“FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka” is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi. The aging sow griz­zly burned with an inces­sant urge to gorge on calo­ries as her 10th win­ter hiber­na­tion neared. To pro­vide for her­self and both cubs through anoth­er den­ning, required an ongo­ing smor­gas­bord of nutri­ent-rich food as  Con­tin­ue Reading

FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… Arriv­ing in Inte­ri­or Alas­ka in 1974, I was 23 years old and had nev­er been in any kind of air­plane. (Well alright, full dis­clo­sure; as a kid, I was big on those hors­es and planes that ate  Con­tin­ue Reading

FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… (Author’s note: This camp­fire sto­ry is most­ly fic­tion in terms of char­ac­ters and events. His­toric, eco­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal themes will always be sculpt­ed fac­tu­al­ly. The won­ders of the sub­arc­tic nat­ur­al world are as I under­stand them and  Con­tin­ue Reading

FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi…  The plane lift­ed off the state run­way in Eagle on dense morn­ing air on anoth­er blue­bird July day. The drowsy sprawl of town and sweep of the Yukon Riv­er reced­ed under the right wing as we climbed with  Con­tin­ue Reading

Click to enlarge pho­to. FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… Dur­ing the sum­mers of the 1970s, a trick­le of new­com­ers of dis­parate back­grounds, wheeled into the time­worn town of Eagle, Alas­ka.    Less than twen­ty years pri­or, a sea­son­al road had been blast­ed and  Con­tin­ue Reading

FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… The days of sub­arc­tic sum­mer blend togeth­er and can unset­tle inter­nal rhythms. This is both a bless­ing and a curse, in hav­ing so many out­door activ­i­ties and a great­ly expand­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to over­do it. The real­i­ty of  Con­tin­ue Reading

FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… In case you have nev­er heard this pithy phrase describ­ing a sin­gle woman’s chances of meet­ing Mr. Nor­mal in Alas­ka, I did not come up with it. Some form of this lament sure­ly has echoed every­where along  Con­tin­ue Reading

FREEZER BURNED: Tales of Inte­ri­or Alas­ka is a new reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Steve Ulvi… Near­ly every mol­e­cule of water that now cov­ers 70% of our plan­et was spewed in awe­some vol­canic erup­tions or car­ried frozen in aster­oids or comets that pum­meled a life­less earth for eons.  Any giv­en water mol­e­cule has  Con­tin­ue Reading