds planted on about three quarters of an acre had yielded more than 2,800 pounds of food and counting. Landis says there will be greens to glean through the first snowfall. All of the produce was shared throughout the community, either for work trade or for free. A significant chunk of the produce goes to the farm's volunteers and contractors, but it also goes to the local senior center, a food pantry in Klukwan, a food hub in Mosquito Lake, and other community groups like volunteer firefighters. Landis says that's one of the best parts of the job. Generally I got to go around and be the little vegetable fairy. And some say thank you for the time that you give to other people. Here's a bag of peas. The operation is far from easy, but the farm is in somewhat of a sweet spot when compared to other parts of the Chilkat Valley and southeast more broadly, Landis says. Taken together, the area's workable soil, Alaska's long summer days and Haines relatively dry and warm climate are a big help. In June, she says she had 4 inch shivering, sunburned cold, wind whipped starts and I came back exactly two months later. These big beautiful cabbages and they've been hauling out cauliflower for weeks and they lost track of how many cucumbers have grown. It's two months. I can't even believe that. Looking ahead to next year, Landa says she wants to continue recruiting more volunteers and potentially expand the growing area to a full acre. She also has a more specific personal goal because I want to make the first all Alaskan gumbo. That, she says, will depend largely on how the okra, which grows well in hot, dry climates, does next year. Reporting in Haines, I'm Avery Elfelt.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Dick Cheney died last week at the age of 84. He was remembered as a powerful but controversial vice president. But in Bethel In August of 1991, he was for a few days just a fisherman. As KNBA's Rhonda McBride tells us, he was not your ordinary angler.

[Rhonda McBride]

Like many Alaska towns, Bethel is not an easy place to keep a Secret. But word leaked out on the last day of Dick Cheney's fishing trip, when he was about to board a government Gulf Stream jet at the Bethel airport. With its paint job, it looked like a mini Air Force One. At the time, Cheney was Defense secretary for George Herbert Walker Bush. I was a reporter at kyuk, the public radio and TV station in Bethel. And the Alaska Army National Guard had strict instructions to keep reporters away because the secretary was on vacation. So when photographer Dean Swope and I showed up, Cheney initially begged off and said he didn't want to go on camera because he hadn't shaved. And I said, you're on vacation fishing. Why would you shave? Come on. He relaxed and explained that he was required to fly on military planes because he was always on call.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

By ordinary standards, maybe not a vacation. You're never not. Secretary of Defense Cheney hadn't been on.

[Rhonda McBride]

A vacation since he attempted to go on a fishing trip in British Columbia.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

And in the middle of the trip, the coup and the Soviet Union happened. And I got called back, so that frequently happens. This time, it didn't happen. We had three uninterrupted days.

[Rhonda McBride]

So what did he catch?

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

Oh, gee, there were sockeye and chum and pinks. Main thing we were after, though, were rainbows, and we caught a lot of those. Your specific location? I'd rather not say. It was a great spot, and I'd hate to give it away.

[Rhonda McBride]

After all these years, I finally know. John Wallace, who was an aviation mechanic in the Alaska Army National Guard, gave up the secret. He was part of the Black Hawk helicopter detail that took Cheney fishing on the Eralla river near Quinhawk. He was a young 20 something, nervous about the proper protocol for greeting a defense secretary, and was pleasantly surprised to be given a tour of Cheney's jet.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

He had two stewardesses, and they were baking chocolate cake. So we ended up having a couple of slices of chocolate cake.

[Rhonda McBride]

It was Wallace who got the assignment to go bring the secretary's party a pizza. Apparently, they had ordered one on a satellite phone, which was a rare sight back then.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

Pizza goes with pop. We got to have pop and ice cream. So we. We loaded the whole thing up. And on their next run up there, you know, I don't know what a black hop cost, but. But it was a multimillion dollar pizza Delivery.

[Rhonda McBride]

In our 1991 interview, we talked with Joyce Martin, who has since passed on. She worked at the Pacifica Guest House, where Cheney and his security details spent the night. She said when she got to work, he had already checked in and she had no idea that he was the Dick Cheney.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

Dick got a room with twin beds.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

And I think one of the security guards got got the fancier suite.

[Rhonda McBride]

Cheney didn't complain. He and his crew wanted to be low key, and for John Wallace, that afforded a rare opportunity to sit next to Cheney on his helicopter ride back from the Arolic River. He said Cheney dug into his pocket and proudly pulled out a fishing lure.

[Mark Conde / Other Interviewees]

And this little hook has got all these feathers and stuff on. It was completely wore out. Monster smile with this hook, he says. I got at least 20 fish on this hook.

[Rhonda McBride]

Wallace says that memory came flooding back when he read a statement from Cheney's family this week that mentioned his love of sharing fly fishing with his grandchildren. In anchorage, I'm Rhonda McBride.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Nine puppies found seemingly abandoned in a crate at the fox transfer site last week were all adopted by new families in a single day. KUAC's Patrick Gilchrist reports.

[Casey Grove]

A good Samaritan brought the doe eyed and lick happy German shepherd mixes from the transfer site to the Fairbanks North Star Burrows Animal Shelter. The puppies arrived on November 3rd. As of Friday, they were sharing two conjoined cages inside the shelter, the floor beneath them covered in a layer of old newspapers. The puppies eyed people who passed by and slid their tongues and paws through the thin bars when human fingers or knees got close enough. Shelter staff eventually lifted a couple of the brown and black colored pups, handing them off to borough Mayor Greyer Hopkins.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And they're about 13 weeks old right now and about £15 apiece. They'll be a bit bigger, but my goodness, are they sweet and cute and calm.

[Casey Grove]

Animal control manager Sandra Hill said in an interview Friday that staff were getting the puppies ready for adoption. She said that was after the official stray time, or the three days in which the borough waited to see if an owner came forward.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

Unfortunately, we didn't have anybody reclaim them, so they were prepared for adoption, which like I said then they're, you know, the vaccinated, dewormed health check and then spay and neuter.

[Casey Grove]

Hill says it's not uncommon for animals that were seemingly abandoned, including at places like transfer sites, to come into the shelter's possession. And she says people with animals they can't care for should contact the Burrow shelter and learn about its services.

[Megan Crow / Maggie Coit / Other Interviewees]

It's not something that needs to happen. They don't need to be at the transfer site. We have a warm building here that they can get all that care that they need and then find those homes and not have to stay at the transfer site in a cold cage.

[Casey Grove]

Though not always the case, Hill said that this time the shelter had the room available to intake all nine dogs without issue. When the shelter is at capacity, staff try to find foster homes or figure out other workarounds to open up more space. Burrow code does also allow the shelter to euthanize animals to create space. The six male and three female transfer site puppies first became available to adopt on Saturday, and by the end of the day they had all found new homes, according to the borough mayor's office in Fairbanks. I'm Patrick Gilchrist.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're [e-mail] and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Evan Erickson and Bethel, Alex Solomon and Juno, Wesley early and Rhonda McBride in Anchorage, Shelby Herbert and Patrick Gilchrist in Fairbanks and Avery Elfelt in Hanes. Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde, Madeline Rose is our producer and I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.