Here comes Kivgiq.

If you're in Barrow for the four-day messenger feast celebration we'd love to see your photos or video.

E-mail me at khopkins@adn.com.

From Troopers:

Location: St. Mary's
Vehicle Theft 1st Degree, Criminal Mischief 3rd Degree
On 2/7/11 at approximately 1300 hours the Alaska State Troopers in St. Mary's were notified of a snow machine that was abandoned in the tundra near St. Mary's. Investigation revealed the snow machine was taken from the Office of Children Services in St. Mary's and vandalized. Damages to the snow machine are estimated in excess of $4,500.00 rendering the property to be a total loss. The investigation is ongoing.

A member of the Kotzebue jury that recently found a 22-year-old man guilty of manslaughter in the snowmachine-versus-dog team death of an Anchorage pediatrician tells the story behind the verdict:

By SUSAN FANNING
Kotzebue

First of all, none of us were happy or eager to find this young man guilty. We were all very serious and thoughtful and sad. There were a few jurors who cried and were upset about having to come to the conclusion of guilty. This was a young, strong, good looking young man with his whole life ahead of him and we knew it. I don’t believe anyone was eager.

Remember the battle between Hoonah's village Native corporation and federally recognized tribe and a Pennsylvania museum over dozens of cultural objects that have been stored out of state since the 1920s?

Sealaska Heritage Institute has this update today:

A federal program that provides millions of dollars to subsidize flights to remote Alaska villages and towns is under fire in D.C.

Sen. Mark Begich and three other Democratic senators recently sent this letter to Sen. John McCain, who has proposed amending an FAA authorization bill to cut funding for the Essential Air Service program.

The program uses federal money to lower commercial air-travel costs to airports where it might otherwise be too expensive to fly. That includes 44 communities in Alaska, according to the Department of Transportation.

The program sends more than $12 million in subsidies to Alaska air carriers each year, Begich said.

Just how much does each Alaska community get? Click here for a Department of Transportation list, with May 2010 rates.

Flights for the Southeast village of Yakutat are receiving about $2.7 million, it says. That amounts to about $4,300 per person in a community of 628 people.

“Eliminating EAS means driving up the price of air transportation which inflates the cost of milk, toilet paper, diapers and everything Sen. McCain’s constituents can find in a box store or shopping mall," Begich said in prepared statement.

UPDATE: I spoke briefly with Michael Morgan, director of operations for Fairbanks-based Warbelow's Air Ventures, which is receiving more than $575,000 from the program to provide regular flights to five communities.

Small towns and villages were promised they would not lose service when airline service was deregulated, he said. Under the subsidy, a one-way ticket from Circle to Fairbanks is about $99, he said.

It'll be "significantly" more if the program disappears, Morgan said. "The net result will be less frequent service and higher ticket prices."

Reporter Erika Bolstad has more from D.C.:

Both Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young also are expected to vigorously oppose any cuts to the service, even in the face of the anti-spending mood in Congress.

"It is how we provide for a level of commerce in some very remote areas, and it is a level of assistance that quite honestly allows our families to be sustainable in areas where fuel costs are through the roof, where food costs are out of sight and where otherwise it is almost impossible to be able to afford to live there," Murkowski told Gannett News Service last week.

Neither Young nor Murkowski was available Thursday. However, Young has also been a supported of the service. As recently as July, he touted in a press release the $196 million he landed in a transportation bill for Essential Air Service routes in Alaska.

“This money is going to help Alaskans travel easier and safer and will create new Alaskan jobs,” he said at the time.

Former Sen. Ted Stevens was a long-time defender of the subsidies, and in 2008 criticized proposed cuts to the service in President George W. Bush’s final budget.

Finally, here's a more big-picture take today from The AP:

Rural air subsidies test resolve to cut spending

By JOAN LOWY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A senator who is a key figure in aviation issues vowed Thursday to fight off an attempt to eliminate a program that subsidizes air service to small airports, often in remote communities.

The proposal is shaping up as an early test in the new Congress of conservatives' zeal for shrinking the federal government.

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller said the proposal to eliminate the $200 million essential air service program is a "nonstarter." He is the chief sponsor of a bill to authorize Federal Aviation Administration programs for the next two years that opponents are trying to amend to eliminate the air service subsidies.

"It makes no sense to choke off rural residents' access to air travel and their connection to jobs and family," the West Virginia Democrat said in a statement. "I will fight tooth and nail against any proposal to eliminate or cut funding for this critical program."

Schaeffer

Yesterday a Kotzebue jury convicted Patrick Tickett, 22, of manslaughter, first-degree assault and drunken driving following a 2008 accident that killed Roger Gollub of Anchorage and seriously injured Kotzebue musher Tracey Schaeffer.

Schaeffer sustained seven broken ribs, a shattered spleen, a ruptured diaphragm and a damaged aorta, among other injuries, she said.

Today she described her reaction to the jury's verdict:

By TRACEY SCHAEFFER

I can’t really use the word “pleased” about any aspect of this entire situation, since Roger is still gone and the fact that between the two of us we have given decades of our lives to working with the youth of this region and then to have something like this happen is devastating.

UPDATE: I've asked a member of the jury and the defense attorney if they'd like to comment on the verdict. Meantime, a Kotzebue musher who was seriously injured in this accident wrote her thoughts on the trial. You can read them here.

A Kotzebue jury found snowmachiner Patrick Tickett guilty Tuesday of manslaughter, first-degree assault and drunken driving in the 2008 death of an Anchorage doctor.

From Alaska dogs on Animal Planet to Bush pilots on Discovery to state Troopers on National Geographic, you can hardly turn on cable television without flipping past an Alaska-based reality show.

But are they any good?

You tell us. Here's a quick survey asking Daily News readers to rate the recent crop of Alaska TV series. Best? Worst? Give each a rating from 1 to 5, and we'll include the results in an upcoming story:

Fairbanks ice hotel mogul and geothermal energy advocate Bernie Karl is back, and he's still thinking big.

After a week of high winds and blizzard conditions a ray of sunshine briefly shines on the City of Savoonga. Photo by Octavia Thompson, DHS&EM.

This today from the state Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management:

(Meantime, I've asked how much money is going to be available to the city and other village organizations.)

ANCHORAGE – The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHS&EM) has sent a Public Assistance Disaster Recovery Team to Savoonga and the Norton Sound area to conduct Public Assistance applicant briefings, take Public Assistance Applications, and provide disaster recovery technical assistance. The state’s Public Assistance program provides funds to state, tribal, and local governments, as well as certain private-nonprofit organizations, to repair eligible critical infrastructure damaged as a result of a declared state disaster.

From the recent cold snap:

Location: Noatak, Jan. 23. -52 below. Photo courtesy of Keith Norton.

By BECKY BOHRER
Associated Press

JUNEAU — House Majority Leader Alan Austerman expects one or two rural house districts to be lost this year when political lines are redrawn based on new population data.

Austerman says that population shifts over the last decade suggest urban districts will get smaller, while rural districts and those in the bush will get bigger.

The Kodiak Republican says that's a concern because it will leave individual lawmakers with huge swaths of territory, with a wide range of communities and interests to represent.

National Geographic's "Alaska State Troopers" show heads for Diomede:

How do Alaskans feel about appearing on this show?

UPDATE: Don't miss the audio slideshow version of this essay by Daily News photographer Anne Raup.

Formerly of Savoonga, Yaari Kingeekuk now works in Anchorage for the Alaska Native Heritage Center.
(Photo by Brian Adams)

By YAARI KINGEEKUK

Every single day I think of my grandparents, I think of my ancestors. I am a product of my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and my great-great grand parents. I am a product of my ancestors. I walk in a world that is different from my ancestors; but I carry with me all the things they taught us through generations. Most importantly, they taught me who I am, and what I am.

When I think about my ancestors, I'm amazed at the things they taught. As I sit at my desk hand sewing a Native game ball, I'm in awe and think in details and talk to my ancestors quietly inside, "Your stitches are amazing. Your ideas are amazing. How you made perfect lines without using a pen and to make perfect lines without a ruler is amazing. How you used your hands on hides is amazing. Thank you for such a beautiful gift."

By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com

The former head of a state agency that helps village leaders win grants, secure winter fuel and avoid IRS debt says Gov. Sean Parnell is favoring economic development over the concerns of rural Alaskans.

This week, she started a blog about it.

Among the first posts is a 230-word essay that says Parnell’s proposal to reduce oil taxes could hurt villages by draining money from a program that shares state cash with towns and cities.

“Safeguards need to be built in. Communities, small villages, will receive less,” wrote Tara Jollie, a Sarah Palin-appointee who says she was told she’d lost her job as director of the Division of Community and Regional Affairs in mid-January.

A spokesman for Parnell said Jollie is wrong.

“The governor supports community revenue sharing as demonstrated by his current budget proposal to fully fund it at $60 million,” Sharon Leighow wrote in an e-mail.

This image taken from security video released by Oregon State Police on Wednesday shows a man identified as David Durham wearing camouflage clothing and a black beret in what appears to be a convenience store, about 30 minutes before Lincoln City police officer Steven Dodds was shot during a traffic stop Sunday night. Durham's brother said the man seemed to lose touch with reality months ago. He was particularly struck by a movie about aliens abducting people in Alaska, which he mistook for a documentary. (AP Photo/Oregon State Police)

The brother of an Oregon man accused of shooting a police officer and fleeing into the woods says he knew something was wrong when the man mistook a movie about aliens invading Alaska for a documentary.

“It made us do a double-take,” said Michael Durham, whose brother David Anthony Durham is on the run from police.

Investigators found Durham’s dog, Huckleberry, but no sign of the 43-year-old outdoorsman, according to The Associated Press.

The story doesn’t list the name of the recently released movie.

“The Fourth Kind,” released in 2009 and starring Milla Jovovich, is the story of aliens abducting people in Nome. That film marketed itself as a true story based on real footage shot in Alaska. The film is presented to audiences as a combination of archival video and re-enactments.

It was, of course, baloney.

Neighbors told the Portland NBC affiliate that Durham said something about an alien “telling him what to do.”

Earlier this week I wrote a little bit about money troubles at the Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association -- a non-profit that hosts and funds sled dog races in Northwest Alaska. The short version: The group told the IRS that it fired a worker who was suspected of embezzlement and has discovered unexpected debts that could lead to smaller purses for mushers.

A separate group, the Kobuk 440 Racing Association, puts on the middle distance race that caps the Alaska racing season. They have traditionally relied on the KDMA for a major portion of their money and are making an aggressive fund-raising push this year to hold the Kobuk 440 that mushers are used to.

Tonight, I wanted to put up a little more information about the Kobuk 440 fund-raising efforts, including how you can get involved.

For the latest info, visit the race blog at http://kobuk440.blogspot.com or visit the the Facebook page.

Here's a recent letter from race association president Chuck Schaeffer that explains what they're looking for and how to help:

The Kobuk 440 Sled Dog Race is a middle distance sled dog race that is held annually during the second weekend in April. It has been in existence for the past 25 years. It is the ultimate challenge for a dog musher. It is also a qualifying race for both the Iditarod sled dog race and the Yukon Quest. The K440 goes through 7 of the NANA Region villages. It involves bringing a lot of people together throughout the region during its course. The race starts on a Thursday afternoon and is usually over by Sunday morning.

Northwestern crew: Deckhand Nick Mavar Jr., Deck Boss/Engineer Edgar Hansen, Deckhand Matt Bradley, Deckhand Norman Hansen, Captain Sig Hansen, Deckhand Stan Hansen. As seen in Deadliest Catch. (Photo by Jeremy Walter)

By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com

Want to know more about accusations that a state
Fish and Game inspector accepted $100 from “Deadliest Catch” star and Northwestern captain Sig Hansen after looking over his boat?

Here’s the criminal complaint filed Friday in state court against fish and wildlife technician Melanie Bakker, 26.

She’s accused of accepting “unlawful gratuity," a misdemeanor under state law.

The charges say Hansen offered to buy Bakker dinner after she performed a one-hour, on-the-clock gear inspection of the Northwestern on Saturday, Jan. 15.

Bakker refused the meal, the charges say:

Hansen then gave her $100 which she initially refused. Hansen became insistent that she take the money to buy her and a friend dinner. Bakker finally relented and took the $100.

Police say Bakker visited the shop of artist Carolyn Reed later that day and told Reed she’d received $100 for doing the inspection.

“Bakker said she was conflicted on what to do with the money,” the charges say. “Bakker took out a $100 bill and purchased $35 worth of gifts from Reed’s shop.”

Reed, contacted by phone today, refused to comment.

I did speak briefly with area management biologist Heather Fitch, who supervises some of the state technicians.

While Fitch said she couldn’t comment on the case, she said the inspections are a mandatory step for each vessel, each year, before they can go commercial fishing.

“It’s like getting the tabs for your truck,” she said.

“For all vessels that fish crab out here, we go down to the boat, we do a courtesy gear inspection to see if it’s in compliance for the fishery,” Fitch said.

She said she can’t remember a boat failing to pass the routine inspections, which end with Fish and Game filling out a form that registers the vessel for fishing.

The criminal complaint doesn’t specifically say whether Hansen’s boat passed inspection, though Fitch said “they are currently registered for the fishery.”

Here’s more from Unalaska public radio station KUCB which first reported the story earlier this week.

Bakker has a court appearance scheduled Feb. 18 in Unalaska, according to court records.

Not a fan of the show? Meet Hansen as he answers fans' questions about the crab fishing on the Bering Sea:

From troopers today:

A package arrives Tuesday in Craig smelling like pot, prompting authorities go to the sender's house. There, they spot men loading marijuana plants into a car and seize a suspected grow operation.

Location: Ketchikan
Type: Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance IV x 4

Wow.

(If you missed it over the holidays, here's the back story.)