Dear Friends and Readers,

Beluga news: The National Marine Fisheries, which was required to rule by last month on whether the Cook Inlet beluga whales were endangered, announced instead that they were delaying the decision by another six months. This is despite a scientific concensus that the small population of whales is endangered. The justification for more delay is to wait for the 2008 abundance survey to see if there's evidence of an upward population trend, but the real reason is a political one based on intense pressure from the State of Alaska and Alaska's congressional delegation. Alaska's political and economic interests fear a listing could interfere with the many development projects occuring in or planned for Cook Inlet. The belugas need to be listed before consultation on government-funded projects can be required, a recovery plan can be developed and implemented, and critical habitat can be identified and perhaps protected. Want to know more? Read my book Beluga Days and/or see (and support!) Cook Inlet Keeper.

Take a look at the March/April SIERRA magazine for my article about canoeing and rafting the Mountain River in Canada's NWT, and issues related to global warming and gasline development. The accompanying photos are by my friend Irene Owsley. And check out the Boreal Birds Initiative for more about the importance of the boreal forest. My travel and research in Canada will contribute to a book I'm working on for Counterpoint Press, titled Early Warming: Alarms and Responses from the Climate-Changed North.

In addition to doing writing-related research this summer, I'll be participating in writing conferences and programs. These are the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference June 6-10, the Fairbanks Book Festival June 13-15, and the new (!) low-residency MFA progam at the University of Alaska Anchorage in July. The new low-residency program gathers its writers for an intensive residency period of workshops, craft talks, lectures, and readings each summer and then matches students and writing mentors/advisors to work together for the rest of the year. The new progam has a special emphasis on relationships between people and place. Check it out!

Miscellaneous notes:

My essay collection/memoir, Rock, Water, Wild: An Alaskan Life, has been accepted at the University of Nebraska Press and should appear in 2009.

My essay "I Met a Man Who Has Seen the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker and This is What He Told Me," from Fourth Genre, has been selected for The Best American Spiritual Writing of 2008.

The last issue of the Northern Review (No. 27) includes an article by Eric Heyne of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, titled "'Such Humble Awareness':The Emergence of a Northern Vision in the Fiction and Non-Fiction of Nancy Lord." (The "humble awareness"reference is to Aldo Leopold, quoted by me in Fishcamp.) We writers write what we're compelled to write, and it's always interesting to see what scholars make of our work. In this case, I'm flattered that Heyne discovers a particularly "northern" vision developing in Alaska, in my work and that of my colleagues.

The anthology, Crosscurrents North: Alaskans on the Environment (University of Alaska Press), edited by Ann Coray and Marybeth Holleman, is forthcoming in July. Contributors will be reading in late summer and fall at various venues in Alaska, including in Homer on September 5.

"Sea Ghosts," a PBS program about beluga whales from Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society has been postponed until 2009. I served as an advisor to the program.

For now,

Nancy