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alaska

Aerial of ocean in Alaska
Profiles

Oceans Initiative: on a mission to protect marine life

Conservation scientist Erin Ashe, PhD, says we all have a “cetacean story”: the moment in our lives when we realize that whales and dolphins—the spellbinding mammals she studies—exist. Ashe was four years old when hers happened. A family of orcas swam below her aunt’s cliffside home on San Juan Island in the state of Washington, announcing their presence with the unmistakable whoosh of air being exhaled through blowholes. Ashe was awestruck, and insatiably curious about the 12,000-pound creatures—a feeling that would direct the course of her studies and, eventually, her life’s work.

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2 Min
Willy Fulton standing in front of float plane
Profiles

Piloting Kodiak, AK with Willy Fulton

Willy Fulton is a floatplane pilot based in Kodiak, AK. We caught up with him to ask a few questions about how he ended up there, with arguably one of the coolest jobs in the world.

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3 Min
Man carrying rifle through Alaskan wilderness
Profiles

Off the Grid with Brett Watts

Brett Watts is a flight mechanic with the U.S. Coast guard, currently stationed in Kodiak, AK.

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3 Min
Portrait of female fisherwoman Chloe Ivanoff
Profiles

Chloe Ivanoff: finding her sea legs

Shortly after Ivanoff began working seasonal jobs in geology, she started to feel she’d missed an important rite of passage by not having spent a summer living and working aboard the New Dawn. She decided to train for it by joining her father’s crew for the annual sea cucumber harvest, typically done in October. The excursions were short, just 3-5 days at a time, and took place in calm bays, which helped Ivanoff build her confidence aboard the New Dawn.

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3 Min
a blonde haired woman wearing hiking gear standing in a forest looking off into the distance
Field Notes

A Sea Change in Southeast Alaska

The USDA’s proposed Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy charts new management direction for the Tongass, centered on the responsible stewardship of public land and water. Learn more about the initiatives taking place and how you can support the Tongass.

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9 Min
Indigenous artwork
Signature Materials

Filson x Canadian Arctic Producers

Canadian Arctic Producers (CAP) was formed to promote and preserve the art of First Nations communities in remote northern territories. Filson collaborated with CAP to create two unique pieces, featuring artwork from Josephee Kakee and Solomon Karpik. All proceeds will support CAP’s continued mission.

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2 Min

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a dark haired man sitting down wearing a white t-shirt under a black wool coat holding a dog in front of him
Profiles

Alaskan Musher: Lauro Eklund

With his father, Neil Eklund, Lauro spends long days working with his dogs and exploring Alaska’s remote and rugged interior. With hopes his dogs will one day soon lead the 25-year-old musher to the start line of the biggest races of all, the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod.

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2 Min
a blurry image of two sled dogs running across the snow with read harnesses and lines in front of and behind them
Field Notes

The Dynamic of the Line: the anatomy of a dog team

Sled dog teams consist of 12-16 dogs to traverse difficult terrain, while following specific commands from a musher. Learn the anatomy of a sled dog team and what it takes to build a good team.

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4 Min
Tonje Blomseth with her huskies
Profiles

Tonje Blomseth: From Norway to Alaska

Rumors were flying around like bugs in the small Norwegian town I lived in, and among people I didn’t necessarily want to run into at my local grocery store. I needed a break. When the opportunity to leave for a few months arose, I booked the first flight I could—a one-way ticket to Alaska. It was now just me and my dogs, a team of six malamutes.

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3 Min
Military boot
Field Notes

Extreme Cold Vapor Barrier Boots

The U.S. Army’s first cold weather boots were called “Mickey Mouse Boots” for their oversize appearance. Officially designated the “Type I” & “Type II” footwear model, it was first worn by soldiers and Marines during the Korean War in the 1950s as standard issue footwear.

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2 Min
an indigenous man wearing full layers holding camera gear in either hand standing on rocky arctic tundra
Profiles

The Fire Inside: Photographer Kiliii Yüyan

Award-winning National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan, joined us on our recent trip to the Alaskan Arctic, where he was consumed in his mission to capture the stoic essence of a herd of musk oxen during our time together exploring the are where his ancestors originated.

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3 Min
a muskox standing stoiclyon rocky snow covered ground looking off into the distance
Field Notes

The Survivors: Alaskan Arctic Musk Oxen

With no reason to fear mankind, the muskox was almost driven to extinction by the advent of guns that ripped through the slow-moving herds. In Alaska and on the rest of the planet, they simply disappeared by the late 1800s. All that was left of an animal that had been around since the time of the caveman were fuzzy stories passed down through Indigenous communities.

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4 Min
four people on snow machines in the early light of day driving across an ice sheet in Alaska
Field Notes

Filson in the Field: Searching for Muskox in the Alaskan Arctic

As a company founded on equipping folks headed into the frozen desolation of the Klondike goldfields in 1897, we knew that we needed to do something that was a bit off the beaten path. With this in mind, we decided to head to the western edge of Alaska, above the Arctic Circle to tell the tale of the remarkable rebirth of an animal that was hunted to extinction in North America over a century ago, the musk ox.

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4 Min
Close up portrait of Deenaalee wearing Filson
Profiles

Deenaalee Hodgdon: Preparing for Winter

For Indigenous Alaskan queer artist, and nomad Deenaalee Hodgdon, preparation is just another word for adaptation. As the seasons change, the climate changes, and the world changes, Hodgdon seeks to understand how their ancestors lived with and for the land.

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2 Min
Seth Kantner on the arctic tundra
Profiles

Seth Kantner: Tracking the Herd

The day is gray and snowy on the tundra—visibility low. In the new drifts, I spot a line of tracks. For a moment my mind refuses to register caribou. The hoofprints have that freshly disturbed look, and the white crystals glint. Maybe twenty passed here, heading south an hour ago.

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3 Min
an old black and white pixelated image of a white haired old bearded man, wearing a flannel wool shirt and wool pants standing next to a wood cabin using a cane to hold him up
Profiles

Moosemeat John

Moosemeat John, with a nickname earned from generosity and the skills to not only survive, but thrive on the Alaskan frontier. When we built our first Alaskan Guide Shirt in 1996, we knew it would be exactly the shirt he’d want to wear.

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3 Min
close up image of the front of a orange and red float plane
Field Notes

Northwest Beaver Mechanics

Founded in 1988, Northwest Seaplanes is based in Renton, Washington, and has a fleet of five Beavers and one De Havilland Otter, aircraft called the “best bush planes ever built.” Crafted during a twenty-year span from 1947-1967, they were instrumental in opening up far-flung frontiers and are highly cherished aircraft that pilots still swear by today.

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3 Min
a middle aged bearded white man wearing a yellow flannel shirt, dark jeans and a green hat holding a block of wood and a chainsaw looking up at a tree to assess it
Profiles

Zach LaPerrière: The Sage

Living in a small cabin immersed in the virgin old-growth with his family for the last twenty-five years, LaPerrière is a part of the wilderness. There is no television or road into it. Visitors park off the nearby road and walk in. As a result, they spend as much time outdoors as indoors. He spends long hours in his woodshop under the cabin, and he will spend months working on the creations that come from a single tree, turning it on his lathe, peeling back layers, and discovering the story in the wood.

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4 Min
view from the deck of a working sailboat that has gear and a motorcycle strapped to the deck while a woman looks out to the snowy mountains
Field Notes

Sailing The Inside Passage on The Raven

We ran into Naomi Spar on the piers of Sitka, AK, while they were driving their adventure touring bike over the dock onto the worn deck of their sailboat, a Sloop named “the Raven”. The scene was so unique that we had to ask them their story and how they came to be cruising the coast of Alaska with a motorbike strapped to their foredeck. They gave us a tale of navigating the Inside Passage, a lawless mystery ridden trial ground that so many prospectors had concurred before them.

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2 Min
misty dark forest looking at a vast number of small tree trunks with one curving oddly
Field Notes

Lessons from the Darkness: Southeast Alaska’s Kóoshdaa Káa

The rugged coastline of Southeast Alaska is full of folklore. The Kóoshdaa Káa, a shape-shifting creature in Tlingit culture, is one such legend. The origin is much more profound than simply “the Alaskan bogeyman”—it’s a spirit closely connected to native people.

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2 Min
Salmon and venison cooking on an open flame.
Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Surf & Turf Alaskan Style

Anchored to Alaska’s rainforest-shrouded coastline, Barnacle Foods shares the flavors, sights, and stories of the uncommon delicacies from the surrounding region. Founded in 2016, Barnacle Foods makes pantry goods from Alaskan kelp (yes, seaweed!) sourced through sustainable wild harvest and regenerative rope-grown sea farms. The flavor-boosting kelp is the first ingredient, adding richness and depth to mouthwatering hot sauces, seasonings, salsas, BBQ sauces, and more. At Barnacle, they’re on a mission to share foods that do good for the ocean and coasts, the local communities, and the future. It doesn’t get more Alaskan than this.

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3 Min
Aerial image of a mid-size boat in the middle of a dark green ocean surrounded by bull kelp.
Profiles

Bringing the Ocean’s Bounty to Market in Southeast Alaska

Barnacle, by producing food products that require large amounts of kelp, and purchasing that kelp from the communities who are farming it, is helping to build not only a business, but an eco-friendly, sustainable, and renewable industry and future for Alaskans. “The march that we would like to lead with Barnacle is to do as much good as we can for our oceans and our communities,” says Heifetz, “and to keep the value from our edible resources here in Alaska with the people who have the skills and knowledge to best steward the coastline, and have been doing so for millennia.”

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3 Min
Rig to Flip, Dress to Swim_1200x628
Field Notes

Rig to Flip, Dress to Swim: Prepping for a multi-day backcountry rafting trip

Adventure tales spun around the campfire always revolve around grit. These stories of adversity—like four days spent paddling in gale-force winds, getting to the first camp during a downpour, and then realizing the tent has been forgotten—are always the most vivid. Conditions can be tough on the river, but planning makes the experience easier.

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3 Min
Desi Sherwood_HERO
Profiles

Desi Sherwood: Off the Grid

Finding your passion can be a lifelong journey for some, but as simple as walking out your front door for others. For guide Desi Sherwood, growing up immersed in the Alaskan wilderness surrounding his home in Girdwood, Alaska (population 3,000), he knew from a young age that his true love was being outdoors.

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3 Min
map2
Field Notes

Filson in the Field: Packrafting the Remote Waters of Alaska

The state of Alaska tends to breed ideas larger than life. There is just something about the sheer amount of untrammeled wilderness there that seems to spark a fire in folks. So, when we decided we wanted to put some of our newest gear to the test, we reached out to some of our favorite guides for outing ideas. Eschewing more traditional adventures, we decided to spend five days exploring the rivers surrounding remote Chelatna lake just outside of Denali national park and preserve. This is the story of that trip.

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3 Min
Exploring Denali_1200x628_V2
Field Notes

Exploring Denali: a wild & rugged wilderness

Denali is a land that quite literally ebbs and flows with the seasons. Spring and summer snow melts down from mountains that climb to the roof of the Alaska Range and swell the Toklat, Savage, McKinley, Sanctuary, and other rivers that ripple across Denali. Harry Karstens, who became Denali’s first superintendent in 1921, was one of the early explorers who navigated the basins of frozen rivers and streams while delivering mail to distant roadhouses and checking up on desolate miners’ camps. More than 100 years later, the waterways of this rugged wilderness are now the playground of well-experienced pack rafters, self-reliant thrillseekers who inflate their portable craft to run a river, then pull the plug, pack it away, and hike over a mountain to reach another headwater.

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3 Min
aerial view of snow covered ice drifts amongst rocky outcroppings
Profiles

The Bering Strait Crossing

In the northernmost reaches of the world, just a few clicks south of the arctic circle, Russia and Alaska are separated at their closest point by just 55 short miles and the frigid waters of the Bering sea.
t’s believed that a land bridge once connected these two regions, and that 20,000 years ago, humans walked across that natural formation to settle in the Americas from Asia. In the centuries that followed, those land masses slowly pulled apart and became separated by the Bering Strait.
For most of modern history, traversing this passage meant braving the seas — and even then, only when the ever-shifting ice floes would allow it.
But where some saw only unforgiving waves lapping up against the shoreline, a handful of visionary engineers saw a golden opportunity — a crossing that would allow safe travel and even faster transportation between North America and Russia.

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5 Min
smoked salmon chunks on a grate on a wooden bar top
Food & Recipes

Filson Food: Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

Nearly every Alaskan who harvests salmon has a smoking recipe or two (or a dozen!) Up their sleeves. Including everything from traditional strips to kippers and pressure-canned to frozen, pieces of smoked salmon grace freezers and line pantry shelves in many Alaskan homes. The following is a basic recipe that was passed onto me by my dad and tweaked to suit my own taste. Smoking salmon always involves a learning process no matter how many times it is undertaken, and flavor profiles can easily be adjusted to suit.

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5 Min
metal bust of caribou
Field Notes

Forever on the Move: The Isolated Existence of the Arctic’s Caribou

By the time that they have lived out their life cycle, a caribou of the Alaskan herds will have traveled enough distance to have circled the globe. Like so many of their other animal brethren, humans included (though are more sedentary in modern times), movement is what they are designed to do. They live their isolated existence, far from human eyes, forever on the move, forever on the hunt, as they have been forever.

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5 Min
person in white parka looking out over a vast snowy plain with mountains with rifle over his back
Field Notes

Ski Hunting the Alaskan Arctic

For untold millennia humans have been strapping skis to their feet and heading out to hunt prey. In the Altai Mountains of western China, 10,000-year-old rock art depicts paleohunters engaging in the practice, while 4,000-year-old rock carvings in Norway show the same thing. Its DNA is even found in the biathlon of the Olympic Games.

Hunting for game on skis is not easy. It requires commitment. The weather is often harsh, the trails challenging, and the quarry difficult to find. It’s a more organic way of stalking prey. The advantages that the modern hunter has are fewer. It’s more akin to times past when hunting was much more rugged and dangerous. Skiing into the backcountry off the highway can be deadly, especially in the spring. Storms can blow up unexpectedly, the temperatures often top out at twenty below, equipment fails, and there is no lifeline. You are on your own.

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10 Min
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