More from troopers today:

On Friday at approximately 7:20 p.m., Dale Starkey, age 50, of Salcha called Fairbanks dispatch to report that he and his wife, Lenka Starkey, are lost somewhere between Healy and the Delta River.

Dale and Lenka left Healy on horseback and got lost due to high waters washing out the trails and poor visibility due to smoke. Starkey was able to report that he and his wife are good condition, they have food, water, and shelter.

Starkey's last phone call indicated that he was traveling down Iowa Ridge towards his cabin at Clear Creek. After weather conditions permitted, troopers began an aerial search of the area today.

This today from Alaska State Troopers:

On Thursday at approximately 6:20 p.m., troopers received a report of a domestic disturbance at a residence off the Old Sterling Highway in Anchor Point.

Investigation revealed that Elizabeth Katairoak, age 22 of Anchorage, desecrated the remains of her deceased son, who had been cremated, by throwing the ashes at her boyfriend, scattering them on the ground.

Katairoak's boyfriend was the father of the deceased boy.

Katairoak then took the victim's blue 1986 Toyota pickup and attempted to drive to Anchorage without the owner's permission. AST conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle near Soldotna and Katairoak was arrested for DV Criminal Mischief III and Vehicle Theft I, and was remanded to Wildwood Correctional Facility without bail.

Photo by David Carl
The sunset in Kake, Aug. 4, through the smokey haze from Canada wildfires.

Nice to see a photo out of Southeast. When I was in third, fourth grade, we used to play on that beach looking for eels.

Love these. Keep 'em coming!:

In the spring of 2007, mid April, my wife and I were staying in a room at "The Inn at Whittier" and observed numerous water spouts on the water about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile out from the harbor and about 1/2 mile down bay.
They appeared rapidly, rising to approximately 100 feet in height, lasted for 20 to 30 seconds in duration before dissipating. We observed watercraft, fishing boats etc, maneuver away from the spouts so I am sure, while rare, this is not a totally unknown occurence in Alaska.
-- Donald J. Coleman

...

It was about 1976; the Fall (then) Governor Hammond was holding public input meetings in rural communities. After attending one in Ketchikan, I was a passenger, flying back to Waterfall Cannery, in Paul Herd’s small amphibian.
As we passed Craig on Prince of Wales Island, the wind picked up to the point that Paul contemplated turning back; but would "give it one more fly by." As we lowered altitude and turned back toward Waterfall, a couple hundred feet off the surface, water spouts began appearing all around us. One blasted the bottom of the plane and immediately both doors flew open!
Paul was very levelheaded and reached over, pulled mine closed then his, descended further, expertly avoiding the growing field of spouts and got us next to the dock. My family was there waiting. They had seen the spouts but not the doors flying open! It was one for my journal. One I doubt I'll ever forget!
There were probably, without exaggerating, at least ten spouts. But I seem to recall more. They varied in height and width. I have seen some since, off of Wrangell Alaska, but not nearly the numbers I experienced that particular day.
-- Shari Miethe, Wrangell

Dorothy Ivanoff had just taken off from the village of Koyuk Saturday in a small plane over Norton Sound when the pilot spotted a weather phenomenon that’s nearly unheard of in Alaska.

She grabbed the Canon video camera she uses to shoot clips of her kids and aimed it at the funnel cloud. This is what she saw:

What you’re seeing is a waterspout -- a funnel-shaped, tornado-like vortex that appears over water.

“It was moving across the water so quickly, and as we got closer we could just feel this rain hit really hard on the plane. … It was just spectacular," said Ivanoff, who was raised in the village of Golovin.

She now lives in Unalakleet and works for the Bering Strait School District.

"I never seen one in my life before,” Ivanoff said.

(NOTE: If you've ever spotted one in Alaska, e-mail me at khopkins@adn.com.)

The science behind waterspouts is complicated. Wikipedia has a fairly technical entry here.

Nathan Hardin, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Anchorage, sums it up: “You have a boundary of cold and warm air close together. When an updraft associated with a shower or thunderstorm moves over the boundary, it can cause a waterspout."

Waterspouts are relatively common in warmer climates like that of the Southeastern United States, Hardin said.

But a senior forecaster at the Weather Service office in Anchorage hasn’t heard of a legitimate waterspout in Alaska in his 14 years on the job.

Waterspouts are bad news for mariners and planes but fall apart when they hit land.

For a sense of how rarely this is reported in Alaska waters, check out this 2007 APRN story about a waterspout – described here as “a seldom-seen and almost-mythical object of mariner lore” -- in Lynn Canal.

Ivanoff said she was flying at about 1,000 feet when she shot the video.

“We were getting close and the plane was just kind of bumping around from all that wind,” she said.

“Right toward the end, my camera just died. I forgot to recharge my battery that night.”

Unalakleet to L.A.

UPDATE: Former Unalakleet & East High athlete Ariel Tweto sends this e-mail describing her plans in Hollywood and appearance tomorrow on ABC's "Wipeoout."

(Note that it sounds like she'll be announcing an Alaska-based show later this month.)

Hey!
So the show tomorrow will be my 3rd time appearing on Wipeout! My first was the regular one, the next was the reunion show shot in Venice Beach, and tomorrow will be the Allstar Episode! In the episode I will be competing against 23 other allstars for $50,000 dollars and will be embarrassing myself for sure!
I dislocated my shoulder, my toe nail fell off, but I had the best time ever. It was the best experience ever. I made amazing friends, challenged myself both physically and mentally, and got to get my name out there because I eventually want to break into the acting business. But back to what competing on Wipeout was like...it is also very cold, tiring, and hard (it seems like they practically grease everything to make us wipeout even harder!)
I am working on a show right now but can not give out any information for about 2 more weeks...you will be the first to know about it though! All I can say is that involves me, my family, and the good ol' Bush Alaska!!!
I am also training with some circus people and acrobatics for a new LIVE show that I will be performing in. I am pretty sure we will be filming that in Texas!
I am having the time of my life right now in Hollywood. I am so happy and feel like i am on a permanent vacation! I wake up every morning to sun and the ocean so...what more can I ask for? There aren't many Inupiaq Eskimos on TV so I want be a pioneer and make a good name for all of us! I also want to inspire kids in the village to dream big and go after their goals....nothing is ever impossible.
If a little Eskimo from a tiny isolated village can go to Hollywood and be on TV, anything is possible!!!
Take care and Ill keep in touch!
Ariel Tweto

ORIGINAL POST:

Back in the day: East senior guard Ariel Tweto looks for an open teammate during second-half action in a 57-33 win over Bartlett Tuesday evening February 28, 2006 at East. Tweto says she'll make an encore appearance this week on the ABC reality show "Wipeout."

Meet Ariel Tweto, originally from Unalakleet and now -- in her words -- "doing the whole Hollywood thing."

Tweto has charmed reality TV audiences a couple times on ABC's "Wipeout" and, she says, appears again on tomorrow's episode. The show is a kind of reality obstacle course competition. ABC bills Wednesday's "all star" episode as a battle among fan-favorite contestants.

Check out one of Tweto's earlier appearances, where she tells the world she's 20 and never been kissed. (The sound quality is awful.)

Tweto must have caught someone's eye because she's now working on another TV show -- one somehow involving Alaska, she wrote in an e-mail to the Daily News. She seems to hint at it here, saying she was in talks with the Discovery Channel and Travel Channel, and was in the running for a role in the "Twilight" movie sequel:

Yet another new fire is burning in Interior Alaska today – this one threatening roughly 30 cabins just 27 miles from Fairbanks, said Division of Forestry spokesman Gary Lehnhausen.

It’s the latest blaze in what’s shaping up to be a massive wildfire season. Most importantly, the 300-acre fire near Murphy Dome is pulling resources away from the state’s largest wildfire, the 462,000-acre Railbelt Complex burning 40 miles from Fairbanks.

“I would say resources in Alaska are almost tapped out,” Lehnhausen said. “We just basically don’t have anything more we can send and we’re having to order more resources from out of state."

The National Weather Service says July was the driest summer month on record in Fairbanks, and the weather isn’t getting any better over the next couple days.

Humidity will drop and temperatures are expected rise 10 degrees tomorrow at the Railbelt Complex fire and the state’s second largest burn – the Crazy Mountain Complex, which crept within miles of Circle, said meteorologist Kelly Allen.

Red flag warnings have been issued for both regions, she said. “It means that conditions are right for fires to get easily out of control … Since they’re both several hundred thousand acres already, yeah, that could be bad.”

Meantime, wildfire smoke has been choking Fairbanks.

Allen’s asthmatic and ready for some rain. “I’m waking up every morning coughing for a good 10, 20 minutes, reaching for my inhaler," she said.

As of Saturday, 469 fires had burned about 2 million acres across Alaska so far this year. At the same time last year, there had been only 334 fires that burned 90,900 acres.

In comparison, the most active fire season on record was 2004, when more than 700 wildfires burned roughly 6.6 million acres.

But this July, Allen said, there were actually more smoky days in Fairbanks than in July of 2004. (That’s based on days at the airport where visibility was six miles or less, and smoke was reported, she said.)

More later.

This today from state troopers:

Location: Egegik
Type: Assault
Text: On 8-1-09 at 2055 hours, the Alaska State Troopers in King Salmon were notified of a stabbing that had occurred in the village of Egegik on 7-31-09. It was reported that Tina Lehuquet, age 44 of Egegik had stabbed Eric Hainsel, age 43, also of Egegik three times with a knife.
On the morning of 8-2-09 Troopers responded to the village to investigate the assault. Investigation revealed that Hainsel and Lehuquet got into some type of argument on the evening of July 31st. At some point, Lehuquet grabbed a knife and stabbed Hainsel two times in the forearm and once in the lower abdomen. The wounds were not life threatening and Hainsel did not seek medical attention for his injuries.

Remember how Yukon River fishermen protested the lack of subsistence king salmon fishing on the river earlier this summer? Regulators had slashed king fishing to try and make sure enough Chinook made it to Canada.

Well, this week Myron Naneng, president of the non-profit that provides social services to dozens of Yukon-Kuskokwim villages, noticed this story in the Whitehorse Daily Star. It says Canadians are being allowed to commercial fish for kings for the first time in years on their side of the Yukon.

In an e-mail to state and federal officials Thursday, Naneng wrote:

After ADF&G and OSM(USFWS) were very restrictive on our people on the Lower Yukon and having closed up to ten days subsistence fishing, it seems our agencies and country is more concerned about providing for foreigners and high sea fisheries. Our people who fished for food ended up becoming criminals in their own country for the benefit of those who live on both side of the fence. On top of this, the unreliable or non-functional operations of the sonar at Pilot Station and lack of confidence we now have with ADF&G. Where is the justice in all of this?

We would recommend and request oversight hearings by both the Federal government and State Legislature on the operations and management of fisheries on the Yukon River and for that matter the whole Western Alaska.

Does this mean Alaska satisfied the U.S.-Canada salmon treaty? Will it lead to less restrictions on subsistence and commercial fishing in Alaska next year?

UPDATE: Want a Census job? Sounds like they're going to pay pretty well this year, with census-takers hired in towns/villages all over the state. Here's the number:

This photo looked better on my phone.

...

ORIGINAL POST:

(AP Photo/Al Grillo) Stanton Katchatag, 82, left, and his wife Irene talk with U.S Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt outside of their home in Unalakleet, Jan. 21, 2000, after being the first people in the U.S. to be counted in the 2000 census. Next year, Census officials plan to begin the count in the Kobuk River village of Noorvik.

The Inupiat village of Noorvik will be the first town in the United States counted in 2010 Census, Census officials said this morning.

The Census Bureau is already gearing up for the 2010 count, which will create about 2,500 well-paid, part-time jobs across Alaska next year. At a meeting in Anchorage today, they let slip that the official count will begin in Noorvik – possibly in late January.

Census takers hit Alaska villages first because they want to get there before spring break-up complicates travel, and before people leave town to fish and hunt.

Noorvik has about 640 people and is roughly 45 miles east of Kotzebue. The last Census, in 2000, began in Unalakleet.

In a short interview, Deputy Regional Director Mike Burns said the selection of Noorvik is still “preliminary” and that the Bureau had been looking at other villages too. But during the meeting, the Noorvik selection was presented as a certainty followed by a “you didn’t hear that.”

Census officials were also a little cagey today when it came to how much Alaska’s roughly 2,500 Census takers will be paid. Charmaine Ramos, who heads the recruiting effort, said the pay is still being decided.

For now, the pay is $17.50 an hour, but I was hearing higher figures at the meeting, which was a kind of over-view of how the Census will be conducted in Alaska next year.

Be on the look out for federal bigwigs & Obama advisors in Bethel in the coming weeks.

Larry Echo Hawk – the assistant interior secretary in charge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- is quietly planning a visit to Bethel Aug. 7.

Alaska Inter-Tribal Council Chairman Mike Williams plans to take him to the Kuskokwim River villages of Akiachak, Akiak and Kwethluk.

“We’re going to be making visits to the fish camps and also meet with the AVCP traditional chief Joe Lomack in Akiachak, who is my uncle. And after that we’re gonna travel up to Akiak to meet with the community members to see some of the recovery projects up here, and to meet with tribal leaders,” Williams said.

UPDATE: Here's an excerpt from a phone interview with former KDLG news director Eileen Goode, talking about the blog that cost her her job:

And two of the e-mails I'm getting from Dillingham:

Birds of a feather
It is evident from the content of Eileen's blogs that she spent her time with the seamier citizens of Dillingham. There is crime and perversion in all societies and she seems to have spent her time exploring those. Perhaps birds of a feather do flock together.
There is a side to Dillingham that she apparently did not explore, the schools, the university, the churches, the organizations established here to serve the youth and elders and all those in between.
Poor Eileen, my heart goes out to her, she looked for love in all the wrong places.
-- Joanne Nelson, Dillingham

Every death a tragedy
There are so many things wrong with what Eileen Goode has said that is impossible for me to find the right words to express how I feel.
While I cannot deny that Dillingham has problems (the amount of drug, alcohol and domestic abuse cases is staggering), the insensitive and inconsiderate way that Goode has chosen to write about them is not the way one who considers themselves a good journalist should be writing.
The fact that she so ruthlessly diminished the tragedy of Kim McCambly’s death is cold and almost inhuman. Every life lost is a tragedy, especially when the death could have been prevented. What if a member of Goode’s family had passed away like that? Would she still feel the same way? I doubt it.
Although Goode “apologized” in her latest blog post, I do not detect the smallest hint of sincerity. The only thing I got out of the post (besides a monstrous headache from the large amount of spelling and grammar errors) is that people do not understand her writing style or humor; I’m sorry, was I supposed to find anything that she wrote funny? Because I didn’t. I enjoy satirical humor as much as the next person, but when it is filled with racial stereotypes about a community that I am a part of, I fail to see how that could be funny at all.
Like I said before, I cannot deny that Dillingham has problems, and sometimes people do need to be told to their faces, but if she cared about it as much as she claims she does…why not take action? Words can only go so far when trying to accomplish something. If she really cared and wanted to change things then she could have gotten out of her chair, shut down her computer and done something about it.
-- Shelley Savo, 18-year-old, lifelong member of Dillingham community

The news director at public radio station KDLG in Dillingham resigned from her job this morning after local backlash erupted against her personal blog: www.chillyhell.blogspot.com

In long, sometimes bizarre posts, Goode blogged about Battlestar Galactica, the pain of early morning radio shifts, and – for about 5,000 words – fantasizing about cutting her toe off. She also joked about sexual abuse and alcoholism and wishing for tragedy so she'd have news to report. Her description of a local 21-year-old's death, in particular, brought a firestorm of criticism over the past four days.

The first post on her blog, titled “Disclaimer,” begins:

"Welcome to Dillingham Alaska, a town made up of about 2,400 people who, quite simply, probably aren’t quite ready for mass production yet. There are many colorful local aphorisms applied to this town/area which I think more or less sum up the situation…
"-- Dillingham, a small drinking village with a fishing problem.
"-- Dillingham Alaska, we fish we fight and we f--k, in the winter, we fish somewhat less.
"-- What did the 10 year old Alaskan girl say after she was done having sex? Hey Grandpa, can you pass me a cigarette.

"By no means should this be interpreted to mean that I don’t like the place I live. Quite to the contrary, I love living in a place where I can be treated as a respectable personage simply by dint of being sober, employed and totally uninterested in having sex with relatives or children."

KDLG reaches as many as 7,000 people in the Bristol Bay region. It’s owned by the local school district and housed inside the high school.

Goode’s blog didn’t appear to have many readers until someone anonymously e-mailed excerpts around town on Friday.

Hot water: Fisheries programs on the Kuskokwim River are one of the key services of Kuskokwim Native Association, a regional non-profit that faces a staggering $2.6 million in payroll tax liens from the IRS, according to a state report. KNA was in danger of being shut down a year ago, the new executive director says, but is now negotiating a payment plan to stop more interest or penalties from piling up. (Photo by Rob Stewart)

For the past two years, the state Division of Regional & Community Affairs, which works with villages across the state, has quietly been making a list of city councils, tribal governments and non-profits that are in hot water with the IRS. (Or, in some cases, owe big because they lost lawsuits.)

Jim Paulin photo
Larry Dirks butchers a harbor seal in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor Thursday, at Camp Qungaayux. The annual culture day camp teaches local youth about traditional Aleut culture, including food, crafts, and language. The seal project included anatomy lessons. The marine mammal was later cooked and served to visitors at the community potluck two days later. Rain forced the six-day camp's programs to be held indoors for several days.

Thanks to Jim Paulin for the photo.

Adolph Pleasant of the Yup'ik village of Quinhagak recently caught this salmon shark in the Kuskokwim Bay -- about 20 miles from town.

"I don't know how much it weighed," he wrote, "but it took four people to put it in the boat."

...

Photo by Adolph Pleasant
That's Pleasant's 7-year-old daughter Chelsea in the back.

...

Quinhagak is home to about 660 people, roughly a mile from the Bering Sea coast and 70 miles southwest of Bethel.

"I thought it was just another halibut, but it was fighting so much, I thought it was the biggest halibut I caught," Pleasant said. He kept the jaws and gave the rest away.

...

Photo by Adolph Pleasant
Pleasant's aunt Annie Cleveland, his daughter Chelsea and the neighbors' grandkids.

...

Pleasant guessed the shark's weight at about 300 pounds.

"That is actually a small, young shark, not an adult," he said. The fisherman said he's heard of people getting sharks up to 18 feet long in the same area. (?!)

...

Photo courtesy of Adolph Pleasant

After the jump: Shark info & photos.

Bethel isn’t the only rural community banning plastic bags these days. The city of Hooper Bay pulled plastic grocery bags from the shelves this month after using federal money to buy every household three reusable, canvas bags, says environmental coordinator Bernard Murran.

The move came after reports of plastic appearing pasted on beaches and shores, hidden in burrows or woven into bird nests.

“Women go pick berries or wild greens, they encounter many of these plastic shopping bags across the tundra," Murran said. "It was an eyesore to them, and fishermen that fish out there catch plastics in their nets."

Photo by Bernard Murran.
Rose Olson stands with two of the new canvas bags donated throughout Hooper Bay.

Hooper Bay is a sprawling Yup'ik village of 1,200. When the Bethel ban on non-recyclable bags & Styrofoam take-out containers hits next year, Bethel will be the state's largest community to say to no plastic.

Here’s why:

Photo by Wilson Naneng
This is what the tundra looked like near the Bethel dump last spring.

Should villages ban the bags? How about if it means paying more for food & groceries?

Lite guv's office just announced John Moller -- the rural adviser Gov. Sarah Palin selected to replace Rhonda McBride -- will stay on the job when Parnell becomes govenor.

Here's how they put it:

Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell today announced the retention of Governor Palin’s rural affairs advisor, John Moller.

“John’s strong community leadership has given him the tools to be an effective advocate for rural Alaska,” said Parnell. “Together we can continue to work hard for Alaska’s rural communities.”

John Moller was born in Unalaska. He is working toward a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Alaska. He’s been a commercial crab fisherman in the Bering Sea for 13 years and has served as general manger of the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association for 12 years.

Behold:

Coast Guard video of a guy with a "partially severed" finger being hoisted into a rescue helicopter. (I tried like crazy to embed the video here, but it kept screwing up the rest of the blog. Maybe next time.)

Hello, my name is Kyrstin Hardin and I am the Youth/DELTA Program Coordinator at SAFE in Dillingham. SAFE has partnered with the Curyung Tribe, the Bristol Bay Native Association, and Dillingham City Schools to provide an opportunity for kids of all ages to learn about local culture and to learn how to gather and process fish. These pictures were taken at Culture Camp ...

Photo courtesy of Kyrstin Hardin
Perez Hiratsuka, Rollan Petla, and Zachary Tilden hold up a fish ready to process at culture camp

Photo courtesy of Kyrstin Hardin
Perez Hiratsuka cuts a fish while her peers look on