Crude Conversations podcast

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<div class="span index">1</div> <span><a class="" data-remote="true" data-type="html" href="/series/action-academy-replace-the-job-you-hate-with-a-life-you-love">Action Academy | Replace The Job You Hate With A Life You Love</a></span>

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Action Academy | Replace The Job You Hate With A Life You Love

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Ready to replace your 6-figure salary with real freedom? This is the podcast for high earners who feel stuck in jobs they’ve outgrown. If you’re asking, “How do I actually replace $10K–$20K/month so I can quit and never look back?” — welcome home. At Action Academy, we teach you how to buy small businesses and commercial real estate to create cash flow that actually replaces your job. Monday through Friday, you’ll learn from 7–9 figure entrepreneurs, real estate moguls, and acquisition pros who’ve done it — and show you how to do it too. Hosted by Brian Luebben (@brianluebben), who quit his 6-figure sales role in 2022 to build a global business while traveling the world. If you're a high-income earner ready to become a high-impact entrepreneur, this show is your playbook. Subscribe now and start your path to freedom — or keep pretending your job will get better someday....

Crude Conversations

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”Crude Conversations” features guests who represent a different aspect of Alaska. Follow along as host Cody Liska takes a contemporary look at what it means to be an Alaskan. Support and subscribe at www.patreon.com/crudemagazine and www.buymeacoffee.com/crudemagazine

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Crude Conversations

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Crude Conversations

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Chatter Marks EP 109 Photographing exploration and innovation in Alaska with Roman Dial 1:06:15

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Roman Dial is a scientist, educator and pioneering adventurer. For more than four decades, he’s charted paths through Alaska’s most remote and unforgiving landscapes — sometimes alone, sometimes with students, friends or family. He came to Fairbanks in the 1970s, a place he says was a hotbed of outdoor innovation — a kind of ground zero for reimagining what adventure could look like in Alaska. In the ‘70s, backcountry travel still looked a lot like it had for decades — heavy leather boots, wool layers, metal-frame backpacks and cumbersome skis. And then, in the 1980s, things started to look different thanks to a small community of skiers, cyclists, runners and packrafters who began to experiment with lighter gear, faster travel and more self-reliant approaches to the backcountry. They weren’t following guidebooks, they were writing the playbook as they went. Influenced by competition, camaraderie and a love for the land. And through it all, Roman was taking photos — capturing the people, places and moments that would come to define a generation of exploration. This May, the Anchorage Museum will be exhibiting a selection of Roman’s photographs from his early days exploring Alaska. These photos, many of them taken during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, document more than just rugged landscapes and remote journeys, they capture the spirit of youthful exploration, innovation, backcountry friendships and the raw beauty of Alaska before GPS, satellite phones and other digital safety nets. When Roman looked back at these photos, he didn’t just see the wild places he traveled through, he saw his wife, his kids and the partners who shaped his journey. It was a reminder of how those relationships influenced not only the paths he took but the person he became. These weren’t just snapshots of adventure, they were glimpses into a life built on trust, shared risk and curiosity. His adventures took him across tundra and glaciers, into rainforests and river valleys, and his perspective speaks not only to the power of wild places but to the relationships that shape our journeys through them. Photo by Taylor Roades…

Crude Conversations

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Chatter Marks EP 108 Monitoring Alaska’s volcanoes with Dr. Matt Haney 1:11:06

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Dr. Matt Haney is the Scientist-in-Charge at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, where he leads the charge to monitor and communicate the activity of Alaska’s volcanoes — some of the most closely watched in the world. He explains that there are several ways to count Alaska’s volcanoes, but one of the most striking is this: 54 of them have erupted in the last 300 years. That’s more than any other U.S. state. Most of these volcanoes are found along the Aleutian Arc, a seismically active chain that stretches from Mount Spurr — just 80 miles west of Anchorage — through Cook Inlet and out across the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands. A few outliers, like Mount Edgecumbe in Southeast and Mount Wrangell near Glennallen, add even more complexity to tracking volcanic activity across Alaska. As a volcanologist, Matt is part of a network that assesses volcanic risk using the National Volcano Early Warning System, which ranks volcanoes by threat level. In Alaska, five volcanoes are classified as “Very High Threat” — including Mount Spurr, Mount Redoubt and Mount Augustine — not just because they’re active, but because they’re near population centers and critical infrastructure. Mount Spurr is currently under close observation due to signs of volcanic unrest, making it one of the most closely watched in the state. When Spurr last erupted in 1992, it launched ash clouds up to 60,000 feet into the sky and shut down Anchorage’s airport for nearly a full day. Ash fall can disrupt air travel, damage engines and electronics, clog air filters, and cause respiratory problems. Today, with Anchorage serving as the second busiest cargo hub in the U.S. — and the fourth busiest in the world — the stakes of an eruption are even higher.…

Crude Conversations

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EP 163 Calm, technical and driven with Adrian Williams 1:27:35

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In this one, co-host Micah Hollinger and Cody talk to Adrian Williams. Both of them grew up skating the streets of Anchorage, at spots like Hanshew Middle School and Abbott Elementary. Those two spots in particular were important to their upbringing and their skating. It’s where they met up with friends, learned tricks and got shots. They were both on the Boarderline Skate Team too, where the yearly shop video gave them even more of a reason to push the limits of what local skating could look like. Staying motivated was important to progression, especially in a place like Anchorage, where the weather isn’t always conducive to skating and it’s easy to put limits on yourself. But Adrian was never about that. He was about making the most of his environment, which meant skating tennis-court-skateparks and schools in the summer and cold parking garages in the winter. It was a struggle, but he and his tight-knit group of friends made it work. It’s this perseverance that molded Adrian’s style into what it is — calm, technical and driven. And a lot of his perspective, he learned from his older brother, Angel, who actually got him into skating and remains one of his biggest influences. His part in Business As Usual , Think Skateboards 2013 video, marked a major turning point for Adrian: Not only did it prove he could hold his own among the best skaters out that year, but it also signaled the beginning of the end for Think, the company he had skated for since 2007. When Think went under, it was a blow to his career. He was now out of a board sponsor and everything that came with it — skate gear, a travel budget, connections to photographers and filmers, and the momentum that comes from being part of a functioning team. It was a jarring reset after years of building toward something bigger. But it never dampened his love for skating. He just had to pivot. So, he picked up more traditional jobs at companies like UPS and Amazon and always made sure that skating stayed a priority. Lately, though, that priority has shifted. In search of more consistent, less physically demanding work, Adrian recently enlisted in the Air Force Reserves, where he’ll be training in Heavy Aircraft Integrated Avionics. It’s a new chapter, for sure, but the same mindset: Still rooted in dedication, persistence and putting in the work. But even with his focus shifting to a new career path, skating will always be a part of who he is.…

Crude Conversations

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EP 162 History, power and the Bering Strait with Bathsheba Demuth 1:08:02

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In this one, Cody talks to author and historian Bathsheba Demuth. She grew up in Iowa, a place she describes as having an extremely cultivated landscape — shaped and managed by people at nearly every turn. Her first exposure to the North came through the writings of Jack London, books her parents read to her aloud. As a kid, London’s tales of adventure resonated with her, but as she got older she began thinking about his reflections on how economic and political systems can crush people. At 18, she made the decision to head to the Arctic. There she spent time mushing dogs in the Yukon. She says that experience was utterly transformative. It shifted her idea of what it means to be a human being — not as a lone agent of individual destiny, but as a life that is part of a broader ecology. In her book “Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait,” she compares how Soviet Russia and the United States approached the Arctic, specifically around the Bering Strait. What she discovered was that despite their ideological differences, both nations treated animals and sealife in similar ways — primarily as resources to be managed or harvested. For those living outside the Arctic, the region has undergone a series of shifting narratives, it’s gone from a place of extraction, to a geopolitical flashpoint during the Cold War, and now, to the forefront of global climate change. Both of those perspectives stand in stark contrast to how many Indigenous Arctic communities have historically related to the sea and the land, their focus being on reciprocity rather than domination.…

Crude Conversations

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EP 161 Finding truth in fiction with Éowyn Ivey 1:04:18

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In this episode, Cody talks to author Éowyn Ivey, whose debut novel, The Snow Child , was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. It captivated readers with its blend of folklore and the Alaska wilderness. Raised in Alaska, Éowyn’s connection to the land is woven into her storytelling, creating atmospheric and emotionally resonant narratives. Before becoming a novelist, though, she worked as a journalist and then as a bookseller. Both shaped her approach to research and storytelling. As a journalist, she says she often felt constrained by the need to report just the facts, realizing that the full story often involved emotions, complexities and more nuanced truths that couldn’t always be captured in a news story. This naturally led her to fiction, where she could immerse readers in themes like isolation, survival and the mystical interplay between humans and nature. Her latest novel, Black Woods, Blue Sky , continues her exploration of myth, survival and the untamed beauty of Alaska. She says that there’s a power in fiction, an empathy that forms between the book, the reader and the author. As a storyteller, she strives to create feelings and experiences that resonate — moments where a reader might think, “That’s exactly what I felt, but I’ve never been able to put it into words,” or, “I’ve never felt so seen.” This is true for situations she’s personally experienced and ones she hasn’t — that’s where her research comes into play. For Éowyn, writing is about more than just crafting a narrative, it’s about discovering the metaphors and the poetry within the concepts she explores. When she set out to be a novelist, she never imagined it would go beyond the Pacific Northwest. But it has. Her writing is known by people all over the world. But at heart, she still writes for her fellow Alaskans.…

Crude Conversations

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EP 160 Dogsledding, The Iditarod and making history with Libby Riddles 1:15:27

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In this one, Cody talks to dog musher Libby Riddles. She was the first woman to win the Iditarod. Back in 1985, she made the decision to push through a storm — a choice that would cement her place in history. While others hunkered down, she bet on her team’s strength and her own resilience, forging ahead into whiteout conditions and brutal winds. It was a bold, calculated risk, and it paid off. But for Libby, just doing the Iditarod was a big deal. She says that as long as she did her best and gave it 100 percent, she really didn’t care where the chips fell. And part of that was breaking the race down — not thinking about the entire 1,000 miles, but just getting to the next checkpoint. Manageable goals. That mindset, along with her deep connection to her dogs, helped her make history. Her deep relationship with her dogs helped carry her to victory in the 1985 Iditarod, and in the years since, she’s become an advocate for the sport, working to help people understand what dog mushing is really about. These days, it can be tricky for people to grasp— most of us see dogs as companions, not as athletes bred for endurance and work. But those who rely on working dogs, like service animals, tend to understand the dynamic better. And when people see sled dogs in action — on a dogsledding tour or in a race — they get it. They see the excitement, the energy, and the joy these dogs have for running, and they start to understand why mushing isn’t just a sport, it’s a way of life.…

Crude Conversations

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EP 159 The Arctic Man with Howard Thies 1:02:11

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In this one, Cody talks to Howard Thies, the founder of Arctic Man, a winter race that combines snowmachines, skiers and snowboarders. It takes place at Summit Lake in Paxson, Alaska and it pairs a snowmachiner and a skier or a snowmachiner and a snowboarder. It’s one of the fastest and most unique races in the world. Skiers and snowboarders start at 5,800 feet and descend to the bottom of a canyon. There they link up with their snowmachine partner, who passes them a tow rope and hauls them uphill for over two miles. Once they’re at the top, skiers and snowboarders separate from their snowmachiner and point it 1,200 feet to the finish line. The fastest competitors have reached speeds of up to 90 miles per hour. The idea for Arctic Man came from a bar bet between Howard and two other guys. He wagered he could beat them to the bottom of the mountain. So, they all gave the bartender $100 and agreed the winner would take all. Howard won that bet and soon after created what would become Arctic Man. The first one was in 1986. 10 teams competed that year. The next year, there were 25 teams. And then in the 90s, there were 65 teams. It kept growing, becoming more and more popular among racers, families and partiers. For the racers, it was an opportunity for glory and cash; for families and party people, it was spring break. Over the years, it’s become a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And Howard’s been there the whole time organizing and keeping the peace. He’s 75 now and he’s amazed at what Arctic Man turned into, but he’s unsure of how much longer it will continue. This year, maybe next year. Maybe even the year after that. It’s just so much work and he’s getting older and can’t do everything he once did — setting the course, for example, by putting up fences, flags and gates. Even the idea of passing it on is funny to him. He laughs and says, “First of all, nobody’s that stupid.”…

Crude Conversations

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Chatter Marks EP 103 Northern Boarder’s presents: A Conversation with Local Legends 1:53:18

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Jason Borgstede is one-half of JB Deuce, a local snowboard and skateboard video that ran from the late-1990s to early-2000s. It was funded by Boarderline Alaska Snow and Skate shop — a retail business host Cody Liska's dad owned — and featured snowboarders and skateboarders from Alaska. Jesse Burtner was the other half of JB Deuce, and together he and Jason filmed their own video parts for it. They also produced all seven videos: Polar Bears, Dog Sleds and Igloos was the first. Then came Northern Exposure , 100% , Survival of the Tightest , The 49th Chamber , In For Life and Steezin’ For No Reason . At first, the video premieres were small — projected onto a screen outside of Boarderline in Dimond Center. But as they grew, so did the venues. Until they were selling out the 4th Avenue Theatre in downtown Anchorage. To this day, Jason and Jesse have continued to pursue their love of snowboarding and skateboarding. Jason is the owner of Blue & Gold Boardshop in Anchorage and Jesse is the co-founder of Think Thank, a series of snowboard videos with the motto "Progression through creativity." Skater Micah Hollinger and snowboarder Andre Spinelli also join this conversation. Micah is one of the most celebrated skaters from Alaska. He filmed for all seven JB Deuce videos and went on to bring a unique, creative and artistic vision of progression to skateboarding. Andre, also known as Big Air Dre, filmed for numerous snowboard videos, including JB Deuce and Think Thank. His signature style involves hitting big jumps in the backcountry. This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience in the Anchorage Museum Auditorium on Friday, January 17, 2025. That event was brought to you by the Northern Boarder’s exhibition. The exhibition celebrates snow and skate culture and community in Alaska through art. A lot of people helped make this episode possible. Julie Decker, Alex Tait, Danni Crombie and Max Kritzer at the Anchorage Museum. DJ Spencer Lee, and everyone on the panel. A quick note about the episode: About 42 minutes in, DJ Spencer Lee asks a question, and at the end of the episode there’s an audience Q&A. There, you’ll hear questions from Ollie Burtner, Sharon Liska and Les Burtner. Photo by Hank Davis…

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EP 158 Avoiding unnecessary risks with Merrick Johnston 1:08:01

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In this one, Cody talks to Merrick Johnston. The best way to describe her is that she’s an athlete. Rock climbing, ice climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking, gymnastics, surfing, whitewater kayaking. You name it, she’s probably at least tried it. But professionally, she’s a skier and a mountaineer. It all started at a young age. She showed interest in the outdoors and her mom was more than happy to oblige because she loved being in the natural world too. So, Merrick learned about the outdoors from her mom. Always pushing her to go bigger, higher and faster. Together, they would do month-long trips skiing across the arctic or teaching cross-country skiing. And then when Merrick was 12, she became the youngest person to summit Denali. Her mom’s teaching style was spartan, sure, but it never overshadowed her love and compassion for her daughter. For 20 years, she’s been a ski guide in places like Alaska, Wyoming and Norway. When she was 14, she worked as an assistant guide, and her first trip was to the Alaska Range. It was a bit of a disaster. She and another skilled mountaineer were multi-pitching a mountain called Dragon Spire in an area known as Little Switzerland. It was 40 pitches and they were out for 42-hours, causing them to miss their pick-up, which resulted in a search party being sent out for them. That was actually the first time her parents grounded her. She’s learned a lot since then, though. Now, when she guides, she knows that it’s important to make a plan and to stick to it, to never take unnecessary risks, and that it’s important to design a trip so that it accommodates all skill levels. She’s done a lot of work getting to where she is now. She’s a proud mom and a co-founder of Tromsø Ski Guides in Northern Norway. Along the way, there’s been sexism, divorce and death. But regardless of the drama and the tragedy life can bring, she knows she can always find refuge in the mountains. Photo by Martin Andersen…

Crude Conversations

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EP 157 Teamwork and compromise in Alaska politics with Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins 1:15:07

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In this one, I talk to Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Ever since he was a kid he’s been interested in politics and sports. Electoral politics and baseball, to be specific. But when it came to politics, he was a prodigy. He could recite groups of politicians — the 50 state attorneys general and all 100 U.S. senators, for example. He was interviewed on NPR at 14, and at 23 he dropped out of Yale, moved back home to Sitka and ran as a Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives. He would go on to represent Sitka and 21 other rural Southeast Alaska communities in the Alaska House of Representatives, until leaving politics in 2022. His self-proclaimed fanaticism toward sports is what drew him to politics. Like sports, politics is statistical, numeric, and there are winners and there are losers. But with politics, unlike sports, the stakes are higher. They shape the world we live in. Jonthan credits the Sitka High School Debate Team for giving him the intellectual and ideological versatility that he still relies on today. He says that in debate, it’s common to flip a coin and on the basis of the coin flip you have to argue diametrically opposite sides of the same issue. So, you not only have to understand both sides of an argument, you have to be able to clearly communicate it. In 2014, House Bill 216 was signed into law. It made the twenty Native languages in Alaska official languages of the state. Jonathan sponsored that bill and his efforts were, in part, aided by what he had learned in debate. He says that, like all things in politics, it was accomplished through compromise and teamwork.…

Crude Conversations

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Chatter Marks EP 100 Conservation and decolonization with Monica Shah 1:22:08

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Monica Shah is the Deputy Director of Collections and Conservation at the Anchorage Museum. She’s interested in the things that we surround ourselves with, the things that bring us comfort, familiarity and memories. Manifestations of culture and identity. These materials are important to us because they embody our stories. In areas affected by war, for example, we see people rallying behind architecture, art and religious structures. These things are targeted because by destroying them you dehumanize the people they belong to and subjugate them. The opposite is also true, that by creating these materials people are reinforcing their connections with each other and with their community. These concepts — creation, destruction and subjugation — weigh heavily on Monica in the work she does at the Museum. But why do museums have items from other cultures in their collections? This is an important question that museums around the world have been grappling with. For their part, the Anchorage Museum has put a lot of effort into decolonizing their collections. Sometimes this means working with Alaska Native communities to ensure that cultural materials are displayed accurately. Other times, it means giving them back. In both cases, the goal is to honor the origins of the materials and the culture and lifeways they represent. To understand this from a western point of view, you only have to imagine having something like a family heirloom or a personal keepsake or a diary taken from you without permission and then displayed for all the world to see.…

Crude Conversations

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Chatter Marks EP 99 Listening to the soundscapes of Alaska with Erin Marbarger 1:05:21

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Erin Marbarger is the Senior Education Director and Director of Climate and Sustainability at the Anchorage Museum. And for the last six years Erin, Museum staff and schools and communities have been collecting soundscapes from around Alaska. Anchorage at first and then other locations like Nenana, Nuiqsut, Portage, Seldovia, Sitka and Soldotna. They recorded sounds from rivers to traffic. Everything that punctuates an otherwise quiet environment because much can be learned from these sounds — weather patterns, animal behavior, human activity. It all shapes the world we live in, both natural and manmade. How about climate change, though, does that have a sound? This is a question Erin has been thinking about a lot lately. She says that one way we hear it is in the lack of sound, an animal that no longer exists in a certain area, for example. Acoustic Phenology — the study of how climate affects plants, animals and microbes — is another way we hear it. Like with Springtime, we begin to hear birds and all their different songs. So, it’s important to record these soundscapes because they’re always changing and sound can be a measure of change. The soundscapes recorded today, for instance, could be completely different than they will be in 50 or 100 years. These areas could be more developed, causing it to sound more urban or industrial. Or if human activity is reduced, it could mean more sounds of wildlife and nature. It all depends on how we treat the natural environment today.…

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Chatter Marks EP 98 A better future through design and landscape architecture with Jonny Hayes 1:16:31

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Jonny Hayes is the the Chief Design Officer at the Anchorage Museum. But before he was at the Museum, he worked in architecture firms where he preferred to spend his time on projects that improved peoples’ lives. Like playground design and transportation. He enjoyed what he was doing there, but the more he learned about the Museum, the more he appreciated it as a community learning space, a place of knowledge where people came to learn. And then he realized how much the local community could benefit from the knowledge that comes from the archives and the artists and the community members that the Museum works with. He believed then, as he does now, that by sharing more voices visitors get a better sense of who we are as Alaskans. The work that Jonny does finds itself at a cross-section of people and the places they live. That includes how people interact with each other and their environment, and how both of those things shape them. But how do humans interact with each other and with their environment? For Jonny, this is an ongoing and ever-evolving question. It applies to the work he does at the Museum, as well as his insight into city planning. So, he’s always thinking about how the city of Anchorage can be improved, be it through building construction, public spaces, or how roads impact communities and transportation. Because if we’re better oriented to our environment — both natural and urban — then we’re more equipped to live within the world that’s around us.…

Crude Conversations

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EP 156 Telling Alaska’s story with Mr. Whitekeys 1:17:06

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In this one, Cody talks to Mr. Whitekeys. He’s a showman, a performer and a musician, and for over 50 years he’s been entertaining Alaska with his music, his shows and his books. He started playing music in Anchorage in the 1970s at Chilkoot Charlie’s. In those days, the bars didn’t close until 5 am. So, a band could play for as long as 7 ½ hours — from 9 pm to 4:30 am. Keys says that for a musician it wasn’t about the entertainment, it was an endurance contest. From those years spent playing at Koots, he learned how to read an audience, to understand what entertains them. Then in 1980, he opened The Fly By Night Club. It featured long-running shows that parodied Alaska like “The Whale Fat Follies” and “Christmas In Spenard.” They had original songs, costumes, props, sets and slideshows. You could even get a meal of Spam there. The goal was to provide Anchorage with a cheap laugh, some infectious music and a good time. Alaska, as it existed in the ‘70s, continues to influence Keys’ idea of Alaska. There was a renegade spirit to it back then, he says, and there wasn’t much influence from the Outside. There were no food chains, no big box stores and people lived how they wanted to live. That’s why he came to Alaska and he never left. It was unpretentious, just like Keys. In fact, at one point, he had a rule that he would never go to any entertainment-related event if they didn’t serve nachos. So, he laughs when asked what he thinks his legacy will be because he’s just a normal guy looking for a good time. Not someone to be put on a pedestal. But he says that if he did have one — if he did have a legacy — it would be that he spent his life telling Alaska’s story.…

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Chatter Marks EP 96 Around the world with Lael Wilcox 1:18:56

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Lael Wilcox is an ultra-endurance cyclist and racer, and she recently set a women’s Guinness World Record for fastest time cycling around the world. The trip was 18,000 miles long and it took her 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes to complete. She averaged 166 miles a day. And with the help of some friends, she planned her own route. She wanted it to include the kind of riding she likes to do, which is a lot of climbing in the mountains. It’s slower and it’s harder, but it’s the riding that inspires her. Her route was intense, rewarding and challenging. She was especially grateful for finishing without any injuries. Considering how much road Lael covered, staying safe around vehicles was among her top priorities because regardless of what happens, her main goals are to always stay safe and to finish regardless of her standing. She says that each race is an opportunity to prove something to herself. Sometimes that’s overcoming her fear of the route — like with cycling around the world and the Iditarod Trail. Other times it’s about being capable of doing these increasingly long and difficult rides. Her desire to chase these rides, these proving grounds, is all-consuming. To the point that when she finds herself thinking about them, she stops eating or she stops talking to focus on the idea and her intent. She imagines it all fitting together like a puzzle — every piece is important and it all fits together to form a bigger picture. Sometimes that involves spontaneity — she loves that. Adjusting to weather, keeping an eye out for places to sleep, seeing wildlife, meeting new people, experiencing other cultures and visiting new places.…

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EP 147 For the glory and the story with IG 1:28:13

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In this one, Cody talks to Dan Egan, better known as IG. In 1986, he started IG Boarding Shop. At the time, he was competing in big wave surfing, but there really wasn’t much money to be made in it. So, he thought, instead of trying to be in the contests and scraping by, maybe he’ll just make surfboards for all surfers he knows. His surf shop soon blossomed into a full retail store and for 25 years IG made and sold his own surfboards, skateboards and snowboards. In total, he hand-shaped about 4,500 surfboards, thousands of skateboards and about 1,500 snowboards. But what he really wanted was to make enough money so that he could go surfing and snowboarding. So, every year he would take weeks and months off work to ride. And as snowboarding got bigger, IG found a new place to explore: Valdez. Those early days of riding Thompson Pass saw heli rides for as low as $15, $20 and $25. It was a common occurrence for anyone riding that area at that time to get a first descent. And they were doing it with no guides. They’d ride mountains all day long — Diamond, Python, Stairway, Hog’s Back, Billy Mitchell — and then party all night. It was a wild time, on and off the mountains. And in the middle of all this, IG, along with my dad, Scott Liska, were pioneering surf spots out of Resurrection Bay. At the time, most everyone they talked to about surfing in Alaska told them that it was impossible, it was just too cold. But they were determined. IG tells the story of the first time they found surfable waves out by Latouche, Elrington and Montague islands. It was IG, my dad and Giles and Sebastian Landry of Turnagain Hardcore and the waves were barreling. My dad checked the fish finder for depth and water temperature. It was a little cold for the wetsuits they had, but they jumped in anyway. The first wave IG caught was a triple barrel. It was only about a foot overhead, but it barreled right over the rocks. Over the next couple of years, they would find about 25 surfing spots. IG says that his outlook on life comes from his relationship to surfing. That the unique thing about surfing is you have to trust your own judgement — to be optimistic — because you’re relying on so many unpredictable things — the weather, the tide, the wind, the swell. Because when you paddle out to the spot, sometimes it’s flat, so you hope and you dream that it starts pumping and a perfect wave is on its way to you, in that specific spot. That’s the hope IG carries with him throughout his life. When he was just a kid with the idea to start a surf shop, when he came to Alaska because he heard Valdez was the North Shore of snowboarding, and then when his shop closed after 25 years of business and he transitioned to the weed industry.…

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Chatter Marks EP 81 Life lessons from fish camp with Angela Gonzalez 1:16:03

1 year yang lalu1:16:03

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Angela Gonzalez is an artist and a writer, and through her beadwork, her blog — the Athabascan Woman Blog — and the Fish Camp Barbie dioramas she creates, she shares her heritage. She says that it’s all a reflection of the way she grew up. Fish camp was a big part of that. As a kid, that’s where she spent most of her summers, about 16 miles from her home in Huslia, along the Koyukuk River. While the adults were harvesting the fish, her grandma would put Angela’s Barbies in settings that resembled what was happening all around them — catching the fish, hanging the fish, preserving it, cooking it. And then once she was old enough, she helped out with those chores. Angela says that she didn’t realize how special fish camp was until she started creating Fish Camp Barbie dioramas for her own daughters. It was a way to share her life with them and to teach them how to be proud of who they are. From her time at Fish Camp, Angela also learned the importance of work — that if you want to succeed, then you need to work. Today, this manifests itself in her beading. It’s easy for her to sit down for a few hours and focus on a project. She’s beaded earrings, pins, the tops of gloves, slippers, coasters. A recent project she finished included caribou tufting, raised beadwork and silverberry beads that she harvested herself. She says she’s inspired by the beadwork of her late grandmas and aunts. Their color choices, designs, and techniques. She likes to think about the stories and the experiences that led them to create their art.…

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EP 146 Searching for understanding and forgiveness with Robert Stark 1:24:20

1 year yang lalu1:24:20

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In this one, Cody talks to Robert Stark. He’s a former army infantryman and the author of Warflower , a book about his upbringing in Alaska and his time in the military. His upbringing was a turbulent one — his dad was absent, his mom struggled with addiction, his brother spent time in prison and his step-dad is serving life in prison for murder. He says he was known as the kid with the family of degenerates — people who drank alcohol, did drugs, stole, and went to prison. Eventually, he found himself struggling with his own alcohol and drug problem. So, he joined the army to travel and to learn more about himself. It was a part of his life that altered his way of thinking and understanding of the world. It’s been 20 years since he served in Iraq, and he says he’s still working through it. He talks about an experience when one of his fellow infantrymen shot and killed an Iraqi man under questionable circumstances. It was a moment that made him start questioning everything — what were they really fighting for, and how was this man’s act so much different than the one that put his step-dad in prison for life? There was so much to work through after finishing his military service — on top of his family history, he was now thinking about the fog of war. So, he found himself dissociating from his memories and isolating himself for days at a time, smoking weed and drinking. It took him years to step away from his substance abuse and to gain some clarity and accept the things he had seen and the things that he had done. He spent some time in India and Nepal doing yoga retreats and meditations. He would sit there and visualize the situations he struggled to understand — he would work through them as if he were the people acting them out and then he would embrace them with love and understanding of what led them to making the decisions they made. It’s a technique that helped him understand what he didn’t understand. Today, in times of personal crisis, he regains his equilibrium by going on walks on his property in Happy Valley, Alaska. Peaceful walks in the woods, among the trees and the birds and the mountains in the distance. He thinks of his wife and his daughters and the man he wants to be — loving, dependable and present.…

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EP 145 There is no excuse with Andrew Kurka 1:28:11

1 year yang lalu1:28:11

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In this one, Cody talks to Paralympic sit-skier Andrew Kurka. From the very beginning, he was pushing his limits. He was the first sit-skier to ride down Christmas Chute at Alyeska, an in-bounds run with a 45-degree pitch that narrows to about 15-feet. And he’s never been afraid to get hurt. He’s broken his back, his ankles, his wrists, ribs, arm, femur. For him, fear doesn’t factor into his process. When he’s pushing out of the gate at a competition, for example, he’s focused on what he needs to do to win. He’s prepared himself for these moments, so that there are as few surprises as possible. It’s the reason he’s achieved gold medals at the Winter Paralympics, the World Championships and the World Cup. But it took time for him to get to where he’s at right now. He’s always been naturally talented, but he needed to learn how to nurture and develop that talent; He needed to learn how to temper his passion. Among others, he credits Challenge Alaska with not only introducing him to sit-skiing, but helping him realize his potential. So much of his spirit and his determination comes from the ATV accident that rendered him a paraplegic. He was 13 when it happened, and he says it was the worst thing he could have imagined — going from being a champion high school wrestler to losing the use of his legs. But as time went on, he learned to adapt and the trajectory of his life changed course. He would continue to wrestle for a few more years before getting into sit-skiing. Years later, trauma visited him again. When he made his first Paralympic games in Sochi, Russia he crashed and broke his back off the first jump. Not long after that, he broke his femur after being hit during training. He says that it was after this last injury — the broken femur — that he learned about the mental and emotional aspect of growth, that just because you failed doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Now, with all the failures and the successes he’s experienced, he looks back on his ATV accident as a learning experience because it made him who he is today.…

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EP 144 Deconstructing the myth of The Last Frontier with Kaitlin Armstrong 1:13:46

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In this one, Cody talks to Kaitlin Armstrong. She’s the host of The Alaska Myth , a podcast that deconstructs the stories created during the Russian settlement and European colonization of Alaska that began in the mid-1700s. Utopian settler stories, stories of the rugged outdoors, ones of monetary opportunity and ones of lawlessness. These stories — often embellished or completely fabricated — have informed the Alaskan identity and sense of place for generations. Meanwhile, overlooking or ignoring the history and the lifeways of the many Alaska Native cultures. Kaitlin says that she’s been thinking about all of this for years, about how the idea of The Last Frontier is subtle and insidious because of what it hides. On the surface, these stories are ones of can-do spirit and gritty individualism, stories that reinforce our idea of Alaskan pride. But underneath all of that, there’s violence, resource extraction and the erasure of Native peoples and their cultures. Kaitlin grew up in Homer, Alaska. There, she says she had an idyllic upbringing in the small, tight-knit community. But her understanding of what goes into creating this idyllic place changed over the years. That the land had to be conquered first and then it could be made into the place she grew up in. That knowledge and curiosity extended to her own Honduran heritage, of which she knew little about as a kid. Because, for so long, it was just too difficult for her mom to talk about. But every summer, Kaitlin’s grandma would visit and she would connect with her heritage through her. But, Kaitlin says, she always felt more Alaskan than anything else.…

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EP 143 A Christmas they’ll never forget 37:16

1 year yang lalu37:16

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In this one, Cody talks to two Alaskans about Christmases they’ll never forget. The first story comes from Beau Schooler. In 1990, he was living in Big Lake when his family was awarded a moose from the Alaska Roadkill Salvage Program. At the time, Beau’s family didn’t have much money, so the moose provided them with a hearty Christmas dinner, as well as meat that lasted them throughout the winter. It was an experience that would eventually add to Beau’s decision to become a chef. The second story comes from Diana Michlig. It’s about getting stuck behind an avalanche on the Seward Highway, back in 1988, just a few miles away from her home in Girdwood. She had recently gotten stuck behind another avalanche about a month before. That time, she had to stay the night in her car. So, this second time, she was determined not to do that again. Because if she did, she would miss Christmas with her kids. So, she waded her way through the avalanche, singing Christmas carols along the way. A Christmas story is rarely ever just a story about Christmas. It’s about the festivities, sure, but it’s also about family, friends and perseverance. Getting together and making Christmas happen regardless of weather or money. This is especially true in a place like Alaska. Christmas music courtesy of Michele McLaughlin…

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EP 142 The history of slime with Christopher Michlig 1:17:24

1 year yang lalu1:17:24

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In this one, Cody talks to Christopher Michlig. He’s a visual artist and a professor at the University of Oregon, and he recently released a book titled "File Under: Slime." In it, he traces the origins of the idea of slime back to the early 1900s, with associations to ectoplasm, femininity, and sexuality. In his research, he found that people like HP Lovecraft and John Paul Sartre helped solidify the concept of slime within philosophy and pop culture, paving the way for it to be an analog, or a proxy, for describing the unknown. In the 1950s, for example, there were movies like "The Blob," representing the social anxiety surrounding the atomic bomb. And then in the 1980s — with movies like "The Stuff," "Street Trash," and "The Toxic Avenger" — slime represented a fear of toxicity or the handling of toxic waste. Christopher says that what we choose slime to represent evolves over time. More recently, it has entered rap music through artists like N.O.R.E, from Capone-N-Noreaga, and newer guys like Young Thug. The way these rappers are using the word “slime” is different than how it’s been used in the past. It’s positive, it’s a substitute for friend or homie. Christopher grew up in Girdwood, Alaska, in the ‘80s. He remembers it being a small town back then, maybe about 400 to 500 people. It’s a place that instilled in him the idea of closeness and the importance of a supportive community, sentiments that continue to inspire and influence him. Recently, he’s been doing research on different Aleutian communities, trying to get a better grasp on his family history. He has roots, on his dad’s side, in the Aleutian Islands, before the Russian fur trade. He says it’s been a difficult process, that it’s confusing for him because of the complicated history of Aleutian communities as a result of colonialism and the displacement that occurred during and after World War II. How people who had been living in a place for generations were forced to upend their ancestral ways of living. So, he tries to imagine — even project himself — to the time of his ancestors on the Island of Unga. Without much oral history from his own family to go off of, his research is helping him better understand where he comes from. PHOTO / Ilka Sankari…

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EP 141 What we’ve been through is not who we are now with Travante Williams 1:34:35

1 year yang lalu1:34:35

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In this one, Cody talks to professional basketball player Travante Williams. He says that everything in his life started with the environment he grew up in, in East Anchorage. There was good and there was bad. However, at times, the bad seemed to overshadow the good. His family, and many other people he grew up around and even looked up to, struggled with addiction and were in and out of prison. So, he had a fear of falling into that same cycle. A few people took him out of that mindset though. One was his mom. She always instilled in him a sense of his potential. Even throughout her own troubles, she made sure he knew he was loved and meant for better things. The other person was his grandmother. She was the most instrumental part of his life, Travante says. Every moment he was around her, she made him feel at home. To this day, her love and influence reminds him of all the work you need to put in to have anything that’s worth having. His path to playing pro basketball has been one of perseverance, luck and opportunity. He tells this story from his college days that encapsulates all of this. He was working at a 24-Hour Fitness and he noticed these guys running the court during his lunch break. So he got in there and started showing everyone up. Meanwhile, a scout for San Francisco City Junior College was watching him. So afterwards the scout approached Travante and got his number. Six or seven months later, Travante was offered a position on the team. For the last seven years, he’s been living overseas and playing pro ball. He started his career in Tskaltubo, a city in the country of Georgia. Then he moved to Portugal, first playing for U.D. Oliveirense and then Sporting de Portugal. He says that, as a teammate, he has what he calls a dishwasher mindset. He likes to do the dirty jobs and he likes to work hard. That’s his way of leading by example. He tries to connect with all his teammates because, at the end of the day, this is a job and when one of them succeeds, they all succeed.…

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EP 140 From middle school teacher to pro wrestler with Freya the Slaya 1:20:13

1 year yang lalu1:20:13

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In this one, Cody talks to professional wrestler Sarah States, better known as Freya the Slaya. She says that she’s always gone by Freya, that her wrestling character, or gimmick, started out as more of a viking and then it transitioned to an Arctic Amazonian woman — tall, strong and assertive. The Queen of the North. And it all started in Palmer, Alaska. She’s from Fairbanks, so she would have to drive six hours to Palmer to do shows in places like train depots. The shows were small, like the Alaska wrestling scene at the time, and more often than not they were performing in front of families. It was fun, an entertaining hobby while Freya was also working as a middle school teacher. She loved teaching, but she encountered too many roadblocks in her work. Resources were always limited and her empathic nature predisposed her to wanting to do more for her students. Years of this took its toll on her mental health, until one day she decided to quit her job, sell her house and move to the states. There, she threw her whole self into becoming a pro wrestler. She says that, more and more, she’s becoming her character. That her full-time job is being Freya the Slaya, even outside of the ring. She’s training, doing interviews, working on her merch store, making social media posts, she’s on Cameo. And this personality swap, it’s in her benefit. When she’s in the ring, for example, and she’s on live TV, where so much of the performance is improvisational, it’s easier to react naturally to the violent soap opera happening all around her. That’s what continues to draw her to pro wrestling, the physical and emotional rollercoaster of it all. And how it affects its audience, that when it’s done successfully and powerfully you can see it take people away from their every day troubles and immerse them into this fantastical world of wrestling.…

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EP 139 Embracing the variance of poker with Adam Hendrix 1:21:27

1 year yang lalu1:21:27

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In this one, Cody talks to professional poker player Adam Hendrix. He learned to play poker when he was a kid, at his grandma’s house in Homer, Alaska. Every time he would visit, he’d play penny poker with his aunts and uncles, but what really got him interested in it was the first time he watched the ESPN World Series of Poker Main Event coverage. It was filled with these unique characters — boisterous and stone-faced — sometimes wearing funny hats, headphones, sunglasses or costumes. It was a career unlike any he’d ever heard of before. Fast forward to college and he’s playing $5 poker games in his dorm at Virginia Tech. There, he had a solid group of friends he’d play with. Sometimes they would travel to play poker too, they’d go to places like Atlantic City where they would play until all their chips were gone. Some days they would do better than others. Poker’s unique in that way, Adam says, if you can afford the buy-in, then you can play. And because of that, you get so many different people — from beginners to experts — that come to the table every day. He says that his upbringing contributed to his worldliness and his understanding of people — both of which are essential qualities in a poker player. His dad worked in oil, so his family traveled a lot, living in a number of different states and countries. In high school, he lived in Egypt. It was an experience that introduced him to a lot of different people and cultures. Looking back on it now, he says that his time in Egypt made him the poker player he is today. Because, after all, poker is also a game of psychology. The better you can read people, the more formative a player you’ll be. Photo courtesy of Omar Sader…

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Museums in a Climate of Change: Chatter Marks EP 73 Futures thinking, perseverance and climate change with Kristin Alford of the Museum of Discovery at the University of South Australia 1:21:32

2 years yang lalu1:21:32

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Kristin Alford is a futurist and the director of the Museum of Discovery, or MOD., in South Australia. She says that MOD.’s main objective is to showcase innovative research that imagines multiple futures. This idea of imagining multiple futures involves anticipating where society and nature might be headed based on past and current trends. She says that it’s about understanding and recognizing opportunities, risks and downsides, and then thinking about the unintended consequences or possible actions that can be taken. In showcasing these futures, MOD. hopes to inspire young people to learn more about where technology, ethics and social issues might be headed so that they can make better decisions for their own futures. When putting together an exhibition, one of MOD.’s main tenants is for people to leave with a feeling of hope, not one of anxiety or depression. Because these are big issues they’re tackling — populating other planets, climate change, the future. Next year, they’re opening an exhibition called Broken , about the general feeling of anxiety and ambivalence about the future. In order to instill hope in this exhibition, people are asked a series of questions based on psychologist Charles Snyder’s Elements of Hope: “Do you have a positive vision of the future that brings you forward?” “Do you feel positive about that vision?” “Do you feel like you have agency to make a difference?” And, “Are there multiple pathways for you to reach your goal?” In this Chatter Marks series, Cody and co-host Dr. Sandro Debono talk to museum directors and knowledge holders about what museums around the world are doing to adapt and react to climate change. Dr. Debono is a museum thinker from the Mediterranean island of Malta. He works with museums to help them strategize around possible futures.…

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EP 138 What happens to Alaska when oil is no longer economically viable for the economy of the state? 1:05:12

2 years yang lalu1:05:12

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The premise of this conversation is based on a question that Aaron Leggett — the president of the Native Village of Eklutna and the Senior Curator of Alaska History and Indigenous Culture at the Anchorage Museum — and Cody are curious about: What happens to Alaska when oil is no longer economically viable for the economy of the state? Aaron says that his hope for the future is that people will have a better understanding about the role oil plays in Alaska, that although production is in decline we can take the wealth that’s been created with it and invest it into Alaska’s education system in order to prepare future generations for the new realities and challenges that await them. Permanent Fund Dividend co-creator and state legislator Cliff Groh says that, for decades, oil has been the primary driver of Alaska’s economy and fiscal system. However, oil production has been in decline for about 35 years. In the late 1980s, the state had more than 2 million barrels of oil going through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System every day. Today, it’s well under 500 thousand barrels a day. Right now, many people are betting the economic future of Alaska on finding another Prudhoe Bay oilfield. There’s the Pikka Oil Field, the Willow Project, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. There are arguments for and against each of these projects. Tim Bradner has been writing about Alaska’s natural resources since 1966, he’s also the co-owner of the Alaska Legislative Digest. He doesn’t believe oil in Alaska will ever completely go away because oil fields have a way of producing for decades, but oil will become less and less important to Alaska’s economy. Ultimately, he’s hopeful for the future, though, that there are other things that will come along to stimulate the economy. Commercial fishing and tourism, for example. He says that if we’re smart, we’ll use the Permanent Fund to sustain our public services and diversify the economy, meanwhile educating young people and giving them a reason to stick around.…

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Museums in a Climate of Change: Chatter Marks EP 72 Creating sustainable exhibitions with Lizzy Bakker of NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam 55:52

2 years yang lalu55:52

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Until recently, Lizzy Bakker was the senior exhibition maker at NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam. NEMO is all about interacting with science and technology in order to better understand the world around us, to make its visitors curious about the mechanisms that shape their lives. It turns out, exhibition design conveys a lot. Research carried out by NEMO found that if an exhibition has an unsustainable look and feel to it — ultimately an unsustainable design — then people won’t take the message seriously. So, it’s important for them to work toward creating exhibitions that are as sustainable as possible. Right now, NEMO is focused on sustainability and the climate crisis. This year, staff came together to create The Green Team, a cohort dedicated to putting sustainability high on the museum’s agenda. Among other things, this means creating sustainable exhibitions — reusing parts of previous exhibitions for future ones, for example. It also means helping to create exhibitions that talk about the climate crisis. Currently they have an interactive exhibition called Energy Junkies where you can make decisions about the world’s energy system that will determine a more or less sustainable future. The idea is for people to understand the climate crisis and how energy production is related to it, and the different solutions that are available for individuals, businesses and governments. In this Chatter Marks series, Cody and co-host Dr. Sandro Debono talk to museum directors and knowledge holders about what museums around the world are doing to adapt and react to climate change. Dr. Debono is a museum thinker from the Mediterranean island of Malta. He works with museums to help them strategize around possible futures.…

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EP 137 Carrying on a storied history with Matt Fernandez of Anchorage Community Theatre 1:27:44

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In this one, Cody talks to Matt Fernandez of Anchorage Community Theatre. Matt’s association with ACT goes back to before he was even born. His mom was involved in ACT and was the Assistant Director of the play Bus Stop in 1968. He actually still has the playbill for that show. Fast-forward to 1989 and he’s watching his first show. It’s Oliver Twist, it’s an ACT production and his brother is in it. Three years later, in 1992, Matt personally got involved with ACT. He’s 12 and the Alaska theatre legend Bob Pond gives him a non-speaking role in A Christmas Carol. He got the non-speaking role because he stuttered throughout the entire audition, but Bob casted him anyway — Bob had a tendency to recognize when someone needed a role, either to be part of the theatre community or to boost their self-esteem. The next role Bob gave Matt was in Inherit the Wind. It was a speaking role and he had the opening monologue. To this day, Matt says it was the best speech therapy he’s ever had. The history of Anchorage Community Theatre is important to Matt, mostly because there’s a lot there. It’s been around since the 1950s, before Alaska was even a state. That’s 70 years of local theatre and community. The longstanding tradition of military personnel involvement is a big part of its history. It goes back to 1953, during the Korean War, when ACT’s founder Frank Brink was stationed in Kodiak. He was a naval officer and he was also running Anchorage Little Theatre, so he decided to see if the theater-writing team Rodgers and Hammerstein would allow him to do South Pacific, a musical about World War II. They did, and thus began a heritage of military involvement in ACT that continues to this day. To solidify his point about history, Matt talks about a photo taken after the 1964 Good Friday earthquake. In it, the streets of 4th Avenue are split and collapsed, shops are destroyed, and above it all is a banner advertising “Our Town,” an ACT play.…

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Museums in a Climate of Change: Chatter Marks EP 71 How climate change is affecting the traditional Sámi way of life with Anne May Olii of the Sámi Museum in Norway 57:17

2 years yang lalu57:17

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Anne May Olii is the Director of the largest Sámi museum in Norway, RiddoDuottarMuseat. The museum manages photographs, art and information on Sámi cultural heritage. Anne May says that the museum is thinking 100, 200 years into the future, about how what they’re documenting today will affect and inform Sámi people in the future. For example, the vitality of reindeer husbandry — something the Sámi people have been practicing for generations — is a concern. On top of climate change causing diminishing grazing areas, the Norwegian government is taking land from the Sámi people by putting things like windmills and power lines on their land. Anne May says that the museum is focused on documenting these changes, to keep a record of the past and the present in order to inform the future. That there’s a strong possibility that northern countries will be looked at for guidance in a future affected by climate change. She has a vested interest in Norway. In addition to her work at the museum, she’s a farmer, her husband is a reindeer herder, her kids are farmers and reindeer herders, and she’s of Sámi heritage. In this Chatter Marks series, Cody and co-host Dr. Sandro Debono talk to museum directors and knowledge holders about what museums around the world are doing to adapt and react to climate change. Dr. Debono is a museum thinker from the Mediterranean island of Malta. He works with museums to help them strategize around possible futures.…

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Chatter Marks EP 95 Sod housing, Unangax̂ history and correcting Alaska history with Mike Livingston 1:10:52

31 weeks yang lalu1:10:52

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Mike Livingston specializes in the cultural heritage of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. His background makes him uniquely qualified for this position. He grew up in Cold Bay, Alaska, located on the Aleutians, and his family homesteaded where Trout Creek flows into Cold Bay. He says they didn’t have much money, so they lived a subsistence lifestyle and built their home using remnants left on the island from World War II. At 21, he moved to Unalaska and worked as a police officer for three years, then he moved to Anchorage and was an officer for the Anchorage Police Department for 20 years. In that time, he worked in a number of different departments: burglary, theft, felony assaults, the crimes against children unit, and the major crimes unit. His work in law enforcement and his research into the Unangax̂ region — in addition to a local murder he remembers from when he was 16 — eventually led him to his work with Murdered and Missing Indigenous Persons. More recently, Mike’s been focused on ways to integrate ancient sod housing design into the construction of modern houses. Traditional sod houses were used in the Aleutian Islands and the Alaska Peninsula for at least 10,000 years. They were so energy efficient that their carbon footprint was virtually non-existent. He’s also been working on correcting historical inaccuracies of Benny Benson, the boy who designed the Alaska flag in 1927. The research he’s involved in found that Benny was not of Alutiiq heritage, like it’s been believed for decades, but of Unangax̂ heritage.…

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Chatter Marks EP 94 Chasing an Olympic dream with Kristen Faulkner 1:00:41

33 weeks yang lalu1:00:41

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Kristen Faulkner is a professional cyclist and she recently won gold in two events at the 2024 Paris Olympics, women's individual road race and women's track cycling team pursuit. It was a dream come true. Ever since she was a kid — growing up in Homer, Alaska — she wanted to compete in the Olympics. As a young girl, she’d watch it on TV and it was the only time she saw women competing in professional sports. But it takes more than just a dream and a positive attitude to make it to the level that Kristen’s at now. She says there’s a process: You have to be humble and analytical and constantly learning. You also have to be willing to take risks. In 2016, Kristen graduated from Harvard and then took a job in New York and then in San Francisco as an investment associate. She was in her mid-twenties when she quit that job and started pursuing a career in cycling. It was a decision that she agonized over — to leave a lucrative job for an uncertain one. But she eventually determined that the pros outweigh the cons, that she would rather live with no regrets. Her approach to cycling, like everything in her life, is about assessing what you’re good at and what you’re bad at. And then when you’ve identified what you’re bad at, you focus on it until it’s a strength. This is one of the reasons she excelled in cycling so quickly: She made her weaknesses her strengths. She approached it with the mentality of, “It’s not that I’m bad at it, it’s that I’m just not good at it yet.” Photo by Anouk Flesch…

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Chatter Marks EP 93 Orange rivers and the Greening of the Arctic with Paddy Sullivan 1:14:00

36 weeks yang lalu1:14:00

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Paddy Sullivan is an ecologist, and every year he travels to the Brooks Range in northern Alaska to collect snowpack samples. The area he visits is remote and often inaccessible. The Salmon River, for example, is a place where bush planes rarely land. They’ll land outside of the watershed and then people walk in. Paddy’s been going here for 20 years now, and in that time he and Roman Dial — an adventurer and fellow scientist — have formed a hypothesis about why the area is changing so much: The retreat of sea ice fuels increasing snowfall and nearby landmasses, protects seedlings and improves soil nutrient availability. And all of this allows for shrubs to proliferate and trees to advance into the tundra. It’s called the Greening of the Arctic and it’s changing the land; It’s also changing how people and wildlife use the land. In 2019, while Paddy and Roman were collecting their datasets they stumbled upon something concerning and out of place: The once gin-clear Salmon River had turned orange. They noticed other rivers and streams had turned orange as well. In all the years they’d been coming to the Brooks Range, they’d never seen anything like it. So, they decided that they needed to sound the alarm, to let other scientists know what was going on up there. And hopefully, with their help, they could figure out what the implications were for humans and the surrounding ecosystems. Because something like this — an occurrence that trickles down into other ecosystems — has the potential to trigger ecosystem collapse. This happens when the rules of an environment are altered in a way that forces wildlife and vegetation to change how they interact with their environment.…

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EP 155 Reporting on the Alaska fishing industry with Laine Welch 1:16:50

38 weeks yang lalu1:16:50

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In this one, Cody talks to Laine Welch. She’s been reporting on the Alaska fishing industry for 36 years, and during those years her goal was always to show where Alaska fits into the global commodities market because seafood is one of the largest commodity items sold throughout the world. Given Alaska’s commercial fishing market, there’s always been a real opportunity to be a major player in the global seafood market. But Laine says we tend to squander our potential profits. For example, there are plenty of revenue streams that could be taken advantage of in areas like cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Or how almost 75 percent of all of the value from groundfish — Alaska’s number one species in terms of volume — goes out of state. Primarily to Seattle. Laine says that when she first started reporting on the Alaska fishing industry she tamped down her criticism of it, and instead chose to be its cheerleader. But when she retired two years ago, she felt a new sense of responsibility and freedom to point out areas of the industry that could use improvement. She was no longer beholden to only reporting on the good or acceptable news. So, in retirement, she’s been focusing on issues like the lawful waste of seafood caused by bycatch — the catching and discarding of unwanted sealife. She says that every other protein industry has a philosophy of using the whole animal, what they call ‘from the rooter to the tooter.’ But in Alaska, they take the filet and the rest goes. This has always been important — avoiding waste and maximizing profit — but it’s especially important now, when the economy of Alaska needs new revenue streams.…

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EP 154 Pastries, science and baking in extreme environments with Rose McAdoo 1:17:05

40 weeks yang lalu1:17:05

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In this episode, Cody talks to Rose McAdoo. She’s a pastry chef and an artist. But it wasn’t until recently that she started embracing the title of artist because she had identified so strongly with being a pastry chef. She’s been working in kitchens since she was 14, and then when she became a chef she decorated wedding cakes in New York. It was a dream job, until it wasn’t. She realized that she wanted more out of her work, an opportunity to make a difference. So six years ago she took a job in Antarctica as a sous chef — today she splits her time between there and Alaska. Her surroundings and the scientists she worked around in Antarctica eventually inspired her to create something that could help share their science. That’s when she began creating cakes that convey scientific ideas. Rose has traveled to and worked in some of the most extreme and remote environments in the world — Antarctica, a volcano summit in Kenya, underground in the Australian Outback, on a ship in Svalbard. She says that nothing is controllable in these places, and that the control lies in the planning she does before she goes into a given environment. She has to be flexible and able to pivot because the weather and the conditions could change at any minute. Given the seriousness of the environments she works in, she appreciates the levity of cake. How it allows people to let their guard down and be receptive to scientific ideas about issues like climate change. However, she does struggle with the potential impact of what she’s doing — she says she doesn’t want to be seen as a “little cake maker just posting on Instagram.” She wants her work to carry meaning and to create larger conversations.…

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EP 153 Art, paleontology and dad jokes with Ray Troll 1:30:24

42 weeks yang lalu1:30:24

1:30:24

In this one, Cody talks to Ray Troll. He’s an artist and he describes himself as a paleo-nerd. Ever since he was a kid, he’s been obsessed with dinosaurs. In fact, before he even learned how to spell his own name, he learned how to spell “dinosaur.” They were also the first things he remembers drawing. He says that as a child drawing was his superpower — it endeared him to his teachers and classmates. Then, around 5th grade, he got a hold of issues of Mad Magazine and Cracked Magazine. He was immediately drawn to the offbeat, dark humor. So much so that it was forever infused into his artistic style and sensibilities. It’s evident in one-liners like “Spawn Till You Die,” “Return of the Sockeye,” and “Baitful Dead” that accompany illustrations of humans and sea life. He says he loves surrealism because it’s something you can’t really explain rationally. It’s bizarre, almost dreamlike, and it speaks to you on a gut-level. It might be visually appealing, it might convey a message or it might be a joke. Much of Ray’s art comes from a place of humor, but a lot of truth can be said in jest. Musings on deep-time and nature and culture all wrapped up in a dad joke. For him, art is about learning and cataloging — with planes when he was a kid and later with fish after he moved to Alaska in 1983. He says that drawing is about learning to see. It’s about the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom that you gain throughout your lifetime.…

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Chatter Marks EP 89 Memories and Monsters Part 2: Sasquatch encounters 1:04:03

44 weeks yang lalu1:04:03

1:04:03

In this episode, Cody talk to Fred Roehl and David Holthouse about Sasquatch encounters. Fred is a YouTuber and a Sasquatch, or Hairy Man, oral historian. His channel is called “The Subarctic Alaska Sasquatch and Alaska’s Little People” and in it he narrates Sasquatch encounters and also interviews people who tell their Sasquatch stories. At this point, he’s collected over 200 of them, and he says that there are a couple common themes throughout: Sasquatch is either pushing humans out of a territory or they’re watching them. To Fred, Sasquatch is an adversarial predator. So, sharing these stories is a form of public safety — similar to being bear aware. It’s a perspective and a healthy fear that he grew up around in Bristol Bay. David Holthouse is an investigative journalist, and his perspective comes from the intersection of belief and propaganda. How the idea of Sasquatch can be used to enforce territorial claims, or as a warning to keep people in-line, as was the case with his 2021 docu-series, “Sasquatch.” The concept of the show is based on a story he heard in 1993, about a Sasquatch killing three people on a weed farm in Northern California — an area that David says reminds him of Alaska. The story goes beyond Sasquatch, though. At its core it’s about long-standing social issues like racism, the war on drugs, gangs and violence. In this Chatter Marks series, Cody talks to storytellers and knowledge holders about Sasquatch, in its many variations, and its personal and cultural importance to the people of Alaska.…

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Chatter Marks EP 88 Memories and Monsters Part 1: Sasquatch in interior and coastal Alaska 1:06:33

46 weeks yang lalu1:06:33

1:06:33

In this episode of Chatter Marks, Cody talks to Dehrich Chya and Angela Gonzalez about the cultural importance of Sasquatch. Dehrich works at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak and Angela is an Athabascan artist and writer. Dehrich’s perspective is of coastal Alaska. He says that the Alutiiq people call Sasquatch or Bigfoot creatures Aula’aq, and its temperament ranges from being a threat to being a menace to being used as a cautionary tale. For example, parents might use stories of Aula’aq to warn their children away from dangerous areas. And stories of its appearance vary. Some describe it as tall, while others describe it as short, but it’s always hairy and many believe it to be a shapeshifter. Angela’s perspective is of interior Alaska. Growing up, she says that talking about Bigfoot was taboo, but that there are certain times of the year — mainly winter — when it’s appropriate to talk about it. Bigfoot is a powerful being, so it’s important to give it a lot of respect. While the curious might seek out stories of Bigfoot, others will avoid them out of fear of inviting that presence into their life. Angela says that it comes down to respecting the land, the animals and the water. Because in order to survive, we must live in harmony with our surroundings; we have to respect the symbiosis that exists between humans and nature. In this Chatter Marks series, Cody talks to storytellers and knowledge holders about Sasquatch, in its many variations, and its personal and cultural importance to the people of Alaska.…

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EP 152 Exonerating Alaskans with Jory Knott 1:01:48

49 weeks yang lalu1:01:48

1:01:48

In this one, Cody talks to Jory Knott. He’s the Executive Director of the Alaska Innocence Project. The Alaska Innocence Project started in 2008 under the direction of Bill Oberly, and it took seven years for them to get their first exoneration — it was the Fairbanks Four case, in which four Alaska Native men were wrongly convicted of murder and subsequently spent 18 years in prison. Jory says that case involved a number of factors that led to a wrongful conviction, including eyewitness misidentification, incentivized witnesses, confirmation bias, racial animus, misconduct, and bad science. This was the case that got Jory interested in working with the Innocence Project — he was an intern then, but made the decision to go to law school so that he could work there full-time. Studies that consider the number of people who have been wrongfully convicted in the U.S. since the late-1980s estimate that up to 5 percent of the prison population is wrongfully convicted. In Alaska, that would mean about 150 innocent people are in prison. Nationally, the average person who is wrongfully convicted spends 12 years in prison before they’re exonerated. And Alaska is among about a dozen other states that do not have a wrongful conviction compensation statute, so exonerees don’t get any money following their release. Even convicted felons receive things like re-entry services, recidivism prevention, education, job services and drug counseling. But Jory says that, despite all of this, he still has faith in the criminal justice system because, for the most part, it gets it right and wrongful convictions are rare.…

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EP 151 Things can get better with Heidi Huppert 1:02:57

51 weeks yang lalu1:02:57

1:02:57

In this one, Cody and co-host Aurora Ford talk to Heidi Huppert. Aurora is a former journalist and currently works at Covenant House Alaska; Heidi is the Chief Program Officer at Covenant House. Heidi’s perspective on homelessness in Alaska is unique because, in her younger years, she spent time on the streets of Anchorage. Her mom had a violent and abusive boyfriend and Heidi didn’t feel safe at home. So, one night after an especially brutal domestic situation, she found herself wandering around Spenard, trying to figure out what she was gonna do. She was about 12 years old and she had school in the morning. Because it was open and because it was familiar, she ended up just hanging out at McDonald’s. She says that, for a long time, she didn’t tell her story. It was just too hard to relive those memories, and the violence and the pain that came with them. But right now, she’s at a point in her life where she sees how much power and strength there is in telling her story. How it can potentially help a young person understand that they might be in the middle of the worst moment or moments of their life, but it won’t last forever. Things can get better. Heidi says that the issues of homelessness and human trafficking — another issue that she deals with a lot at work — are ones that we have to care about because they involve young people and they are the future of Alaska. They will one day hold the political, economic and social power. So, if we want our state to be healthy, we have to care about what is happening to our young people.…

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EP 150 Furniture, basketball and family with Buddy Bailey 1:16:10

1 year yang lalu1:16:10

1:16:10

In this one, Cody talks to Buddy Bailey. In the late 1990s, Buddy became the face of his dad’s furniture business, Bailey’s Furniture. He was 7 years old when he appeared in his first commercial — the crew filming it realized that the furniture itself didn’t have much character, so they suggested that Buddy get in front of the camera. He was a natural — his charisma and affability came easy. He’d chat about furniture and deals, and he’d even spin a basketball on his finger while he did it. As the years went on, he became a local child celebrity. He continued being in Bailey’s Furniture commercials, and he was becoming a rising basketball star. When he was 15 or 16 years old, he remembers the Anchorage Daily News came out with a list of the most recognizable faces in Alaska and Buddy was number two, right behind U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. He says the lessons he learned from working at Bailey’s Furniture helped him on the basketball court. In basketball, like in retail, you’re dealing with personalities and egos, but you’re not always worried about money. So, basketball was easy. All he had to do was focus on scoring points and winning. This mentality, as well as his skill on the court, brought him all the way to playing college ball. Today, he no longer works at Bailey’s Furniture, he quit in 2013 to pursue a career in finance and then in 2020 he founded a virtual lease-to-own business. He no longer plays ball semi-professionally either, but he does play recreationally. He says he’s probably a better shooter than he ever was and a better overall basketball player. He plays one-on-one almost every day at his local gym. He also coaches both of his kids’ basketball teams, teaching them that it’s not always about winning, it’s about learning life lessons and values — accountability, work ethic, the ability to fight for what you believe in, and how all of that will eventually filter over to your family.…

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EP 149 Human trafficking in Alaska and decolonizing data with Josie Heyano 1:28:22

1 year yang lalu1:28:22

1:28:22

In this one, Cody and co-host Aurora Ford talk to Josie Hayano. Aurora is a former journalist and works at Covenant House Alaska; Josie is a member of the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, a presidentially appointed position. She was the first Alaska Native person to be on the board. Every member of the board is a human trafficking survivor and advises and makes recommendations on federal anti-trafficking policies. Josie’s perspective and contribution to that conversation is Alaskan. She’s often thinking about rural communities and the human trafficking issues they face — she says that most of the trafficking she’s seen there has an element of substance use coercion, mental health coercion and/or forced drug trafficking. And because of the remoteness of these communities, it could take three days and a float plane and a boat ride to respond to a crime. In 2022, Josie, Charlene Apok of Data for Indigenous Justice, Prevention Now and Ride My Road started a yearly gathering called “The Alaska Data Summit: Translating Data into Action Against Trafficking Exploitation and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives.” One of the missions of the summit is to decolonize data so that, in the future, Native communities can reclaim and own their own data. It’s about taking back information so that it can be used for healing. Josie says that it’s about “making the data tell our stories” and “making it be representative of who we are.” Because data is a universal language, it doesn’t matter what field you work in, we all can understand numbers and their prevalence. So, by creating a universal data system throughout Alaska, information can be shared within the community, paving a path for a deeper understanding and better solutions to human trafficking.…

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Chatter Marks EP 83 Moving home, revitalizing a language and the magic of radio with Shyanne Beatty 1:08:28

1 year yang lalu1:08:28

1:08:28

For years, Shyanne Beatty has wanted to move back home to Eagle, Alaska. It’s where everything started for her — her love for culture, language, art and music. Today, she sits on her property in Eagle, along the Yukon River, and she imagines herself as a young girl, running down the river banks with about 20 sled dogs or trapping marten out at 40 Mile or walking to school, singing to herself to ward off any curious wildlife. Reflecting on this, she realized that music has been foundational for so much in her life, it’s carried her and it’s protected her. Radio too. She remembers one Thanksgiving out at 40 Mile, she and her dad were listening to “Trapline Chatter” and they heard her grandparents wishing them a Happy Thanksgiving. The reach of radio had made its impression on her. So, when she left Eagle, that passion for radio and love for culture, language, art and music manifested itself in “Earthsongs,” the radio show she hosted on KNBA in Anchorage. It highlighted indigenous artists, musicians, and it was the first nationally-syndicated show out of the state of Alaska. Shyanne is in the process of revitalizing her Native language, Han Hwechin Athabascan. There are only four people left who can speak the language, and she says the process of learning it has been difficult because people have been resistant to teaching her. This is because land, subsistence rights, language, culture and even children were taken away from her people. So, the insistence on guarding these things is understandable. To learn the language, Shyanne resorted to a more academic setting, mainly through classes. Lately, for about six hours a week, she’s been working with her aunt to continue learning and documenting the language. Usually they get together and cook, chatting with each other in Han Hwechin the whole time. And for all this, she wanted to be back in Eagle, on her traditional lands; to have that sense of place and belonging. Because learning and documenting her culture and lifeways is one thing, but it’s also about creating a reservoir of culture that future generations can learn from.…

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Chatter Marks EP 82 A chip on my shoulder with Mario Chalmers 1:07:14

1 year yang lalu1:07:14

1:07:14

Mario Chalmers is part of a small group of Alaskans to be drafted to the NBA, including guys like Carlos Boozer and Trajan Langdon. He’s won championships at every level: Two high school championships, one NCAA championship — the one where his 3-pointer put the game into overtime, with his team taking the win — and two NBA championships. He was in the NBA for nine seasons — seven years for the Miami Heat, one for the Memphis Grizzlies and one waived because of an injury. In those nine years, he was part of 99 playoff games. He played alongside guys like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. He was the starting point guard for the Miami Heat when they won two championships in 2012 and 2013. He says that the only thing he has left to win is an Olympic gold medal. In 2016, Mario tore his achilles tendon. It was a pivotal moment in his career, one that eventually led to him retiring from the NBA. But before he was comfortable with retiring, he tried making his way back by way of playing in G-League and overseas. Overall, he enjoyed his time playing outside the NBA, but he found himself reflecting on his career more than he was trying to regain it; he found himself being proud of his accomplishments and accepting this new chapter of his life, where he’s a full-time dad. He says it really dawned on him in 2021 when the Miami Heat signed him to a 10-day contract. He says that even though he didn’t get to play, it gave him the closure he was seeking — being able to walk off the court, healthy and on his own terms.…

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EP 148 Skating Anchorage in the ‘90s with Anthony Black and Jerry Smyth 1:15:42

1 year yang lalu1:15:42

1:15:42

In this one, Cody talks to Anthony Black and Jerry Smyth. They both grew up skateboarding in Anchorage in the ‘90s, before there were really any designated areas for skaters. Besides summer skateparks like the one in the outside Ben Boeke ice rink and the Girdwood skatepark, 40 miles outside of Anchorage, spots were few. So, in the summer they skated places like Abbott Loop Elementary, Hanshew Middle School and the flatbank and box set-up at their buddy Micah Hollinger’s house. In the winter, it was indoor garages, and before 9/11 Elmendorf Air Force Base had an indoor skatepark that was open to the public. And when they were feeling ambitious, they drove to Nikiski, 170 miles outside of Anchorage, to skate a couple ramps and flat-bars at Brandon Chenault’s warehouse. Jerry says it was brutal. He remembers people getting so desperate that they’d break into the University of Alaska Anchorage to skate in the winter months. It was a struggle to be a skater back then because you had to really want it. Skating was an integral part of Anthony and Jerry's lives. It’s what they spent most of their adolescent and teenage years doing and it’s where they met most of their friends — many of them they’re still friends with to this day. And to be part of that crew, you had to have thick skin — they were hard on each other, but underneath all the ruthless jokes, there was always love. If you got a nickname, however cruel, you were usually in; if you got made fun of and you could handle it, you were in. And in the middle of all this — the skating and the hating — they were getting shots for the Boarderline snow and skate videos. It was a ritual that, in the best of cases, ended with a full video part that premiered at places like the Fourth Avenue Theatre. Looking back on those videos now, Anthony says his favorite clip is probably his switch heelflip down the 10-stair at East High School and Jerry says it was the crooked grind he did down the handrail at O’Malley Elementary.…

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