Longtime followers of the Alaska Outdoor Journal, a website that for 20 years has featured user posts and information about hunting and fishing in the Last Frontier, may have been stunned when they logged on after New Year's Day and found only a farewell video from the site's creator, Gary Barnes of Soldotna.
In the video, Barnes, 66, who started Alaska Outdoor Journal in 1995, said that he has spent more than 30,000 hours posting information about the Alaska outdoors, including logging more than 1,000 all-nighters during his tenure as webmaster for the site. During the site's first year, Barnes claimed, he got only 12,000 visits. In 2014, he said, the site saw more than 1.3 million visitors.
Barnes did not want to talk about the site's closure when contacted Jan. 2, saying only that he wanted to "figure out what's next."
Popularly known on the site by his screen name, "Klondike Kid," Barnes built a loyal following -- mostly in Southcentral Alaska -- of people who used the site as a place to find up-to-date information on things like where the fish were biting and what tackle to use. In addition to a host of how-to videos, forums and outdoors topics, the site regularly posted reports written by users who had just returned from fishing or hunting excursions, offering sometimes up-to-the-minute information on fishing and hunting locations and recently successful gear and techniques.
"It would show somebody that just posted a minute ago or two minutes ago versus somebody who was there six days ago," Anchorage's B&J Sporting Goods clerk Stewart Valladolid said.
"That's why I went (to the website)," he said. "It determined where I was going to be going or what I was going to be doing that day."
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game posts weekly fishing reports throughout the summer, but even staff there often checked Barnes' site to see what was happening on local rivers, streams and lakes during the busy summer months.
"I have been on it many times. I think it's a really helpful place for anglers to share info," said Sam Oslund, Fish and Game's assistant area management biologist for sportfisheries in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Another popular Alaska-based outdoors site is now looking to fill in the hole created by the closure of Alaska Outdoor Journal. Even though the Alaska Outdoors Supersite is among the state's largest outdoors forums, with about 2 million visitors per year, the site's focus is statewide. Some of the most popular forums on that site are related to saltwater fishing, freshwater fishing, and hunting. Michael Strahan, the site's owner, said he didn't try to compete with Barnes' website for Southcentral Alaska fishing and hunting information and posts, out of respect for his work.
But with AOJ's closure, AOS is looking to expand its fishing and hunting forum offerings.
"We are trying to assess what parts and pieces of the AOJ site generated the most interest, and then out of those areas, what are the things we can do to fill that need," said Strahan.
He said his forums provide more than just tips on where the fish are biting.
"These days people are starving for community," Strahan said. "We are separated from our families a lot of times, and the forums have really provided a sense of community for each other. Members have linked up in the field and gone fishing or hunting together."
Other popular forums hosted by AOS include the "Ask a Wildlife State Trooper" forum, where posters can ask questions related to hunting and fishing regulations, and relocation forums to connect new residents and potential visitors with Alaskans and their pool of outdoors knowledge.
"In a forum community, people want to talk to Alaskans about Alaska," Strahan said. "They don't want to talk to a Texan about Alaska."
And while there are places online Alaskans can go when they're searching for the latest fishing technique, information about new packrafts, and hunting questions, for many users, the now-defunct Alaska Outdoor Journal will be missed.
"It's a bummer. It was a very handy forum," Valladolid said.