Following Governor Mike Dunleavy’s April 2021 proposal to allow ATVs and snowmachines on Alaska highways, the City of Palmer recently announced that they would be hosting “Monster Jam 2021” along the Glenn Highway near the Alaska State Fairgrounds.  The press release from the Monster Jam event series announced the highway venue as “the latest evolution for Monster Jam. We are excited to take our event series literally onto the road, and to bring some of our greatest legends to Alaska.”  The monster truck series will run for a full weekend in mid-July, and will feature fan favorite trucks Gravedigger, Megalodon, and Great Clips Mohawk Warrior, along with a motocross jump series feature to open the event.  Asked about the legality of holding a monster truck rally on a state highway, Alaska’s assistant highway commissioner Josh Leutzinger said, “With new regulations expected to take effect for off-road vehicles, there’s nothing on the books preventing the ev...

Palmer resident Duane Poseur, who harvested a bull moose in his driveway on September 1 on his first day as an official Alaska resident, plans to return home to California after fulfilling his Alaska hunting dream. According to neighbors who witnessed the event, Poseur dispatched the moose with 17 shots from an AR-15: one in the lower gut, one in the rear hindquarters, one on the rear right hoof, the remaining 14 shots missing the animal. When Poseur arrived in the Mat-Su valley 365 days ago from Chico, California, he knew he was in for a long, cold winter.  He arrived on August 31, one day before the opening of the general season for moose in the area.  He suffered through a full year of unemployment and separation from his wife while awaiting his Alaska resident status, and exactly one year later on September 1, Poseur harvested a bull moose munching on his wheatgrass crop in the backyard garden. “I went from having two taco trucks and a boba shop just aroun...

  Politicians who face limited options for locating state revenue sources may be in for a windfall under the latest version of the governor’s budget package. Dunleavy’s most recent fiscal plan proposes to sell the islands of the Aleutian chain back to Russia. Dunleavy’s plan for fiscal year 2022, titled “ A Path Forward, ” sets forth several provisions to give Alaska residents permanent fund dividend payments that many claim have been unconstitutionally withheld during the past half-decade of budget shortfalls.  Russia held control of Alaska for nearly 75 years in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. They sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for 7.2 million dollars. The Dunleavy proposal comes with an asking price of 350 million dollars.  "When you account for inflation, that’s more than double what the United States paid for the entire state in 1867. So really, we are coming out ahead in a lot of ways,” said Dunleavy spokesperson Jeff Turner....

The Alaska Citizens Militia in Nikiski faced a serious setback to its movement this week when members discovered that much of their cache of discounted military equipment had been raided by ravens and gray jays.  Several expanded assault rifle magazines, a box of QAnon patches, and an unknown number of expired military rations—MREs—went missing on Saturday afternoon, while members were in Soldotna restocking supplies at the local Sav-U-More.  Paul Norman, a Baptist pastor who formed the group after moving to Nikiski around 2010, said that at first they suspected that either federal authorities or antifa members were likely culprits. “We didn’t figure it would be the local meth addicts or teenagers. Most of those people know what we’re about here, and they know to leave well enough alone,” said Norman.  In response to the vandalism, members initiated an armed neighborhood patrol. Militia members have regularly enacted such patrols in recent years as budget...

When Eagle River resident Laura Luftkin discovered a black bear had snuck into the basement of her Hiland Road home on Sunday, she feared for her family’s safety because the bear was not wearing a mask. Luftkin had just arrived home from her bi-monthly trip to the Safeway parking lot to pick up an online grocery order when she heard a clatter behind the door to the basement. A quick look down the stairs revealed a shredded couch, broken window, and a young bruin tangled in Playstation cables.  “I shouted down the stairs, ‘Hello Mr. Bear! I kindly ask that you wear a mask when you are in our home. May I ask, are you vaccinated?’” said Ms. Luftkin.  COVID-19 conscious Luftkin tossed a medical mask down the stairs for the bear, but the bear used the mask’s elastic to shoot it back up the stairs like a rubber band before using its claws to slice open and lick out various jugs of cleaning chemicals and automotive lubricants. “I’m still two weeks away from getting my...

Governor Mike Dunleavy’s 2018  campaign promise  to deliver a “$6,700 Permanent Fund Dividend” has been thwarted by an administrative error, as apparent confusion over the acronym “PFD” resulted in all Alaskans qualified to receive the 2021 check instead receiving thousands of personal flotation devices. ​ Recent changes to state treasury operations may be to blame for the costly error. In recent months, a variety of state services have been slated to be outsourced to businesses outside of Alaska. According to a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Permanent Fund Division, a Florida accounting firm tasked with distributing “PFD Checks” may have confused the acronym “Permanent Fund Dividend” with “Personal Flotation Device.” “It is clear that an amalgamated allocation was allotted to appropriate asset stakeholders, but asymmetrical inaccuracies equated an a priori annualized error. Our analytical team is working to address an alternative equity d...

  Famed miner of the Klondike gold rush Sam McGee has returned from the ashes and found the weather in Alaska to be a little warmer than when he last wandered its frozen expanse.   Notoriously sensitive to the cold, McGee gained worldwide notoriety as the protagonist of  Robert Service’s popular poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” a 1907 ballad memorized by every self-respecting Alaskan as a middle school English assignment.  According to the ballad, McGee was last seen over one hundred years ago on bitter cold winter night inside a blazing coal boiler of a derelict barge – on the marge of Canada’s Lake LeBarge, in which his companion stuffed his frozen corpse as his last dying request.  Shockingly, McGee was reanimated by the boiler’s inferno, and he declared it was the first time he’d been warm since having left his home in Plumtree, Tennessee. The world last knew of Sam McGee in this memorable moment of rising from the dead, comfortably curle...