News and Media

Bill adding more Indigenous languages to Alaska’s official list becomes law

A bill adding more Indigenous languages to Alaska’s official list became law on Friday without the governor’s signature.

Its passage means Alaska now officially recognizes 23 Alaska Native languages. The new additions to the list are Cup’ig, Middle Tanana, Lower Tanana and Wetał. Middle and Lower Tanana were previously classified as just one language.

X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell chairs the council and teaches Alaska Native languages at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. He strongly advocated in favor of the bill during legislative testimony earlier this year.

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Exploring the diverse and extraordinary life of Southeast Alaska’s tide pools

Tides are caused by the moon’s gravity pulling water on Earth in different directions. On a full moon though, tides can be especially high or low. And those extreme lows are when Barbara Morgan likes to go to the beach.

“There’s so, so much to know about what lives on the beach and where you can find it and interactions between different things, that you can spend a lifetime doing it and still not know everything yet,” said Morgan, a naturalist and professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, as she walked along beach. She’s spent her whole life combing beaches in this region.

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Woven Peoples and Place: Climate adaptation and resilience in Southeast Alaska

A conversation with Annika Ord, climate adaptation catalyst for Sustainable Southeast Partnership.

Annika Ord is a born and raised Juneauite, whose personal and professional passion for addressing climate change has taken her across the Southeast from the Home Shore fishing grounds of Hoonah to the icefields of Juneau.

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