Kaylin Holmes

A missing hiker sparked a two day search effort in Kachemak Bay State Park earlier this week, and a new guardian is watching over the treacherous waters of Lynn Canal, where several historic shipwrecks happened.

An Anchor Point woman died from an all-terrain vehicle crash last week, and every year the Arctic gets millions of feathery visitors, who come to the region specifically to raise their young. The visitors - a small shorebird called the long-billed dowitcher travel thousands of miles to the vast, open tundra.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game opened parts of the Chenik Subdistrict to commercial fishing last Sunday, and the City of Homer approved a contract for a new city manager at Monday night's meeting, and last week was the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge’s annual Fish Week celebration, held each July to commemorate the region’s salmon population through educational activities. With the help of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, the refuge hosted a salmon leather-making workshop as part of the week’s festivities.

Art galleries across Homer feature artists as part of its First Friday offerings, and Homer residents banded together on a nearly weeklong search for Moonie — a missing mini husky.

911 services on the Kenai Peninsula have been restored after a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike disrupted Microsoft computer systems around the globe Thursday night, and the Fairbanks North Star Borough Animal Shelter is at capacity for dogs, with limited options for those that can’t be adopted out quickly, and the Seldovia Bay Ferry is temporarily suspending its sailings until further notice.

The Sitka Homeless Coalition is starting construction on a project that will provide permanent supportive housing to Sitkans in need, and a college student from Bethel and Emmonak has been crowned Miss World Eskimo Indian Olympics.

Waters of the East Nuka Subdistrict in Lower Cook Inlet opened this morning for commercial fishing, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and as sockeye salmon counts begin to climb, fishing is in full swing on the Kenai Peninsula. A popular access point for anglers is Sportsman’s Landing, where the Kenai and Russian Rivers converge.

The Homer Planning Commission will once again consider a conditional use permit application for a hotel development at the base of the Homer Spit, and the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly approved last week a resolution allowing South Peninsula Hospital to remodel a building that will become its childcare center, and residents of the Northwest Arctic might have noticed a low-flying, brightly-colored classic airplane buzzing around. The plane belongs to a German research institute that is mapping remote landscapes.

This month marks ten years since the Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s Dena’ina Wellness Center opened its doors in Kenai, and Seldovia Village Tribe became the first federally recognized Alaska Native tribe to get its TsunamiReady certification, according to a press release from the tribe last week.

The City of Homer secured funding for the second year of a study looking into the feasibility of expanding its harbor, and the Kuskokwim community of Akiachak has a brand new health clinic.