Alaska's Friday Five

Trump heads north, election drama heats up, glaciers send a warning, Denali reconnects, and some very smart birds call the shots.

It is Friday in Alaska, which means there is plenty to unpack before we head into the weekend. This week brought a presidential promise to campaign in Alaska, another twist in an already extraordinary election season, a sobering reminder that what happens in mountains halfway around the world can matter here, a long-awaited milestone at Denali, and, because every Friday Five needs a little feathered levity, some Alaska raptors learning that cooperation works better than coercion.

☕️ Here are five stories worth knowing before you pour that second cup.

1. Trump Is Coming to Alaska for Dan Sullivan

President Donald Trump says he plans to come to Alaska to campaign for Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan as the November election approaches.

A political partnership with history: Sen. Dan Sullivan and his wife, Julie Sullivan, watch as President Donald Trump signs the Save Our Seas Act in 2018. Eight years later, Trump is backing Sullivan’s reelection bid and says he plans to campaign for the Alaska senator.
White House photo.

Trump made the announcement during a Sept. 2 dinner with Republican members of Congress, saying he intends to campaign aggressively for candidates in competitive races. When he got to Alaska, he focused squarely on the unusual Senate matchup between incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and Petersburg Republican Dan J. Sullivan.

Trump argued that the shared name could cost the incumbent votes and said he wants to campaign for the senator in Alaska.

That matters because the race is already anything but ordinary.

The Alaska Division of Elections certified the August primary results on Aug. 31. Democrat Mary Peltola led the field with 49.54% of the vote, followed by incumbent Dan S. Sullivan with 41.40%. Dan J. Sullivan received 2.47%, enough to advance to the November general election.

And yes, Alaska will have two Dan Sullivans on the U.S. Senate ballot.

The presidential visit could turn an already unusual Alaska Senate race into a national campaign stop. It also puts a giant spotlight on a state where every percentage point could matter.

White House
Alaska Division of Elections 2026 Official Primary Results

2. Treg Taylor’s Election Trouble Isn’t Over

Former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor’s political troubles took another turn this week.

A campaign interrupted: Treg Taylor is pictured with his wife, Jodi, and their children in a family photo featured on his former gubernatorial campaign website. Taylor was removed from the 2026 governor’s race after the Alaska Division of Elections declined to certify his nomination following an Alaska Public Offices Commission finding that his financial disclosure did not substantially comply with state law.
Photo courtesy of Treg Taylor for Alaska Governor.

Anchorage Rep. Andrew Gray has asked Acting Attorney General Cori Mills to prosecute Treg Taylor and his wife, Republican lieutenant governor candidate Jodi Taylor, over alleged failures involving required financial disclosures.

That request comes after the Alaska Public Offices Commission determined that Treg Taylor’s 2026 public official financial disclosure did not substantially comply with Alaska law within the required time.

On Aug. 31, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom announced that the Division of Elections would not certify Taylor’s nomination for governor. APOC had voted 4-1 to recommend that result after finding Taylor had not substantially complied with the disclosure law by the statutory deadline.

The situation is now creating another election-calendar complication.

Jodi Taylor, who is running for lieutenant governor alongside gubernatorial candidate Candi English, has also filed a financial disclosure that includes a partial list of renters. Under state law, she has 30 days to amend the disclosure if necessary.

The problem? Alaska’s Division of Elections is preparing to send ballots to military and overseas voters beginning Sept. 18.

So the Taylor saga has moved from Who gets on the ballot? to a potentially thornier question: What happens if a candidate’s eligibility changes after ballots have already gone out?

For now, the prosecution request is just that: a request. No criminal charge against either Taylor is established by the state’s election decision.

Alaska Division of Elections: Treg Taylor Nomination Decision
Alaska Department of Law

3. Nepal’s Glacier Disaster Sends a Message Alaska Shouldn’t Ignore

A catastrophic landslide and flood in Nepal has produced a grim lesson with an Alaska connection.

When a glacier lets go: A glacial lake outburst flood pours from beneath Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, overflowing Mendenhall Lake. The dramatic scene is a reminder that glaciers are dynamic parts of Alaska’s landscape, capable of reshaping waterways and sending sudden surges of water downstream.
Photo: National Weather Service Juneau. Public domain.

The Alaska Earthquake Center reports that seismic waves from the massive Nepal event traveled across Alaska. Scientists are still working to determine precisely how much of the disaster resulted from a rock landslide, a glacier collapse, or the interaction of both.

The scale is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. Geological Survey says the slope failure involving glacier terrain generated energy equivalent to a magnitude 5.2 earthquake. The resulting debris flow and flood traveled roughly 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles.

But the Alaska connection isn’t simply that our instruments detected the event.

The physical ingredients sound familiar.

Alaska has glaciers, steep mountain terrain, landslides, rapidly changing permafrost and destructive outburst floods. Southeast Alaska has experienced extraordinary landslides, including the record-setting Lituya Bay event, while communities such as Juneau have dealt with dangerous glacier-related flooding.

The Alaska Earthquake Center says the Nepal disaster offers scientists a valuable calibration point for improving how quickly Alaska can estimate the size of landslides here.

In other words, the lesson isn’t Nepal happened, therefore Alaska is next.

It’s more useful than that: Mountain systems can change suddenly, and understanding those changes before they become disasters matters.

Alaska Earthquake Center: Nepal Landslide-Flood Lessons for Alaska
U.S. Geological Survey: 2026 Nepal Debris Avalanche and Flash Flood

4. Pretty Rocks Is Finally Pretty Remarkable

Five years after a landslide forced the closure of a critical section of the Denali Park Road, the Pretty Rocks Bridge is complete.

A new chapter for Denali: The completed Pretty Rocks Bridge stands ready to carry the park road into the future, replacing a section of roadway that had been steadily reshaped by the moving ground beneath it. The bridge is more than a crossing. It is a long-term answer to a landscape that refuses to stay still.
Completed September 2, 2026. NPS Photo.

The National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration celebrated the milestone Sept. 2.

The roughly 475-foot bridge spans the active landslide near Mile 45 of the Denali Park Road and reconnects the eastern and western portions of the road.

The price tag is substantial: about $230 million, funded through federal transportation, disaster supplemental and infrastructure dollars.

The engineering is equally remarkable.

The bridge was assembled on the east side of the landslide and launched across the unstable area before being lowered into its final position. It includes 23 thermosiphons, underground devices designed to help keep permafrost beneath part of the bridge frozen and stable.

But don’t pack the bus just yet.

Hikers and cyclists can now travel west of East Fork and across the new bridge. Bus service, however, will remain limited to East Fork for the rest of the 2026 season.

Full bus service along the Denali Park Road is expected to resume in 2027.

The Pretty Rocks story is more than a bridge story. It is also an engineering response to a landscape that is moving, thawing and changing beneath Alaska’s infrastructure.

And after five years, at least this chapter has a bridge at the end of it.

National Park Service: Pretty Rocks Bridge Complete
NPS Pretty Rocks Construction Updates

5. Anchorage Raptors Are Learning to Trust

And now, something considerably less apocalyptic.

Ambassador Breland: September marks 27 years since peregrine falcons were removed from the endangered species list. Bird TLC says reducing pesticide use can help protect these remarkable birds and the prey they depend on. Photo courtesy of Bird Treatment & Learning Center.

Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage is taking a different approach to working with its ambassador birds: Positive training.

Instead of relying on force, trainers work with the birds to build cooperation and trust. The center’s public programs feature birds including snowy owls Ghost and Frost, great horned owl Echo, bald eagle Culuk, peregrine falcon Breland, red-tailed hawk Keear, black-billed magpie Shavila and American crow Zahra.

The idea is simple but fascinating: the birds aren’t merely being handled for human entertainment. Trainers use species-specific behavior and positive reinforcement to teach the birds to participate in programs.

And Frost, one of the center’s snowy owls, has become one of the feathered stars of the operation.

That seems like a fitting Friday reminder from Alaska’s wildlife: sometimes the smartest way to get cooperation is to build trust first.

Bird Treatment and Learning Center: Public Programs

And That’s Alaska This Friday

Politics is getting louder, the mountains are reminding us who’s really in charge, Denali has a new bridge, and the birds may have the best management philosophy of them all:

Build trust, then take flight.

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