Where do you go sailing in Alaska?

What’s your favorite regatta?

HOST: Charles Wohlforth

GUESTS:  TBA

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BROADCAST: Thursday August 1, 2013. 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm AKT

REPEAT BROADCAST:  Thursday August 1, 2013. 7:00 – 8:00 pm AKT

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What’s your favorite hike for after work?

Long day hike on the weekend?

Short day hike?

Multiple day hike with camping overnight?

HOST: Charles Wohlforth

GUESTS:  TBA

PARTICIPATE: Facebook: Outdoor Explorer (comments may be read on-air)

BROADCAST: Thursday July 25, 2013. 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm AKT

REPEAT BROADCAST:  Thursday July 25, 2013. 7:00 – 8:00 pm AKT

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What’s your best tip for someone new to dip netting?

What’s your favorite part of dip netting?

HOST: Charles Wohlforth

GUESTS:  TBA

PARTICIPATE: Facebook: Outdoor Explorer (comments may be read on-air)

BROADCAST: Thursday July 18, 2013. 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm AKT

REPEAT BROADCAST:  Thursday July 18, 2013. 7:00 – 8:00 pm AKT

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Fireweed 400 – The Race Across Alaska. The 50-mile course starts at Sheep Mountain Lodge and heads east toward Glennallen.

Tell us about your experience racing, volunteering or training for the Fireweed 400.

How has the race changed over the years?

HOST: Charles Wohlforth

GUESTS:  TBA

PARTICIPATE: Facebook: Outdoor Explorer (comments may be read on-air)

BROADCAST: Thursday July 11, 2013. 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm AKT

REPEAT BROADCAST:  Thursday July 11, 2013. 7:00 – 8:00 pm AKT

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Have you participated in Seward’s Mount Marathon race? What was the most difficult part?

What questions do you have for the race organizers?

HOST: Charles Wohlforth

GUESTS:  TBA

PARTICIPATE: Facebook: Outdoor Explorer (comments may be read on-air)

BROADCAST: Thursday June 27, 2013. 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm AKT

REPEAT BROADCAST:  Thursday June 27, 2013. 7:00 – 8:00 pm AKT

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The Federal agency responsible for commercial fisheries in the Bering Sea have made, what some consider, a landmark decision Monday, June 3rd. The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, or NPFMC, has decided to consider classifying the Bering Sea Canyons as a wildlife preserve.

The NPFMC is conducting its meetings in Juneau this week. The Federal agency is comprised of 15 members from Alaska, Washington State and Oregon. Alaska’s Governor nominates five candidates to serve on the Federal fisheries council.

Marine biologist, John Hocevar, is the Ocean’s Campaign Director for Greenpeace. Hocevar is in Juneau and says the NPFMC’s decision to consider naming the Bering Sea a wildlife preserve took a lot of time.

“And after 10 years or so, the council is finally considering whether to protect the largest under water canyons’ in the world, out in the Bering Sea,” Hocevar said.

The Federal council will review the available science on the Bering Sea Canyons, and decide whether or not to start a scoping process.

“So that could range from, really from just about nothing at all, all the way to fully protected marine reserves,” Hocevar said. “Which would be closed to fishing, and this could be very helpful to not just the ecosystem but for the long term sustainability of fisheries in the Bering Sea.”

Hocevar says environmental groups and Tribal Governments including the Alaska Federation of Natives, and the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council have been lobbying NPFMC governing body to protect the Bering Sea from over-fishing for over ten years. Hocevar outlined some of the options the Federal agency could take.

“They could range from status-quo, doing nothing at all, all the way up to actually creating some really meaningful protections,” Hocevar said.

Lots of research will be needed not only to the ecological effects, but also the economic effects, the marine wildlife preserve designation would cause in the Bering Sea.

Hocevar says Greenpeace started its global environmental advocacy here in Alaska in 1971 when they stopped nuclear testing out in the Aleutians. Since then, Green peace has traveled the Alaska coast asking communities what kinds of changes they are experiencing.

“They were seeing fewer fish, they were having a harder time with subsistence as well as commercial fishing, and more than anything we heard that they would really like it if we could help them get the big factory trawlers farther off their shores, which led us specifically to the canyons,” Hocevar said.

Since then, Greenpeace has been the first to document and see the Bering Sea Canyons. Scientists have since nicknamed the Bering Sea Shelf as the “green belt” due to its high productivity.

“It was very interesting to hear that only a small percentage of the catch was coming from these canyons,” Hocevar said. “So it’s high enough that there is a threat to these fragile coral and sponges but not so high that it will be costly to move out of the canyon.”

Hocevar says the Pollock fishery currently uses less then four percent of the canyons. He added that the Chairman of the NPFMC felt the council had enough information to make a decision on whether or not to designate the Bering Sea Shelf as a Marine Wildlife Preserve. That vote is expected on Monday, June 10.

Courtesy of Nancy Heise

An open call for vessels that could fill in for the Tustumena ferry has ended, and the state came up empty-handed.

The Department of Transportation was looking for ships that could carry passengers and vehicles between Homer and Kodiak, and other communities in the Kodiak region, in early July while the Tusty wraps up repairs. Only one company responded — Bering Marine Corporation of Anchorage. DOT spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says the vessel they offered wasn’t licensed to carry passengers, so it didn’t meet the state’s requirements for the route.

This means there will be no ferry service to Homer, Kodiak, and the Aleutian Chain until late July, when the Tustumena is finally scheduled to come out of drydock.

A man overboard from a fishing vessel in the Copper River Delta could not be revived when he was pulled back aboard Monday. He’s identified as Cornell Perry Bean Junior, 40, of Kake, who went overboard from the “Esperanza.” They say he was only in the water for about ten minutes.

Alex Zimmerman and Shawna Strain work alongside SCA crew leader Sam Roberts

When Alex Zimmerman was young, she loved the outdoors and told people she wanted to be a “bug scientist” when she grew up. But her career plans really began to take shape last year when she was accepted into Youth Employment in Parks (YEP), a program of the Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department and the Anchorage Park Foundation that provides a meaningful “first job” experience and career pathway for youth to work in the outdoors and natural resources fields.

“I started to know where I wanted to go,” she said. “I want to become a park ranger.” But it was hard to find a job after YEP. “Eventually I got a job as a house cleaner and I thought, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?” Alex remembers.

Now, thanks to a partnership between the Student Conservation Association (SCA), the Municipality of Anchorage, the Anchorage Park Foundation, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Chugach National Forest, Alex at least knows what her immediate next step looks like.

Alex Zimmerman is part of a new youth conservation crew working on city, BLM and Forest Service lands.

Alex and four other alumni from YEP were selected for a new summer conservation crew experience sponsored by the five partners and led by seasoned SCA staff. The crew, made up of participants ages 17-20, will take part in a ten week work experience on municipal and federal public lands. Starting this week they’ll work for the BLM at Campbell Track helping to clear hazard trees from popular recreation trails. In mid-June they’ll work on city lands. And from July 6th to August 3rd they’ll have their most remote experience working alongside a Forest Service trail crew at the Spencer Whistle Stop on the Chugach National Forest.

When she got the phone call letting her know she had been selected, Alex said, “I felt like something was lifted off my shoulders.”

It was made possible in part by a nearly $40,000 cost-share grant from the US Forest Service. The award was announced on May 9th by US Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell as part of a $772,820 package of More Kids in the Woods and Children’s Forest grants in 16 states and the U.S Virgin Islands. Local partners added an additional $65,000 match to the grant.

Amanda Smith, head of partnership development for the Alaska Region of SCA said, “Youth are motivated and starved to find work opportunities. A strong group of partners worked together to build a career pathway for youth who are already interested and experienced in natural resource management, but have limited options for their next resource management job. It’s nice to see these efforts recognized with Forest Service funding.”

Added Smith, “The youth will experience some of Alaska’s most visited public lands and feel the benefits of hard work and commitment.”

For Beth Nordlund, Executive Director of the Anchorage Park Foundation, that was one the primary reasons to partner. “We want to give YEP returning teens experience in public lands outside of Anchorage. They have worked in urban parks for a summer, and now they’re working on spike crews, in some cases in the backcountry. So it’s a very different experience. We’re excited to give kids a sense of stewardship and ownership of their federal public lands.”

Getting outside of Anchorage is something that appeals to the participants, as well. Crew member Shawna Strain grew up in Southeast Alaska where, “we were out in the woods, building forts all the time. When I moved to Anchorage I wasn’t doing that anymore. The city seemed so big compared to where I came from.”

Inspiring youth to check out the city’s neighboring public lands has been a focus for the Chugach National Forest for many years, and in 2008 Forest leaders bolstered this commitment by launching the Chugach Children’s Forest with non-profit partner Alaska Geographic. Since then, over 20,000 youth, volunteers and educators have been engaged in outdoor education programming, career opportunities, stewardship expeditions and volunteer outings as part of the initiative.

“People come from all over the world to experience the Chugach National Forest and Alaska’s public lands, yet young people from many Anchorage neighborhoods have never set foot in the Forest,” Terri Marceron, Forest Supervisor on the Chugach National Forest said. “One of our goals is to simply get youth outdoors learning about natural resource work and having fun. We need their ideas and leadership to help solve the challenges of today and tomorrow –from climate change to maintaining our trails and recreation opportunities for the public. These are our future land stewards.”

That message speaks to the crew members who embrace the responsibility that comes with the new opportunity. “Everything isn’t set up for us this summer. We’re learning what it takes to get the project and work done, and how to run everything,” Shawna said. “We have more leadership, like college.”

And the work is unique in another way, Alex said. “It’s more of a learning experience than anything, and that’s what I want from a job. I love that about being outside because you can always learn something new.”

Chris Reynolds has spent most of his life chasing the ever elusive “hang time,” sports like snowboarding provide. Recently, Reynolds has found a new love and a new adrenaline high: Paramotoring.

INDIE ALASKA caught Reynolds with his feet on the ground long enough for him to tell us about his addictive hobby.

Video:
Travis Gilmour
John Norris

Story:
Travis Gilmour

Music:
Starship Amazing

The Air Force will give Alaska’s leaders and the public an extra month to compile their comments on a draft environmental impact statement released last month. The EIS evaluates the effects of the Air Force’s proposal to relocate a squadron of F-16s from Eielson Air Force Base to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The extension comes after push back from the state’s Congressional delegation who argued the military hadn’t provided the public with enough time to evaluate the document.

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A group of scientists is calling on Congress to provide greater protection from development for scores of streams on Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

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The Sealaska land bill is scheduled for markup during a congressional hearing this week.

Representative Don Young’s main legislation would convey about 70,000 acres of Tongass National Forest timberlands to Sealaska.

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The Sealaska measure is one of 14 land bills before the House Committee on Natural Resources, which meets Wednesday.

The Senate is also expected to mark up its version of the Sealaska lands legislation soon.

Robert Dillon, spokesman for sponsor Lisa Murkowski, says it’s tentatively scheduled for June 18 before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.