Snow was laid through the streets the night before from downtown Anchorage to the Sullivan Arena for the Ceremonial Start of the 53rd Iditarod on Saturday, March 1.
Out of the 33 teams, an astounding 16 of them are rookies this year. Spectators followed the race down the Chena River along the road system to the town of Nenana, where the racers took their first rest before jumping onto the Tanana River.
“The Last Great Race” is officially into the Alaskan wilderness and on the trails.
Alaska Supreme Court Justices Sue Carney and Jude Pate spoke at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s Schaible Auditorium as part of the Arctic Leadership Lecture Series.
At the Alaska Chamber Legislative Fly-in on January 30, 2025, in Juneau, keynote speaker President Pat Pitney gave an update during the luncheon at Centennial Hall. Pitney gave an update on the critical role of the University of Alaska system in building up the state’s workforce and its research contributions and touched on high merit throughout the system.
From February 27 to March 2nd, the Interior Independent Theatre, hosted by The Basement, put on the renowned play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When a Rainbow Is Enuf. The play is a Black theatre piece written by Ntozake Shange, an African American playwright and poet, in 1975. Consisting of twenty to twenty-two poems, For Colored Girls… consists of poetic monologues, choreography with music, and symbolic moments. This is known as a choreopoem. This play became a book by Shange and then a movie re-written, produced, and directed by Tyler Perry in 2010.
The Alaska Historical Society’s letter to the Board of Regents in response to their diversity action.
Indigenous value systems — relationships, reciprocity, and responsibility — are fundamental to Indigenous knowledge systems and cultures. A new book explores these value systems through science, poetry, and stories.
Pop-Con 2024 was a hit! The annual event saw its 12th return to the UAF Wood Center from November 14 to 16, bringing together fans of all things pop culture from comics, TV, gaming, and more. This beloved annual event is a highlight for the UAF community, offering cosplay, workshops, gaming, and plenty of vendors and booths.
I had the opportunity to attend a performance of FLOT’s unique adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance. This fun spin on a classic operetta was directed by Tekla Butcher-Monson, with musical direction by Phil Heilbron. The show ran two weekends at the UAF Salisbury Theatre from October 4th to October 13th, 2024.
The Georgeson Botanical Garden, found on UAF’s campus, is hosting a fundraiser to help support the garden. From December 19th, 2024, to January 18th, 2025, the GBG will be open for Botanical Garden light viewing, with a suggested minimum of $8 for the experience. They will be open from 5-9 pm from Thursday to Saturday.
The Nanook den had an intense atmosphere during the men's basketball game on February 20. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks faced the Seattle Pacific University Falcons, who were up with a 10 to 8 score at the start of the game.
On February 22nd, the Nanook’s Women's Basketball team competed against Montana State Billings (MSUB) in an exciting matchup. Prior to the game, a heartfelt ceremony was held to honor the team’s graduating seniors.
Near Nome, Alaska, in the vast arctic landscape of Game Management Area 22, a SuperCub airplane traces the sky. In one of the two seats is Sara Henslee, a UAF Masters student in Wildlife Biology & Conservation. Below her, she sees caribou, ambling bears and of course, her research subject—the wild moose living in the Northwestern part of our state.
On Halloween night, 2003, a young boy named Vincent Ledvina is walking home after a cold midwestern evening of trick-or-treating. He looks up and sees something bright and green shimmering across the sky. “Is that the aurora?” he asks his parents. They aren’t sure. But young Ledvina, having seen the wonders of the upper atmosphere with his own eyes for the first time, is hooked.
Now a second-year Ph.D. student in Space Physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Ledvina studies the aurora borealis. He is working to understand the intricacies of these beautiful—and even life-changing—natural phenomena using both NASA and citizen-sourced data.
