The Alaska Myth

06/03/2025

Tonight at 6pm at Double Shovel Cider! Hope to see you there!

21/02/2025

Missing The Alaska Myth? I'll be at Alaska Humanities Forum's Culture Shift next month discussing the podcast's thesis: how frontier logic leads to dead end futures, and why it's foreclosing ours! Hope to see you there.

Wednesday, March 5th at 6pm
Double Shovel Cider Company
Tickets Here: https://www.akhf.org/events/culture-shift-mar_25

26/03/2024

🎉🥳Thanks for all the listens, downloads, and feedback on The Alaska Myth! We are slowly working on new episodes for you all - on deck is an episode on the history of the commercial fishery in Bristol Bay.

In the meantime, you can listen to all three episodes (plus the bonus episodes) wherever you get your podcasts🎙️

Let us know what your favorite topic has been so far in the comments!

A podcast about the myths that shape how Alaskans view our history and ourselves.

10/01/2024

Is Alaska stuck in the myth of the big strike?

On today's bonus episode we speak with Kathryn Morse, a professor at Middlebury College and the author of The Nature of Gold: an Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush.

I loved speaking with Kathryn because she is both incredibly knowledgeable about Klondike Gold Rush, and an astute observer of how gold rush era myths inform Alaska’s identity and politics today.

We discuss the crisis in American identity that coincided with the Klondike Gold Rush, why gold’s value was seen as “natural,” and how myths from this era are still shaping Alaska’s trajectory today.

Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-3-bonus-the-myth-of-the-big-strike-with-kathryn-morse/id1706145992?i=1000641201602

05/01/2024

Episode 3, Sourdough's Dreams is available now!

We discuss the myths and the industrialized reality of the Klondike Gold Rush with Kathryn Morse. Kathryn is a Professor of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and author of The Nature of Gold.

Stay tuned for a series of bonus episodes this month with guests from Episode 3.

Next week, we'll share a longer version of our interview with Kathryn, and dive deeper into the history of the Klondike Gold Rush and how its myths live on in Alaska today.

If you've already listened, let us know one things you learned in the comments!⬇️

04/01/2024

Happening now!

30/12/2023

📻 Exciting news! The Alaska Myth podcast will air as an hour-long special on Alaska Public Media, KSKA FM 91.1 on January 4th, 2024. Tune in at 10am or 8pm to dive into the myth of the Last Frontier and Russia's colonial era on Kodiak. You can also listen online at www.alaskapublic.org.

06/12/2023

🎙️New Bonus Episode Alert!

Sophie Frets on Cry of the Wild Ram

In today’s bonus episode of The Alaska Myth, you’ll hear a longer version of my interview with Sophie Frets, who appeared in our second episode: Kodiak Remembers. Sophie performed in Cry of the Wild Ram’s final run in 1992 as one of the title roles - Baranov’s Dena’ina Kenaitze wife Ana.

In this episode, Sophie and I discuss her memories of the play, its complicated legacy in Kodiak, and the role that connecting with Alutiiq Sugpiaq history has played in her healing journey. You can listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-2-bonus-sophie-frets-on-cry-of-the-wild-ram/id1706145992?i=1000637715921

It was an absolute joy to get to speak with Sophie, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

02/11/2023

A new episode of The Alaska Myth is live! Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-alaska-myth/id1706145992?i=1000633411567

Today's bonus episode features an extended conversation with Tia Tidwell about her research on settler fantasies.

Tia Tidwell is an Assistant Professor of Alaska Native Studies. She belongs to the Nunamiut people of Anaktuvuk Pass and currently resides on the lands of the Lower Tanana and Dené people. Tia holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her research focuses on the intersection of settler colonial studies, Arctic literature, and Indigenous counter-narratives. She is especially interested in adapting settler colonial theoretical frameworks to examine settler fantasies about land and belonging in contemporary literature.

18/10/2023

The Alaska Myth is here!

In Episode 1, we talk to an expert on settler fantasies, get real about the “real Alaskan,” and dive deep into 19th century myth of the frontier.

Listen now on your favorite podcast player, or at this link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2209768/13803576

A huge thanks to our guests on this episode - Tia Tidwell, Aaron Leggett, Kevin Maier, and Steve Henrikson.

And a tremendous thank you to all the amazing folks that helped create this episode:

Story Editors Allison Behringer & Erisa Apantaku
Cultural & Story Advisor Alice Qannik Glenn
Research Consultant Patrick Cashman
Fact checker Miacel Spotted Elk
Tlingit Translator Naawéiyaa Tagaban

Thanks also to Alaska Humanities Forum and See Stories for your support!

"The Last Frontier" is perhaps Alaska's most pervasive settler myth. But what does it mean to call Alaska a "last frontier?" How did it become so baked into our state's identity? And what does it mean to build Alaska's identity off a myth as antiq...