Alaska News Brief June 2025—What the midnight sun reveals
The sun ignites life, and a whole world rises up.
The rhubarb in my front and back yards turn into a magnificent sprawl of umbrella leaves and ruddy stems. Raspberry stalks turn from stark to rowdy overnight. Lilac flowers chant in white and purple bursts. The dog park where Jasper and I go to play looks like a rally of leaves in every shade of green, and below them, colorful flowers and berries show up.
This year’s rhubarb in Vicki’s garden. Photo by Dawnell Smith.
This is how the sun reveals its annual lesson to me—that through its radiance comes energy, and we all need to do something with it.
Here it is again, the sun warming my face and telling me to get outside and get to work, to put it to good use. To grow, uplift, renew. To nourish those who come behind me.
Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake after a long winter and so many grey weeks like we just had in Anchorage. It can feel oppressive when it goes on so long; I can feel exhausted at times at the very time the energy is right there in front of me.
The political climate and the ideological divisions that demonize people and foment violence can feel like that long winter. It’s exhausting to hear the name calling and propaganda used to justify cruelty.
Seeing people gather in opposition to that brutality, seeing them expressing joy and care feels radiant, too. It didn’t take long for people to see for themselves in their cities and towns how this administration’s promise to deport “the worst of the worst” has turned into a rending of families, economies, and communities.
When people see harm done by their government with their own eyes, hearts (and pocketbooks), and see their government employ law enforcement and military force to threaten or enact violence against their neighbors and community, they can turn their anger and frustration into purposeful action, generating hope and collective care.
That happened last weekend. That happened despite the threat of force and the Saturday morning assassinations of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, as well as the nearly deadly shootings of another lawmaker and his wife—both in their homes.
In thousands of gatherings across the country, people showed up with cardboard signs, music, dancing, and a shared drive to assert government for the people and by the people. Millions of folks with varied and specific concerns and grievances took to the streets.
For me, this amassing of people offered its own miraculous radiance. Millions of people chose to stay visibly, loudly engaged, and that participation matters right now. There will be town halls and public conversations.
All of us need to use that energy and sustain it, write letters to legislators and news editors, show up at town halls, make calls, go to rallies and gatherings, and have meaningful conversations about what we the people want. There’s more to do, much more. There will be more.
In the western Arctic. By Carl Johnson
In fact, I urge you right now to send a message to legislators about the ongoing effort to gut western Arctic landscapes vital to local communities, animals, and future generations. Just sign this Wilderness League petition telling legislators to stop a public land giveaway and safeguard 13 million acres from polluters.
Signing your name matters. Showing up every time that you can matters. Taking a deep breath and remembering why it matters also matters. And sometimes using those red stalks of rhubarb to make an upside-down cake to share at the office after a hard week matters, too.
All of us belong in this cycle of energy and light, and we owe it to ourselves to keep putting up shoots and sprawling out and generating hope and care.
See you in the canopy, see you on the ground!
PS. Thanks to supporters like you, we can continue fighting to protect Alaska’s land, water, air, wildlife and people.
The 22.8 million acre Western Arctic, includes important nesting habitat for migratory birds. BLM photo by Bob Wick.
Court ruling lets ConocoPhillips dig in on the Willow oil project
Fishing at sunset on Frying Pan Lake. Photo by Erin McKittrick.
What does the Clean Water Act do, and how do we safeguard it during a deregulation dumpster fire?
A sunset hitting barnacle-covered rocks at low tide in Glacier Bay National Park. Photo courtesy of National Park Service.