An alder flycatcher.

Photo courtesy of the Alaska Bird Observatory.

Through the darkness of every spring night, millions of tiny bodies flutter and glide to Alaska from every continent on Earth. Here, songbirds find a summer home, mate, build nests, lay eggs, raise

Hikers trek the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes on the Alaska Peninsula, walking on a sheet of ash and volcanic rock more than 500-feet-thick.

Photo by Ned Rozell.

One hundred years after the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is still a moonscape of ash and volcanic rock, without a tree or shrub in sight. The val

This gull swooped from its nesting site on the Yukon River to dive-bomb passing canoeists.

Photo by N. Rozell.

As I drifted with my family past a rocky cliff on the Yukon River, a gull cruised at us like an F-15, diving just over our heads to show its apparent displeasure.

As the gull lo

A satellite image of the northeastern U.S. taken by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program on Aug. 14, 2003 at 9:03 p.m., when a blackout affected 50 million people.

NOAA/DMSP image.

An Alaska college professor was not surprised when the lights went out over the northern tier of the U.S. and southeast Canada about 10 years ago.

David Newman studies the workings of complex, chaotic systems as part of his research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He and three colleagues once wrote a paper about “cascading” power blackouts similar to the largest in the history of the world, which affected 50 million people on August 14, 2003.

An etching from Harper’s Weekly on December 2, 1871, showing the abandonment of three whaling ships trapped in ice off Point Belcher, between Wainwright and Barrow.

Illustration courtesy of Harper’s Weekly.

About 150 years ago, a few days after summer solstice, the gray skies above the Diomede Islands were heavy with smoke from whaling ships set ablaze by Confederate sailors who didn’t know the

Matt Druckenmiller, right, and his research advisor Hajo Eicken, a professor of Geophysics, on an ice floe near Barrow.

Photo by Daniel Pringle.

In places where the air gets cold enough to freeze seawater, sea ice creates a world known by few people — a shifting, ephemeral, both jagged and smooth platform of white that clings to the s

The Valley of 10,000 Smokes on the Alaska Peninsula.

Photo by Ned Rozell.

On a fine June day about 100 years ago, in a green mountain valley where the Aleutians stick to the rest of Alaska, the world fell apart.

Earthquakes swayed the alders and spruce

Matt Druckenmiller, right, and his research advisor Hajo Eicken, a professor of Geophysics, on an ice floe near Barrow.

Photo by Daniel Pringle.

Yakutat Glacier, near the Alaska town of the same name and flowing from the mountains near the Canada border, calves into a lake as deep as an ocean bay. The icefield that feeds Yakutat is large enough to cover the five boroughs of New York City. Despite its bulk, the glacier is doomed unless we experience a drastic change in climate.

Kivalina, Alaska, on Alaska’s northwest coast.

Photo by Ned Rozell.

KIVALINA — As charter pilot Dave Lorring taxis a twin-engine Piper PA-31 Navajo through a dogleg in the Kivalina airstrip, he sees resident Perry Hawley waiting on top of a snowdrift with a snowmachine and a sled.

As soon as the Navajo props stop spinning, out jumps Kenji Yoshikawa, there for one of his patented science hit and runs. Yoshikawa is soon kneeling on a long wooden sled towed by Hawley, who heads for a few wooden tripods standing on the white arctic plain outside town.

Hatchery manager Gary Martinek shows a “salmon incubator” at the Gulkana Hatchery, where many Copper River red salmon are born.

Photo by Ned Rozell

EAST FORK OF THE GULKANA RIVER — In early August, a few months before this mossy valley will feel the sting of 40-below air, bright red salmon dart through a crystal clear pool amid fragrant green vegetation. The Gulkana Hatchery has a Garden-of-Eden feel, which is fitting since millions of sockeye salmon begin life here each year.