Alaska

The fishermen descend almost before we even make it through the door of the rattletrap bar. They beg us for a game of pool, conversation, anything. The bearded guys hunched over their beers rivet their eyes on us. There's a guitarist at the open mike who, as soon as he spots Annie, stops strumming and says, "I'm dedicating this song to you. " A fisherman with scraggly hair plants himself in front of me and launches into his life story. Once he shot a man. He's about to leave on a fishing boat that will be away from...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A rookie's disappearance during a popular extreme race on Alaska's rugged Mount Marathon has led to significant new rules in the event. Runners in the July Fourth race must make it halfway up the mountain in an hour or they will have to turn around, losing a chance to summit the 3,022-foot peak in Seward, about 110 miles south of Anchorage. The 900 participants registered for this year's race also must sign a statement saying they've already completed the treacherously...

There was a whole lot of clicking going on for our 10th annual photo contest. Cameras were snapping in jammed Indian cities and empty American ghost towns, atop a snowy Swiss peak and inside a Mongolian church. Lenses were focused on tanned farmers in Peru and cheetahs in South Africa. For that perfect image, you sweated it out in deserts, froze your toes on glaciers and looked into the maws of rock canyons. No subject went unnoticed: a Croatian moon, an abandoned van in Alaska, drying laundry, a friend's face.

JUNEAU, Alaska — It's cruise season in Alaska, with more than 1 million cruise passengers expected between April and September in port towns from Ketchikan to Seward. Cruise passengers who sign up for shore excursions can spend hundreds of dollars, if not more in the case of families, in each port they visit. Taking a helicopter to see Juneau-area ice fields can easily run $1,000 for a family of four for a one-hour trip. A nature tour near the tiny town of Ketchikan can run $89 for...

When I visited Alaska nearly a decade ago, the idea of having a family was an abstract concept. By the time I vacationed there this summer, two small children were ruling my daily existence. I first journeyed to the 49th state in 2003 with three friends, on a trip that entailed sleeping late, hiking wherever and whenever we wanted and relaxing over a few beers at night. This year, I went to report on several stories for The Post, and my husband and I decided that we might as well combine the assignment with a family vacation.

The prospect of once again hitting the federal debt ceiling has provoked the ritual round of hand-wringing about the intractable nature of this $16 trillion conundrum. But there is a simple, elegant option that involves no tax increases, no spending cuts and just a bit of imagination. Sell Alaska. That's right. Put the entire state — from Juneau to Deadhorse, from the Bering Strait to the Beaufort Sea — on the auction block. Absurd? No more absurd than the spectacle taking place right now as...

Alaska is the deepest, most varied hues of green and the most sensual shades of blue. A sparkling iceberg rounded by the sun. The sunset's orange nudging away the day's light. The air is clean. Alaska is Maine on steroids. I know that now. But at about this time last year, Alaska was nothing but an idea. Our family of four still hadn't decided on a summer vacation, and panic had taken hold. Alaska was on the table, but we didn't want to take one of those big cruises. As it turned out, a map, a credit card and a couple of hours on the Internet...

Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and GOP "It" girl, can warm up the Republican base like a hot toddy in a duck blind. But further inside the party organization, the air is a little nippy. What happened? In a word, bungling. Everyone seems to have a Sarah Palin story of ignored calls, mishandled invitations or unanswered e-mail. Disorganized is how one might charitably describe the Palin operation. "Basically, it's just rude," says one political operative who is a Palin fan. "They've been running the great snub machine.

Gov. Sarah Palin "knows more about energy than probably anyone in the United States of America. " Sen. John McCain , NBC interview, Sept. 10 "My job has been to oversee nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas. " Gov. Sarah Palin, Golden, Colo., Sept. 15 The woman touted by John McCain as the most knowledgeable person in America on energy issues has been having a lot of trouble getting her basic energy statistics straight.

FIFTY MILES FROM TOMORROW A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People By William L. Iggiagruk Hensley Sarah Chrichton/Farrar Straus Giroux. 256 pp. $24 Late in this illuminating memoir, the author recounts a transcendent moment. The time is 1977, the place is Barrow, Alaska, and the occasion is a whaling convention that has evolved into a momentous gathering of Inuit (the "real people" as they call themselves) from the United States, Canada and Greenland. As William L. Iggiagruk Hensley explains, it's the first meeting of these...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A black bear that was killed near the scene of a deadly mauling in remote Alaska last week has been identified as the animal responsible, Alaska State Troopers said Tuesday. Robert Weaver, 64, was mauled Thursday outside a cabin at George Lake, about 110 miles southeast of Fairbanks. "Mr. Weaver's remains were found in the bear's stomach," troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said. But even that wasn't enough to prompt final determination since this bear could...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A 64-year-old Fairbanks man was mauled to death by a bear at a remote lake in Alaska's interior, authorities said Friday. The man and a family member were at a cabin at George Lake, about 110 miles southeast of Fairbanks, when the attack occurred Thursday evening. The family member sought shelter inside the cabin and called authorities, Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said. A troopers helicopter dispatched from Fairbanks was...

HONOLULU — A Hawaii high school student's design now adorns an Alaska Airlines jet. The airline says Kaiser High School student Aaron Nee's Hawaii-themed design was chosen from nearly 3,000 entries in the airline's "Paint-the-Plane" contest. The contest was sponsored by the airline in partnership with the Hawaii Department of Education and Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. The design depicts a voyaging canoe, a bright yellow hibiscus, the Hawaiian island chain...

A dispute over a proposed copper and gold mine near Alaska's Bristol Bay may be one of the most important environmental decisions of President Obama's second term — yet few are even aware that the fight is happening. At issue is a proposed mining operation in a remote area that is home to several Alaskan native tribes and nearly half of the world's sockeye salmon. Six tribes have asked the Environmental Protection Agency to invoke its powers under the Clean...

Three more states have received waivers from the U.S. Department of Education to free them from many of the requirements of No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era federal education law. Alaska, Hawaii and West Virginia join 37 other states and D.C. in getting relief from No Child Left Behind, in exchange for agreeing to make changes in education policy endorsed by the Obama administration. The states have agreed to prepare students for college and career, better focus aid on the neediest students...

Bruce Babbitt was interior secretary under President Bill Clinton. Jamie Rappaport Clark is president of Defenders of Wildlife and was director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Clinton administration. T he true price of Sally Jewell's confirmation as the new interior secretary is about to be revealed. Before agreeing not to fight Jewell's nomination last month, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) extracted a commitment from the Interior Department to delay a decision on whether a road can be built to the...

Q. In 2009, my college friends and I will turn 60. The group, five women, has already taken girl trips to Memphis, Hilton Head, San Francisco, the Napa Valley, Chicago and northeastern Florida. We want something special this time. Can you help? Jennifer Maloney, Gaithersburg A. This isn't a girl group, it's a 1982 Go-Go's world tour (and we have the T-shirt to prove it), but never mind. Robin Zell of Just Girl Trips studied your past itineraries closely, finding it odd that the five of you hadn't mixed it up in Las Vegas at some point, ridden...

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Sign up now for the 2011 "WND Tea Party at Sea," a week-long cruise to Alaska, Aug. 26 to Sept. 2, as a star-studded cast of speakers "sharpen and edify one another . . . sailing the pristine and majestic Alaska coastline. " WND, the animated Web ad says, stands for WorldNetDaily , which is the conservative media operation that focuses on, among other things, concerns about President Obama 's birthplace and various conspiracies to undermine our nation's freedoms.

TEXAS Probe narrows in killing of DA, wife Authorities investigating the deaths of a North Texas district attorney and his wife appear to have narrowed their focus to a former justice of the peace who was prosecuted last year by the official for theft. Eric L. Williams, 46, was arrested Saturday on a charge of making a terroristic threat and is being held in the Kaufman County jail on a $3 million bond. His arrest came after federal and local agents investigating the March...