Joaqlin Estus

Every summer, Barbie travels with her family to fish camp to harvest and process fish for winter use. She's shown here cutting up a salmon using a tłaabaas (curved knife) and wearing a betsegh hoolaanee (qaspeq), or summer parka. July 27, 2023 (Photo…

Joaqlin Estus ICT ANCHORAGE — “The foundation of the Alaska Federation of Natives is our people,” said the statewide organization’s President and CEO Julie Kitka, Chugach Eskimo, after a quarterly meeting of the organization’s board held on May 15.…

ICT ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A federal judge has temporarily banned the state of Alaska from holding fish openings that conflict with federal openers on the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska. The state had been scheduling openings for all Alaskans on the…

Joaqlin Estus Indian Country Today When fish numbers are low, who gets to continue to harvest fish in rural Alaska? Federal agencies say only local, rural residents. The state of Alaska says all Alaskans. The Biden administration filed suit on May 17…

The state of Alaska on May 13 affirmed its 2019 decision to issue a 401 clean water certification for an open-pit gold mine in Southwest Alaska despite a lawsuit contesting the determination. Donlin Gold LLC proposes to develop a large open-pit,…

Four tribal representatives say their exclusion from a Jan. 11 subsistence advisory committee meeting cast aside their concerns about a road that would cross their traditional hunting and fishing grounds. The Dalton Highway is the only road extending…

Yukon River chum salmon, which make up 70 percent of the subsistence harvest in the region, didn’t turn up this year. Neighbors are helping out but people worry about hunger in the coming winter. It’s as if emergency food supplies had to be delivered…

Alaska Native elders with decades of experience in daily interactions with their environment saw changes in species that forage across a wide spectrum — near shore, far from shore and both on the surface and at ocean depth. Ilarion ‘Kuuyux’…

BANKS OF THE TWENTYMILE RIVER, Alaska — The Last Frontier state is known for its fishing and hunting opportunities. At the peak of salmon fishing season, highways get crowded with RVs and trucks towing boats. People fly in from around the world for…

'This fight is not over' After a long fight to open an Arctic refuge to oil and gas development, oil companies showed little interest this week at a lease sale. The Bureau of Land Management received 13 bids on 12 leases in the Arctic National…

‘Subsistence is absolutely critical to our survival; without it we don't exist out here’ When her granddaughter’s COVID-19 test results came back negative, Rosita Worl decided it was time to celebrate. The Tlingit woman took out the last of her…

The agency manages 500 million acres — more than Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico combined — and the range of its operations is mind-boggling Deb Haaland, Laguna and Jemez Pueblos, would wield a lot of power as Interior secretary. She’d also…

‘No one has more at stake in ensuring responsible development in ANWR than we do’ The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act granted a decades-long wish of Alaska’s congressional delegation by giving the go-ahead to drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic…

‘We want to make sure that we have that food forever’ Joaqlin Estus Indian Country Today On June 9, the Trump administration issued a rule tossing out Obama-era bans on certain hunting practices in Alaska. Animal rights and environmental groups say…

'Access to our ways of life continues to be unjustly over-regulated and excessively enforced' Caribou and moose hunting season opened this month in Alaska, but only locals will be hunting at a popular destination for urban Alaska hunters. The federal…

'Most people ... don't understand how we share our food with everybody' Joaqlin Estus Indian Country Today In August, the state of Alaska sued to stop federal agencies from allowing emergency hunts. The U.S. District Court for Alaska last week sided…