Alaska Dispatch News
Here is one man's obsession with Pokémon Go
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- Here is one man's obsession with Pokémon Go
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Downtown Anchorage is not immune from the Pokémon Go craze. This afternoon, dozens of players of the augmented reality game buried their faces in their smartphones as they walked through town square, and on 5th and 6th Avenues, among other areas in town. One player, Dimanche Lek took a some time to explain the game to Alaska Dispatch News. He played the Nintendo Gameboy version of Pokémon back in the 1990s. This week he says he’s had to carefully craft his schedule between sleep, meals and a fifty-hour work-week to get enough Pokémon Go into his life. If you’re unclear exactly what it is, watch this video to understand the game a little bit better.
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- Moose tangles with hammock
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Video from Helen Tapang
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- Birds of the Aleutian Islands
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Cormorants gather on a rock outcropping on Attu Island the farthest west Island in the in the Aleutians. Every evening millions of least and crested auklets wheel through the air off of their rookery on Kiska Island in the Aleutians. Thick-billed murres wheel over the cliffs of Buldir Island.
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- The making of "Cars fly on the Fourth of July"
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Popular interest in technical and production achievements of the Alaska Dispatch News video story "Cars fly on the Fourth of July" inspired ADN multimedia journalist, Scott Jensen to produce a companion video that answers many of the questions he received after the first story's publication on July 5, 2016. In this video, Jensen explains methods and camera equipment, as well as storytelling techniques he used to produce "Cars fly." He also talks about failures he faced while producing the video. There is much additional footage here not included in the first story.
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- Mayflies Molting
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Mayflies molt at Potter Marsh along the Seward Highway in Anchorage, AK on Monday, June 20, 2016. As mayflies shed their exoskeleton they become fully adult. They begin their lives as aquatic nymphs. They are the only insects that have a fully winged sub-adult stage that molts into a sexually mature adult. The adult mayfly rarely lives over 24 hours and often much less. In the video, the first mayfly molting is shown in real time and others are sped up.
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- Cars fly on the Fourth of July
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Glacier View, near the toe of the Matanuska Glacier, celebrated the Fourth of July with lots of food, a parade and an airplane flyover. They also launched three vehicles off the bluff. The fourth, a Ford van, came off the guide wire at the last moment and crashed head-on into a bulldozer. Party organizer Arnie Hrncir said the team has never launched three vehicles before at the party. “Any little kid’s dream is to roll a rock down a hill. This is times 10,” said Arnie’s son, Dustin Hrncir.
Hrncir estimates the third car off the jump, an early-90s Nissan Pathfinder, reached 55 miles per hour on the 500 foot runway, and traveled a distance of 100 yards in the air — both records for the celebration.
Arnie Hrncir reported 550 guests, the largest crowd ever. Over 500 pounds of pork, beef and chicken were served at the party that first started in 1996. The car launching began in 2005.
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- Mount Marathon 2016 aerial video
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Hundreds of runners took to Seward's iconic mountain in the annual race.
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- Mount Marathon 2016 racers slide down snowfield
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Runners in the Mount Marathon 2016 slide down a snowfield on the mountain's upper reaches. (Video by Nat Herz / Alaska Dispatch News)
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- Ultimate Frisbee Debate 001
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Ultimate Frisbee players debate the statement Millennials Have Ruined Ultimate Frisbee during one of the mini contests between games at the Great Alaska Jamboree Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
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- Wanted: Alaska peony farmers
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Alaska Peony Distributors gave away flowers to their guests at an event on Monday to acknowledge the beginning Alaska’s short peony harvesting season which runs from late June to early September. “Our climate, our position on the globe allows us to grow peonies later than anybody else,” said APD managing partner Mike Williams. “The demand never diminishes. It’s the supply that is the issue.” Williams' group wants to encourage more local farmers to enter the peony market because Alaska’s community needs a higher quantity of flowers to attract a certain kind of customer. “We have buyers out there that want twenty, forty, fifty-thousand stems a week” said Williams. "And they won’t talk to us because we’re only producing two or three-thousand stems a week. So we need the volume to support each other.” Williams welcomes more farming investment and describes his views in this video.
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- Gov. Bill Walker announces vetoes
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Saying that the Alaska Legislature failed to do enough to solve the state's deep financial woes, Gov. Bill Walker used his veto pen Wednesday to slash next year's state spending, including likely cuts in Permanent Fund dividends, a sharp reduction in tax breaks for the oil industry and cuts in education programs and road projects.
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- Non-seeing and seeing both play beep baseball
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Alaska has no beep baseball team featuring blind athletes, so the Anchorage Lions Club arranged for a Seattle team to come give an introduction. Beep baseball players must rely on their ears to hit, run and field the beep baseball. The game is simple, yet extremely difficult, for seeing and non-seeing players alike. And for those who can’t easily play traditional sports because of their blindness, beep baseball satisfies that desire to compete.
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- Fish processor employs hundreds from the Yukon Delta
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Jack Schultheis, operations manager of Kwikpak Fisheries, oversees a busy fish processing plant in the Yukon River village of Emmonak. Many of his workers start out in a youth employment program, through which teens age 14 to 17 do jobs that don't involve knives or heavy machinery. Younger ones answer phones, clean and work in the store, many of the older ones work in a roe-processing operation or help to pack fish. Some teens take a water bus to and from their home in the nearby village of Alakanuk.
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- Denali rockslide control
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- A 10-person team of rock scalers, employed by Advanced Blasting Services of Wasilla, chips away at loose rock above the Parks Highway between the Denali Park entrance and Healy on Thursday, Jun. 23, 2016. The work is expected to continue all summer, as 11 sites have loose rocks. In the fall, a larger effort to remove rock with explosives is planned. That will require some road closures after the tourist season ends. The state transportation department says it is trying to limit summer travel delays to the late night and early morning hours.
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- Get rid of stuff and pay fewer bills ... but there's a trade-off
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Brian and Deborah Schaffer have thought about this moment for more than a decade. Last year, they figured it was finally time. With their youngest son having graduated from high school they embraced the empty-nest life, unloaded a full-sized family home, and downsized to their new "tiny," as Deborah calls it. Last November they parked it in an RV campground. Currently it sits at Mirror Lake Middle School. They are part of the Anchorage School District camper host program.
Watch this video for a tiny tour.
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- Home-grown, one-stop pot shop
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Joining many of Alaska's budding marijuana businesses, Destiny Neade and her husband plan to open the retail portion of Frozen Budz this fall with an Alaska theme. Since they're in Fairbanks, their self-proclaimed "farthest-north cannabis" tagline might have a shot at being true.
They pride themselves on being homemade. Eventually, the Neades want to grow cannabis commercially, but for now they're focusing on perfecting their edible recipes. And with six personal-use marijuana plants in their garage's makeshift grow room, they have plenty of opportunity for practice. This video explains how Neade is turning her love of marijuana and baking into a business.
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- New owners at the top of Bodenburg Butte
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Great Land Trust threw a party Wednesday evening at the top of Bodenburg Butte in Palmer for the hundred or so who made the one-and-a-half mile, nearly 900-foot climb. It was to celebrate the closing of a real estate deal that transferred 40 acres from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority to Great Land Trust. Great Land Trust then donated the entire parcel to the Mat-Su Borough with the stipulation of a conservation easement, which essentially means the butte will always be public land and never developed. See the highlights of the celebration in this video. Great Land Trust is a Southcentral Alaska nonprofit that works to preserve lands and ensure the public's access to them.
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- Fairbanks farmer prepares to grow cannabis
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Ultimately, it wasn't difficult for Rosie Creek Farm owner Mike Emers to make the decision that he hopes will earn his family a significant pay raise. But there are drawbacks, that include paying for an eight foot fence to surround his fields and cameras to cover the property. He also is dealing with concerns about safety and security for his family. "And that my kids can't come onto the farm anymore," Emers said. It is illegal for anyone under 21 to be on the premises of a marijuana business.
Despite these issues, Emers sees the positive. "I love growing plants. This is another challenge for me."
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- Bear spray practice
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- As part of the International Conference on Bear Research and Management, John Gookin is holding public demonstrations on the Park Strip at 9th Ave and G St tonight through Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Today's learning opportunity was about safety when a bear approaches. In this video, there are a few nuggets of information that might help if you find yourself staring down a grizzly on some Alaskan hiking trail.
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- Mountain View sculpture is a labor of love for this Anchorage artist
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- "Whale Song" is a five-foot bronze sculpture of a whale flipping water onto its tail. Alaska birds and animals are carved into its fins and fluke. The sculpture is meant to symbolize peace in a diverse world.
"Whale Song" artist Christina Demetro says she's always eager to make public art that adds something to the surrounding area. She and her co-sculptor, Aurora Sidney-Ando, came up with the idea for the bronze sculpture almost two years ago.
The Anchorage Community Land Trust, Alaska Humanities Forum and Brown Jug were the major donors to the project.
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- Meet America's only wild wood bison
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- SHAGELUK – Wood bison calves are easy to spot from the sky. Their coats are a reddish hue, making them readily distinguishable from their mothers, even as they appear as minuscule dots against Alaska’s vast landscape.
The calves may look insignificant from the air, but they are special. They are the first wood bison both bred and born in the wilds of Alaska in over a century — a huge milestone for what has been a lengthy and uncertain experiment in reintroducing the species to the state.
“It’s really the beginning of wild wood bison in the United States,” said Tom Seaton, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist who has overseen the project for the last five years.
Their existence represents the conservation of a species once thought extinct, and revived from nearly nothing.
READ MORE:
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- Take a trip with Bernie Karl
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
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- Live action role-playing wins robust following across Alaska
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
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- Urban Baby Moose
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- A cow moose tends to her hours-old newborn calf born Tuesday morning, May 31, 2016, in the parking lot near Lowe's at the Tikahtnu Commons in northeast Anchorage. (Bill Roth / Alaska Dispatch News)
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- Fin whale necropsy in Seward
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- (Video by Andrew Sorenson) An endangered fin whale that arrived in Seward, Alaska on Sunday, May 29, 2016 slung across the bow of the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam is examined on the beach by officials working to determine how it died.
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- Eagle River Wildfire
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
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- A wildfire broke out near the confluence of the South Fork and the main fork of Eagle River. Video by James Fayette.
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- In search of Chinook at Ship Creek
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- The kings have arrived at Ship Creek. The Bait Shack owner Dustin Slinker estimates 150 – 170 Chinook have been caught since May 13, just in the area of the creek around his business on W. Whitney Road. At times about 15 salmon were seen this week gathered underneath the pedestrian bridge just upriver of the cable that marks where anglers can’t fish. See some of the early season fishing action and learn a few tips by watching this video.
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- Steep competition with a camp stove
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Each spring the Anchorage Museum pits its MUSE chefs against foodie guests from the community in an "Iron Chef" style cook-off where the competitors can only use camp stoves to cook. This year Heather Kelly, owner of Heather's Choice Meals, created a simple camp meal consisting of deviled eggs, salmon, green beans and rice. MUSE chef Brad Harris created a more gourmet selection of sausage, shrimp, strawberries and honey drizzle. A crowd of about 20 gathered for the event to sample the cuisine and learn camp cooking tips for their own outdoor adventures.
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- Home wildfire inspection
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
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- Traditional treats are on the menu during the Little Norway Festival
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Kaffe Hus takes place annually in the Sons of Norway Hall during the Little Norway festival in Petersburg, AK. Members of the fraternal lodge make traditional cakes, cookies and sandwiches to celebrate the anniversary of Norwegian Constitution Day.
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- Fairbanks Four's George Frese talks about his experience
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- In December 2015, George Frese was released from prison after the state of Alaska vacated all murder convictions of the Fairbanks Four. Frese spent 18 years in prison. He looks back on his experience and talks about what he's looking forward to now. Conversation recorded in Anchorage on May 17, 2016. (Video by Marc Lester and Michelle Theriault Boots / Alaska Dispatch News)
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- Juneau man says he's grateful to be alive after brown bear mauling
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- This video contains images that may be disturbing to some viewers.
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- The People of Town Square Park
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Some come to meet up with friends or sit in the sun. Others come for the drugs.
Year-round, a small band of regulars dominate Town Square Park, the hilly plaza at the heart of downtown Anchorage. Teenagers flip skateboards and homeless adults sit or lie on the grassy knolls for hours on end during the week. There’s often clouds of smoke. Behind the lip of a fountain that hasn’t worked in years, people sleep in broad daylight, curled up in blankets or sleeping bags.
City and downtown business officials and even longtime protectors of Town Square Park say the park has attracted too much crime and misbehavior for too long. They say serious changes are needed, from removing the broken fountain to drawing in more families and professionals. Recently, the head of a business association that patrols city streets went so far as to suggest the park be privatized.
Read more: http://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2016/05/18/anchorages-town-square-park-sees-cla...
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- Enormous oil on canvas painting depicts prehistoric marine reptiles
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- If you hurry to the Discovery Center downtown at the Anchorage Museum, you’ll catch an artist in action. James Havens is about to finish the largest canvas oil painting he’s ever produced — 32 feet long and 11 feet tall. You have until the middle of next month. For those who know Havens’ artwork with the Alaska Paleo-Project, it won’t come as a surprise to learn this painting depicts the Talkeetna Mountains about 80 million years ago. But what might be a surprise is that the area was underwater back then.
Because of his prehistoric passion, Havens was tapped to create the mural, by paleontologist Patrick Druckenmiller Earth Sciences Curator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Last summer, Druckenmiller took Havens along on an expedition into the Talkeetna Mountains that resulted in the discovery of two marine reptile species never before found in Alaska. The first, much publicized at the time is the elasmosaur — often compared to the mythical Loch ...
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- Midtown apartment fire
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
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- Reader submitted video from Tresa Neece.
No one was hurt, but more than a dozen units of a large Midtown Anchorage apartment building were affected in fire early Tuesday morning.
Several people were trapped for a time by the fire, at a complex at 4611 Juneau St. near Tudor Road and the Old Seward Highway, fire officials said, but all were eventually rescued without injury.
"That's the good news at this point," Anchorage Fire Department Chief Alex Boyd said.
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- Norwegian twist on Alaska's ubiquitous fishing boot
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
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- Meet the rescued sea otters of the Alaska SeaLife Center
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
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- As of early May 2016, the Alaska SeaLife Center is caring for seven sea otters, including two pups that require round-the-clock care. For reasons scientists don’t fully understand, otters are showing up sick, dying or distressed in unprecedented numbers. Last year there were more than 300 reports in the region, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. In this video, staff of the SeaLife Center in Seward introduce some of the otters and talk about what it takes to care for them before they can be transferred to a permanent home at a zoo elsewhere. (Video by Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News)
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- Don't drink this! It's way too potent
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- In order to feel the full psychoactive effects of marijuana, the plant must first be decarboxylated. Most often this process is done by adding heat. "Which is why it gets you high when you smoke it," said Anchorage cannabis chef, Russell Gleason who has 20 years of experience cooking, and medicating, with cannabis. "Now the deal on that is, is you lose about 60 percent of your cannabinoids upon combustion."
Gleason's solution is with his go-to decarboxylation method that he says doesn't destroy any cannabinoids. "We're able to capture them all."
For that reason he says eating marijuana-infused food is much more potent than smoking it. He stresses to anyone who begins experimenting with cannabis cooking.
"People need to be aware of what they're doing."
Gleason typically decarboxylates his pot at 240°F for an hour. Combustion from smoking it can reaches temperatures hundreds of degrees higher. Gleason says the lower temperature doesn't...
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- At age 15, Alaska jui jitsu star prepares to take on the world
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- A 15-year-old Soldotna girl is crushing the jiu-jitsu world and she’s not done yet.
Read the full article on Alaska Dispatch News: http://j.mp/1T2BzOL
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- Anchorage Museum "View From Up Here" exhibition
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- The "View From Up Here: The Arctic at the Center of the World" international art exhibition runs May 6 through October 2 at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. The show highlights investigations into the Arctic through film, photographs, sculptures and installations. Pieces are slated to travel to Canada after the show closes, with public programs scheduled in New York, Iceland and Norway.
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- Odie Smells Cyber Trouble
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Odie the electronic storage device detection dog is introduced at a press event held Wednesday, May 4, 2016, at Anchorage Police Department headquarters. Odie, a two-year-old yellow lab, is one of 10 dogs in the world trained to detect the chemical compounds found in electronic media storage devices. He can be used to locate potential evidence in cases involving internet crimes and child pornography. While he is assigned to trainer and handler Sgt. Aaron Whitt, his skills will be used statewide through the Alaska Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Odie was purchased through a federal grant, and recently completed training in Connecticut along with Whitt. He is named after late APD officer Barry Odin Hetlet.
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- Deaf people rally for equality in Anchorage
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- A loosely organized group of deaf and hearing impaired people hosted an town hall rally of sorts on the Parkstrip Wednesday. It was part of the nation-wide Deaf Grassroots Movement. Rallies were held in dozens of states on May 4, 2016 to bring awareness that the Deaf community largely feels discriminated against. The three main areas of emphasis include access to interpreters, equal educational opportunities and job equality. Watch this video to understand some of the complaints the Anchorage Deaf community has.
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- Perfect attendance means sudden exhilaration for this teenager
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- An East High School junior won a new Jeep Renegade from Lithia on Tuesday afternoon, but she can’t even drive it. Sixteen-year-old Kendra Nethery made it clear she has her learner's permit. Now Kendra has extra incentive to earn her Alaska driver's license. She says she wants to take her new wheels on the road this summer for fun outdoor activities, especially camping.
“I plan to do a driving class so I can get discounts on insurance and such,” said Nethery.
The event, “Drive for Perfect Attendance,” featured five randomly selected Anchorage School District juniors and seniors who didn’t miss a day of school this year. These students were five of 384 district-wide. Each of them randomly drew a key — four of which didn’t start a car and one that did. “I’m very, very pleased,” said Kendra’s mother, Tina Nethery. “She’s been on the honor roll since fifth grade. And she’s still on the honor roll.” Tina reports Kendra has had perfect...
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- Going behind the scenes for animals
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- The Anchorage Museum allowed a handful of visitors special access to the staging area of the live animal exhibit for Bring Your Child to Work Day on April 28, 2016.
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- Alyeska Resort's take on the classic Baked Alaska dessert
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- At Alyeska Resort, a “Baked Alyeska” is the resort’s most popular dish. Executive Pastry Chef Scott Fausz said the resort makes 500 of the desserts at a time several times a week, transforming the entire Alyeska pastry kitchen into an assembly line of mousse, chocolate and fluffy meringue. Here's how you can make the delicious dessert at home.
Get the recipe on Alaska Dispatch News: http://j.mp/1Tc4JYk
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- What dozens of cyclists did for these 3rd-graders
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- The back door to Dawn Wilcox’s classroom opened quickly as voices carried over the crush of little bodies anxious to find their new forms of transportation.
“Where’s mine?” one asked, worried. “I don’t see it.”
“Oh, look at mine!” crowed another. “It’s so awesome!”
The kids, all third-graders at Russian Jack Elementary, were finally laying hands upon a special gift, courtesy of some dedicated volunteers who put in hours and hours to see this day come to fruition.
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- A springtime breeze in Barrow
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Spring reveals itself slowly in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States. In mid-April, the sun sets around 11 p.m., but the temperatures are often in single digits. But it might not be the cold that surprises a visitor as much as the wind. It blows steadily across town, carrying dry snow and drifting against anything in its path, causing tarps to flap and umiaq covers to billow. Just northeast of town, on the road that leads to the high school football stadium and beyond toward Point Barrow, the wind blows even stronger and keeps road grading crews busy scraping drifts aside. In this video, take a look around Barrow in the springtime breeze. (Video by Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News)
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- Front Row Band serenades 6,000 runners in Alaska Heart Run
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- For the past 25 years, the Front Row Band has played for runners in the Alaska Heart Run, one of Alaska's early-season mega-races.
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- Former sex shop storefront transformed by street art
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Street artists James Temte and Nils Lane complete the second of three murals April 21, 2016 for the Transforming Adults Only: A Neighborhood Interaction project. The former sex shop storefront
has become an art exhibit before being demolished and eventually turned into a bookstore.
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- Black Ice prepares to dazzle spectators at the 2016 Cheerleading Worlds
- Date posted
- 10 years ago
- Description
- Alaska Athletics Black Ice team is competing in the 2016 Cheerleading Worlds competition in Orlando, Florida, where their coach says they're favored to do well.
