Jenn Ruckel

An oil spill of unknown origin is for the third time in the last year seeping off Shishmaref’s western coast, but now the state Department of Environmental Conservation says it might have identified the source.

The National Weather Service plans to realign its Alaska workforce, reducing jobs at remote offices in Nome, Barrow and Kodiak and shifting positions to the Anchorage and Fairbanks forecast centers.

Bonanza Fuel, owned by Sitnasuak Native Corp., has dropped gas prices by $0.25 per gallon in an spring sale designed to help subsistence hunters.

According to a 2002 study, the average level of the toxin PCB measured in St. Lawrence Island residents was 7.5 parts per billion, compared to the national average of 0.9-1.5 parts per billion. The highest levels of PCBs were found in those who spent most of their time at the Cold War-era military site at Northeast Cape.

What impact does warming Arctic water have on the movement of sea ice south each winter? That’s the question scientists with the new Sikuliaq research vessel are trying to answer on their trip out of Nome this October.

Cleanup of the oily sheen along the coast near Shishmaref is now complete. State responders aren’t exactly sure what the substance is, though they now have a better idea where it’s coming from.

Earlier this month, we took a long, 71-mile drive to Teller, the nearest community and the only village accessible by road from Nome. We went to see the Teller Cultural Festival, full of beautiful traditional music and dance. Fog made the return trip dicey.

In a few months, the ice-classed research vessel Sikuliaq, owned by the National Science Foundation, will be equipped with about a half dozen Arctic Native ice testing sticks as part of the ship’s safety outfit.

Two seals recently harvested near Gambell in the Bering Sea were coated in a dark, oily substance, thought by hunters to be oil. But testing by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has not confirmed that.

A hunter in musk ox-plagued Nome has killed the first musk ox since the Alaska Department of Fish and Game opened a Seward Peninsula hunt for the animals on Aug. 1.