"Port Heiden"

Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks will travel to Dillingham this week to continue erosion research in Bristol Bay’s coastal communities.

Satellite and webcam footage revealed small deposits of ash near the summit, but the ash cloud stayed below 10,000 feet.  

Port Heiden is losing shoreline, and they are losing it quickly. Wind and waves have pushed the coast inland by an average of about 30 feet this year.

“You can think of it as like a little cluster of earthquakes that, added together, might be sort of equivalent to a single, larger earthquake,” says seismologist Michael West.

North Alaskan peninsula sockeye returns were so high processors had to limit fishermen’s daily deliveries.

The communities of Port Heiden and Levelock want to take on that role themselves and – hopefully – keep more of the decisions, and the benefits, local.

Andrew Lind’s marine adventure turned into a near-death experience when he spent over an hour and a half in frigid water without a flotation device.

Each year, coastal communities in Western Alaska watch feet – even yards – of shoreline disappear into the waves. Now, a new online mapping tool will let them look at past erosion and see where coastlines might be in future years.

For the next three months, an experienced herder will stay in Port Heiden to teach everyone about the reindeer.

The researchers are looking to set a baseline for water temperature and are targeting salmon streams to see if temperatures are stressful to the fish.