After 30 years, Alaska Airlines has decided to no longer include prayer cards on the tray with their in-flight meals. The small, business card sized cards contained short quotes from the Bible and a peaceful image of nature. In a memo sent to frequent fliers, the airline made the announcement on Wednesday that the cards [...]

By Elstun Lauesen Franklin C. Spinney was a staff analyst attached to the Department of Defense’s ASD/PA&E (Tactical Air Division). In 1991 he wrote an independent position paper on why the F-22 should not have been approved for engineering and development. His objections were two-fold: first, the production of the F-22 didn’t make strategic sense [...]

By Wickersham’s Conscience WC’s house is the home to two owls, a Boreal Owl and a Great Grey Owl. They aren’t a huge inconvenience, once you get used to the frozen mice thawing in the refrigerator. But last night for Alaska Bird Observatory’s Owlapalooza, WC and Mrs. WC hosted two visiting owls from Anchorage, Gus [...]

By Patrick DePula   During his gubernatorial campaign, Governor Scott Walker consistently labeled the $800 million Wisconsin received in federal high speed rail funds as a waste of tax payer dollars, an Obama Administration boondoggle, and completely unnecessary.  Shortly after winning his election, he got his wish; US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood happily took back the money [...]

By Shannyn Moore We’re Alaskans. We fly. I don’t like it, but with 80 percent of our communities off the road system, flying is a necessary part of our lives. Last month, Rep. Sharon Cissna, a survivor of both physical abuse and breast cancer, refused an invasive TSA pat-down at SeaTac. Instead of flying, she [...]

In January, you may recall I hopped on the “Magic Bus” and went to Kenai with a group of concerned citizens from Anchorage. We were headed there despite a blizzard warning, because there was something that we were worried about more than being stuck in a snowstorm in the Magic Bus on the side of [...]

Alaska is different. It’s said a lot, and it’s true. Things that work in the contiguous 48 states don’t necessarily work here. The lack of understanding by those “Outside” of this phenomenon contributes to Alaskans’ slightly xenophobic, and more than slight libertarian bent. “Get off my tundra, you meddlesome kids.” Nothing defines Alaska quite so [...]

On my recent flight to the east coast, I got a great view of the Space Needle before I changed planes in Seattle.

As I was flying across Prince William Sound on my way to the East Coast recently, I looked out the window and almost jumped out of my seat. There was a beautiful dawn-kissed 3-D version of a chart I’ve seen hundreds of times. The distinctively shaped island that in this picture looks a bit like [...]

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!  ~John Muir

Here’s wishing you clear skies.  The annual Leonid meteor shower is headed this way and the best viewing will be two or three hours before dawn on November 17 and 18.  Actually it isn’t headed this way, we’re headed THAT way as Earth nears the place where the soon-to-be meteors have been patiently waiting. The [...]

Last month, I took a trip to the West side of Cook Inlet. I’ve been sharing photos for the last few weeks. Here is the story that goes with them. At the end of the story is the contact information for how you can make a public comment on the Chuitna coal project by September [...]

Here’s another photo from the air of the west side of Cook Inlet. I love this one. It almost looks like a satellite image from space. Normally I would have cropped it at the top, but I left the little patch of trees in the upper right corner to give you a sense of scale.

There have been a lot of plane crashes in Alaska in the last few weeks.  A C-17 crashed at Elmendorf Air Force Base killing all four on board.  A C-17 crashed in Denali Park killing another three. A flight crashed outside Dillingham killing Alaska political giant former Senator Ted Stevens and four others. And then [...]

Thanks to Dennis Zaki, Brian the Mudflats moose had one heck of an adventure.  He got a ride with the Coast Guard all the way up to Alaska’s north shore, and the remote and starkly beautiful community of Barrow. With a population of about 4000 (ten times the number that lived there in 1940), Barrow lies [...]