For First Friday in September, join conservator and co-curator Ellen Carrlee for a peek into the process and research discoveries of the exhibition Visceral: Verity, Legacy, Identity-Alaska Native Gut Knowledge, and Perseverance.

Internal organs from animals were once commonly used to make parkas, containers, windows, drums, and other items, but this is rarely seen today.

August 16, 2023. KINYradio.com.

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), in partnership with a consortium of libraries, associations and educators, is launching a new program to develop culturally-relevant programming for children for use by interested public and tribal libraries across Alaska and the nation.

The two-year program, Raven Reads at the Library, stems from a successful demonstration project SHI pioneered in 2022 with partner libraries in Juneau, Sitka, and Petersburg. SHI’s partners reported increases in library card attainment by participants and in book checkouts after hosting Raven Reads at the Library early literacy events...

In addition to SHI’s partners in 2022, the group going forward will also include the Alaska Library Association, Haines Borough School District Library, Alaska State Library, Montana State University’s Tribal College Librarians Professional Development Institute and the national Association for Rural and Small Libraries.

August 7, 2023. KINYradio.org.

The Kuskokwim Consortium Library has a casting call for spooky stories for the Halloween storytelling special, "Terrifying Tales on the Tundra." The library is hosting the event on Oct. 27 in collaboration with Southwest Alaska Arts Group and KYUK, which will record the show to air on the radio later.

This is the second storytelling event that the library has modeled off the very popular Anchorage-area Arctic Entries, in which community members go on stage to tell a seven minute story about their lives.

“We had the first one last spring,” said library director Theresa Quiner. “And this year, because it falls right before Halloween, we're theming it for creepy stories, terrifying stories historically, you know, stories of life and death while living out in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta.”

Sunni Bean, August 15, 2023. KYUK.org.

The Friends of the Library debuted their first art show last Friday at the Cordova Center Museum gallery.  

The Catch is a community sourced art show that shares the same name as the literary quarterly that inspired the exhibit. The show opening was well attended and participants were able to enjoy refreshments and conversation while viewing artwork and printed poems. A donation-based admission was accepted on behalf of The Friends of the Library. 

Jullian Gold works as a librarian at the Cordova Public Library and said “The Catch” first began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as a monthly virtual poetry meet-up. The Zoom-based poetry meetings quickly became popular with both year-round and seasonal Cordovans.  

Kinsey Brown, August 16, 2023. Cordova Times.

Claire Stremple, August 9, 2023. Alaska Beacon.

From improved climate control systems and solar panels to battery storage and better insulated windows, the projects funded by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s latest climate initiative grants—totalling $2.7m for 48 art organisations across the United States—are all aimed at making art spaces more resilient to the effects of climate change while reducing their carbon footprints...

Projects supported in this third round of funding—following previous rounds of $5.1m in July 2021 and $3m in August 2022—include the development of renewable power microgrids at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle and California College of the Arts in San Francisco, improved climate control systems at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center in Cincinnati, Pratt Institute in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and others. The Anchorage Museum in Alaska received $40,000 to develop and implement a sustainability action plan. 

Benjamin Sutton, August 9, 2023. The Art Newspaper.

Applications due September 8

Museums Alaska is now again accepting applications for the Access to Alaska Native Collections (AANC) program. This program responds to the needs of the Alaska Native artists and culture bearers for access to collections in museums by supporting research visits to museum collections storage in Alaska. As such, Alaska Native artists and culture bearers will be invited to propose a visit to a participating museum’s collection that has a clear benefit to the development of their work. 

The grant will cover travel costs for the collections visit—flights, ferries, mileage, per diem, lodging, parking, taxis, and family care needs.

Juneau residents whose homes were lost or damaged during the record glacial outburst flooding can apply for state assistance in person next week.

The state’s emergency management division, the city and volunteer groups will open a disaster assistance center at the Mendenhall Valley Library from Aug. 21-23.

Katie Anastas, August 16, 2023. KTOO.org.

Several thousand people listened to the story and inspiring message of “The Honey Girl of Auschwitz” on Tuesday night at the Dena’ina Convention Center in Anchorage.

Esther Basch, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, shared her unique story of survival and triumph, one that includes riding in a cattle car to the Auschwitz Death Camp on her 16th birthday...

The Alaska Jewish Campus and Museum invited Basch to speak so more people in Alaska can be informed about the Holocaust.

Lex Yelverton, August 15, 2023. KTUU.com

University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists have discovered and documented the largest known single dinosaur track site in Alaska. The site, located in Denali National Park and Preserve, has been dubbed “The Coliseum” by researchers.

The Coliseum is the size of one-and-a-half football fields and contains layer upon layer of prints preserved in rock. The site is a record of multiple species of dinosaurs over many generations that thrived in what is now Interior Alaska nearly 70 million years ago. The scientists describe the site in a paper recently published in the journal Historical Biology.

Marmian Grimes, August 11, 2023. UAF News.

Unalaska now has the fastest cell service in rural Alaska. That’s according to telecommunications company GCI, which turned up the high speed service on the island Tuesday, making it the state’s first rural community with a 5G connection.

The company said it cost them $4.9 million to upgrade the wireless network.

Hope McKenney, August 17, 2023. KYUK.org.