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A wildfire in the eastern Aleutians has been contained at 69 acres, according to the Alaska Division of Forestry; two bills that would tighten regulations on the group of chemicals known as PFAS are stalled in committee as Alaska’s legislative session draws to a close; and hundreds of thousands of tourists come to see whales in Alaska, and sharing space with the sea mammals isn’t always easy.

Eight Aleutian businesses were awarded $3,000 each in late April as part of a new microgrant program from the Aleutian Marketplace. Grant recipients range from an ice cream shop in King Cove to a notary in Unalaska to commercial fishermen in Sand Point. A total of $24,000 worth of grant money was distributed throughout the region. It’s the first of two rounds of grants through the partnership between the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association, TelAlaska, Wells Fargo and the Aleut Corporation. The organizations work with community members, small business owners and creative entrepreneurs throughout the region in an attempt to help fuel local economies.

New data from drone surveys flown over Unalaska’s three road-system lakes last summer show low sockeye salmon counts. The counts total less than half of what they were in summer of 2020, according to data released in April by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. But Fish and Game biologist Tyler Lawson said the one-year drop isn’t too concerning. Escapement numbers often fluctuate and there’s more room for error in aerial surveys, he said. “We call them a ‘high error survey,’ which kind of sounds bad, but it's just because in comparison to the weir — which is a very precise tool — there's variability whenever you're up in the air, looking down and trying to count salmon,” he said. While the technology is still relatively new when it comes to counting salmon in Unalaska, Lawson said he’s hopeful that drones will play a key role in helping assess broader trends among salmon stocks in the region.

Eight Aleutian businesses were awarded $3,000 each in grants in late April as part of a new “micro grant” program; a group of law professors is critical of the Ninth Circuit for a March split ruling, which cleared the way for a land swap to create a lifesaving road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge; and hundreds of voters in Alaska watched the results in this year's Philippine national election.

Sand Point upgraded its travel lift at the Robert E. Galovin Small Boat Harbor. Also known as a boat gantry crane, the travel lift hoists boats out of the water for repairs or storage. Jordan Keeler is the city administrator for the Eastern Aleutians community. He said the former travel lift was about 40 years old and needed to be replaced.

Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary, made no commitments to building a road long sought by residents that would cut through a national wildlife refuge on the Alaska Peninsula. But she listened intently on a whirlwind day of flights, tours and meetings.

Six Western Alaska nonprofits can now apply for a slice of nearly $200 million in federal loans to pay for fishing vessels, quota and other industry expenses to support economic development in their region. The long-term loans are from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and are exclusively available to the Western Alaska Community Development Quota Program. The CDQ program is made up of six nonprofit groups that are tasked with supporting economic development and wellbeing in communities on the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands through fisheries revenues.

It was still dark at Unalaska’s Robert Storrs Small Boat Harbor, just before 5 a.m. on a fair spring morning. Normally, Dustan Dickerson and his three-man crew would be warming up the engine of the 54-foot Raven Bay by now so they could head out a few miles to haul and set cod pots, eat, sleep and repeat for a couple days before returning home. But on this mid-March morning, the crew was joined by three sleepy-eyed greenhorns: Corynn Lekanoff, Kaidon Parker and Anatoly Fomin. The three local teens were headed out for a day trip to get a glimpse into the life of Unalaska’s small boat fishermen. The trip is part of an outreach program led and started earlier this year by Dickerson, captain and owner of the Raven Bay. It’s meant to provide local youth with the chance to get on a boat and see what fishing is all about.

ABOARD THE PINNACLE, Bering Sea — Through the wheelhouse window, captain Mark Casto spotted a white line on the horizon. The edge of an ice floe was illuminated by bow lights piercing the morning darkness of the Bering Sea. He throttled back the engines. Soon, the Seattle-based crab boat began to nose through closely packed pancake-like pieces and bigger craggy chunks, some the size of boulders, which bobbed about in the currents and clanged against the hull. Casto had hoped this patch of sea would yield a bountiful catch of snow crab to help fill up the boat. Nearby, a few hours earlier, he had set more than two dozen baited pots along the sea bottom. Now, he risked losing them in the fast-moving ice.

The Unalaska Public Library moved into its temporary location at the Burma Road Chapel in early April. And while some things are new and some are missed, lovers of Alaska history will be happy to know they can still hang out and read about the Aleutians. Peat has worked at the library for around 17 years, acquiring a vast knowledge of everything Alaska and Aleutians — from Alaska statehood and the Valdez oil spill to shipping in Alaska and Russian exploration. “He’s the person I refer anyone to when they have questions about Alaskana stuff,” said library assistant Katie Huling. “His knowledge of the history of this island is just phenomenal.”