Wesley Early

The group was there to promote Alaska's position as a source of petroleum for export, and to focus on removing barriers to developing the state's energy resources.

University of Alaska officials were informed last week that the federal government had terminated their $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

The three-day event had been scheduled for Oct. 21-23 in Anchorage. However, AFN President Julie Kitka said in a statement Tuesday, “the high-risk factors of holding a 5,000-person indoor meeting, with delegates coming in from across Alaska, make an in-person October gathering out of the question.”

The sharp decline in the season length can be directly linked to the decline in sea ice due to a warming climate. That’s the finding of a new collaborative study conducted by the Native Village of Kotzebue and the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Polar bear sightings in Kotzebue aren’t without precedent. In fact, the world’s largest documented polar bear was found in Kotzebue in the 60s, weighing more than 2,200 pounds and standing more than 11 feet high.

“It’s something that you always are aware of that might happen,” Paulsen said. “We didn’t expect … it was pretty surprising to get ten straight days of rain. But we have nice tents, we have a nice bug shelter that keeps us out of the rain when we need to.”

Kotzebue’s July was one for the record books, with the highest monthly precipitation on record. The previous rainfall record for the midsummer month was set more than two decades ago.

Last Thursday, a grand jury indicted 44-year-old Mandy Lee Hill and 35-year-old Abraham Lambert on 24 counts of assault and one count of endangering a child.Lambert and Hill had a history working with children. Lambert coached the Kotzebue High School boys basketball team and was an employee of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. Hill had worked for the school district in the past and recently worked for the City of Kotzebue, though she is no longer employed there.

As part of the WEIO pageant, Madison showcased her traditional Iñupiaq dancing, while drummers played along.

Regional hunters had requested the Federal Subsistence Board limit hunts to only local federally qualified hunters, as opposed to the Dunleavy administration, which wanted to keep the hunts open to all.