Results tagged “alaska”

Royal Caribbean, which offers offers seven-day cruises that depart Terminal 91 for Alaska every week, got a D in sewage treatment and an F in air pollution reduction. Slate estimates that your carbon footprint doubles each day you're on a cruise. You might as well idle your car for a week instead.

It's not murder on the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam, says a spokeperson, but it may be suicide. Alaska state troopers say Washington's Amber Malkuch, 45, went missing Monday morning while the ship was visiting Glacier Bay National Park, northwest of Juneau. A woman's body was found in the 57-degree water at 4:30 p.m. Monday, but hasn't been positively identified.

Anchorage is just about the same distance from Seattle as Chicago, yet it falls to Seattlest to chronicle not the latest Obama puppy story but an Alaska fish tale.

Finally an "Orange" alert level that means something: "An erupting Mount Redoubt exploded again this morning at 4:31 a.m.--its fifth and strongest discharge yet," sending ash to 60,000 feet. Travelers may have some delays to look forward to; the Anchorage airport is open, but Alaska Air has canceled 19 flights. Meanwhile, the volcano is at "Red" alert, as more activity may be on the way.

The Yukon keta salmon carpaccio comes on a frosty plate, thinly sliced, with fennel and red onion salad, drizzled with lemon oil and smoked sea salt. In the glass, chilled Willamette Valley Vineyards pinot gris. Sublime.

The first update today on Alaska's ballot count: Now it's Begich by 2,374 votes. That's a 0.77% difference between Begich and Stevens, which would not trigger an automatic recount. Keep checking for updates here.

Approximately 24,000 Alaska ballots from the 2008 election will be counted today, and then we should know if Uncle Tubes/convicted felon Ted Stevens has officially lost his Senate seat. (The only ballots remaining after today will be those votes received from overseas, which, if postmarked by midnight on November 4th, will be accepted until Wednesday.) As it currently stands, Dem challenger Mark Begich is up by 1,022 votes, a difference of 0.35%. If the votes are split by less than 0.5%, there will be a state-funded recount, but if Begich picks up a few more votes, this thing--and Sen. Stevens' and Sarah Palin's career--could be done for good. Keep checking Alaska's election results here.

As we mentioned yesterday, for the first time in the Alaska Senate race, Democratic challenger Mark Begich took the lead over tubesy felon Ted Stevens by just three em-effing votes. Well, as of late last night, Begich's lead had grown to 814 votes, which is comparatively huge. And things just might get better; Sean Quinn of everybody's favorite number-crunching website notes, "As we've pointed out and has been pointed out elsewhere, the remaining votes come from Begich-friendly districts. Mark Begich is now an overwhelming favorite to win the Alaska Senate seat." We know Stevens ain't gonna go down without a fight, but Washington's "third Senator" might want to start looking at his retirement options.

A week after the election, Alaska's still hard at work counting their absentee ballots. Prior to today, incumbent US Senator/old coot/convicted felon Ted Stevens' lead over Dem challenger Mark Begich had been 3,257 votes. This morning, the state started to tally its approximately 90,000 votes that remain to be counted, and the gap whittled down to 971 votes--until just now, when, after elections officials had sorted through 43,000 of those ballots, it was announced that for the first time Begich was up. By three votes. As the Anchorage Daily News reports: "The elections division still has over 10,000 ballots left to count today and thousands more through next week, but the latest numbers show Mark Begich leading Sen. Ted Stevens 125,019 to 125,016."

The New Yorker is reporting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin began actively campaigning for the vice-presidential gig almost immediately after she took the governor's office in early 2007. A key component to her vice-presidential strategy was to schmooze high-falutin' conservatives who were passengers on two Seattle-based Holland America cruise ships in the summer and fall of that year.

Sudden celeb Sarah Palin, John McCain's Vice Presidential pick, has canceled a scheduled appearance next week in Seattle. Palin was the guest of honor (see: big money draw) at a fundraiser set for the 24th, but she won't be attending due to 'scheduling conflicts.' Palin will likely be in Michigan or some other swing state stumping for McCain. Since you won't be able to see the Tina Fey look-a-like in the flesh, we leave you this: the Sarah Palin baby name generator. If Sarah Palin was your mom what would your name be? Henceforth, we'd like to be called by our Alaskan name, Charcoal Sniper Palin.

Sarah Palin and her husband Tom are members of a Seahawks fan club up in Alaska. Seth Kolloen at Sports Northwest confirmed it with the president of that club earlier today:

In Gourmet's excellent "Politics of the Plate" series, Barry Estabrook reports today on Alaska's Clean Water Initiative. It would have protected salmon by capping pollutants from the proposed Pebble Mine on Bristol Bay. But the measure went down to defeat in an election last month. Biggest winner: the mining industry. Biggest loser: the Bristol Bay salmon fleet. Biggest opponent of the Clean Water Initiative: the state's sitting governor, Sarah Palin, whose (ahem, pregnant and unmarried) daughter happens to be named Bristol.

Alaska Airlines has been forced to cancel all flights in and out of Anchorage, Alaska due to volcanic activity. Passengers waiting at Sea-Tac on Sunday were allegedly told by Alaska Airline staff that the entire state was "unflyable" due to a plume of volcanic ash. All 11 flights to Anchorage from Sea-Tac on Monday have been canceled.

The most senior (and it's said most powerful) Republican in the U.S. Senate, Ted Stevens was indicted by a federal grand jury for not mentioning the $250,000 in labor and materials he received from a construction company. Veco Corp. actually lifted Stevens' house in the air while a new first floor was built, and no money changed hands. They also threw in a Viking grill. If you have had any remodeling done lately, you know that's a pretty sweet deal. Normally, you pay contractors through the nose, and to get them to finish before your kids start calling the hotel "home," you throw in the grill.

Throw away your razors, guys, and embrace your inner mountain man: it's time to start cultivating your entry in the first ever North American Beard and Moustache championship. The prestigious follicle competition will take place in Bremerton, Wash. on July 5th. The competition, put on by Bremerton's Whisker Club, is expected to bring moustaches, as well as the faces to which they are attached, from as far away as Europe.

Either there's some serious Heisenberg Effect happening on Discovery Channel's Alaskan fishing Reality show The Deadliest Catch, or the producers are giving us a severe whitewashing. If you're like us and everything you know about Alaskan fishing comes directly from the show you might think that while there are some hard dudes around they are mostly serious professionals interested in carrying out family traditions safely and effectively under the watchful eyes of benevolent and all-powerful captains.

Twenty-one years ago, a suburban Seattle elementary school science class signed type-written messages, put them in bottles, and dropped them in Puget Sound. Earlier this month, Merle Brandell, a bear hunter in Alaska found one of the soda bottles in the Bering Sea and was intrigued by the message. The letter read:

[This letter] is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands.Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung.

Brandell, who discovered the message, did his part to try and contact the little girl who wrote the letter. However, his calls to the North City School, which was identified in the letter, went unanswered. So Brandell sent the school district a letter, and was surprised to discover the North City School was long closed and the little girl who had written the letter was now a woman. Emily Hwaung, is now Emily Shih and is a 30-year-old accountant who still calls Seattle home.

[Via Komo] We've been loosely planning our Alaska adventure for a few weeks now. Loosely, we say, because we haven't actually made any reservations yet. Mostly we've just been cruising the web, gathering information and daydreaming about sitting out on the deck of a ferry as it makes its way through the inside passage of America's 49th state.