Hughes

Ice-jam flooding during spring breakup damaged homes and displaced residents in Hughes and Chalkyitsik, prompting Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy to declare a state disaster emergency. Flooding also disrupted air access to Hughes and raised concerns about additional ice jams on the Kuskokwim River.

The Alaska blackfish is an evolutionary loner that fins through lakes and tundra ponds across much of the state. It exists nowhere else, except just across Bering Strait in Siberia. The fish is different from others in the state because in addition to gathering oxygen through its gills, it can pull oxygen from free air.