Tell Your Story Alaska

Craig is nestled in the maze of islands on Alaska's Panhandle - a truly stunning area. Craig is most notably a fishing and sawmill village, but definitely a place worth visiting. Crooked Creek was a summer fish camp for Yup'ik and Ingalik peoples until gold was discovered and this was one of many villages that sprung up to support the mines. Contact the show at tysalaska@gmail.com TYSA Log...

Father Marc Dunaway serves at St. John's Orthodox Church in Eagle River, AK and is a part of the Lausanne Orthodox Initiative which is an effort to bring Evangelicals and Orthodox believers together to better understand their similarities and differences. We discuss some of those differences, why Orthodoxy is growing in Alaska, how Evangelicals and Orthodox believers can learn from one another...

Council went from wilderness to a booming town of 15,000 people then down to a tiny population in just a few years thanks to the flurry of gold prospectors at the end of the 19th century. Council is considered a "ghost town" today, but is it? Covenant Life seems to be connected to a religious movement called "The Move" or often referred to as "The Farm" which is a rel...

Rob was a pastors kid who rebelled but found his way back to faith. Then a beautiful woman, out walking her dog, changed his life forever: a real beauty and the beast story. Rob spent many years leading trips through Teen Mania in Central and South America, but ultimately he was led back to his childhood home in Healy, AK. Rob runs the YWAM Denali base and Last Frontier Ministries out of Healy, AK...

Who are the Moravians? We dive into the origin story and how a few courageous men started a movement that would ripple around the world and into Alaska. Contact the show at tysalaska@gmail.com TYSA Logo was created by Evan Van Kirk Music was created by Isaac Bedingfield

An Ahtna boy was walking in the woods when he heard singing. He followed the voice which led him to dig up a large chunk of copper out of the ground and the boy became a wealthy man. Copper became a useful resource for the Ahtna people in this area known as Copper Valley. Mining in the first few decades of the 20th century cause villages in this area to pop up and Copperville is one. The area arou...

They were the first to introduce Christianity to Alaska. How did they do? They were effective, compassionate, and dedicated to sharing the gospel with Native Alaskans. The Russian fur traders may have had insincere motives in bringing in the Russian Orthodox missionaries, but it seems the missionaries themselves came for the sake of the gospel. Many of the Orthodox and Native beliefs were already...

EPISODE 100! I didn't realize it was 100 until after I finished recording this. Thank you everyone who has followed the show for 100 episodes! The area of Cooper Landing was home to the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, or Dena'ina Indians in the pre-contact era. Some of their semi-subterranean dwellings are still visible in the area. A Russian Engineer found a bit of gold in the area, not a big find...

Get a broad overview of the Episcopal Church in Alaska. This is the first of a series on the denominations of Alaska so we can get to know our state one denomination at a time. A brief history and distinct characteristics of the Episcopal Church are identified in this episode. Contact the show at tysalaska@gmail.com TYSA Logo was created by Evan Van Kirk Music was created by Isaac Bedingfield

Coldfoot got it's name from gold prospectors traveling their way up the tundra and got "cold feet" and turned around. It became a lively stop for gold miners, but as soon as the gold dried up, so did the town. It was abandoned until the Alaska Pipeline construction project in the 1970s made Coldfoot a base of operations. Today, Coldfoot functions as a truck stop for travelers heading...

Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson has been engaged with a multi-disciplinary study of the history of Native Americans for many years as laid out in his recent book They Had Names. Genetics, archeology, linguistics, and oral Native American histories are in agreement to tell a history that challenges the mainstream narrative of Native American history. What is being revealed confirms what Native Americans have...

Noah got blueprints, Abraham got a voice, Moses got a burning bush, Paul got a blinding vision. What about me? I was invited to share at the Northstar Bible School chapel in Willow, AK last week. This message was for young Bible students on practical steps for seeking God's will for your life based on 2 Peter 1:5-7. If you are anything like me, you may be pursuing your purpose for God rather t...

Cohoe, Alaska sits in a region used for seasonal fishing and hunting by pre-contact Dena'ina people until a wave of Scandanavians arrived in the 1800s. Victor Holms from Finland is credited with building the first cabin on the site, a cabin you can still visit today. Cold Bay is surrounded by interesting archeological sites that give us hints about the people who lived there long before the Ru...

After many months of being away, I am dusting off my microphone. Brief updates, synopsis of the Typhoon Halong disaster in Western Alaska, and winter podcast plans. Disaster Relief Links: Job and Bethany Hale in Napakiak: www.forgetmenot-ministries.com  Arctic Barnabas Ministries-- type "Aviation Fuel Up" to donate for Aviation Fuel: https://tinyurl.com/fuelabm2025 To support Send North...

SEND North has a long history in Alaska and Canada going back to 1936 when visionary Vincent Joy founded it as Central Alaska Missions and eventually became SEND. Jim Stamberg is the current area director, and Barry Rempel is the former area director, and together we discussed the origins of SEND North, how it changed over the years, and many of the current issues faced today. Is Alaska reached, u...

A new one-year Bible school program is launching this Fall at Northstar Bible Camp near Willow, AK. Father-son duo Mark and Luke share their passion to see young Christians gain a solid foundation of faith in the most beautiful place in the world. The program will be 28 classes on New and Old Testament Surveys, Introduction to the Bible, Spiritual Disciplines, Creation Science, Systematic Theology...

Clark's Point is located on a spit. What's a spit? I'll tell ya. Named after John Clark who managed a large cannery which today is a huge abandoned facility. Lake Clark is also named after him. Clark's Point is constantly threatened by erosion and was even moved to higher grown in the 1980s. Like many villages, the Russian Orthodox Church was the first church to have a presence in...

Circle Hot Springs was a booming resort until it shut down in 2002. Now the resort is abandoned but apparently a few people still live there. Clam Gulch sits on a tall bluff along the Kenai Pininnsula where clamming enthusiasts reduced the population of clams so much that it had to be shut down to save the clams. Today, Clam Gulch may be a worthy stop on your drive to Homer on the Sterling Highway...

Chuloonawick is an abandonded Yup'ik fish camp and there's nothing there! So why is it a registered village? because there's a desire to preserve the heritage of the native people in any way they can. Circle is a gold rush town making it's hey-day in the late 19th century. When the gold rush simmered down the town declined to just 91 residents today mostly of Athabascan native peop...

Chitina was originally a thriving Athabascan village until the outside world brought in disease and conflict and the population was decimated. It later became the commerical center for the famous Kennecott Mines. Since the mines closed in 1938, the village has become more of a historical landmark but is still home to over 100 residents. Chuathbaluk was orignally a native summer fish camp and becam...

Chiniak is located on a little corner on the beautiful Kodiak Island. It may be small, but has had national attention that made it's way to the White House. It hosts a SuperDARN, a radar system that studies phenomena in our atmosphere, one of 35 in the world. Early explorers noticed this spot as a native village, but today it's almost all white. Not sure what happened there. Chistochina is...

There are three Chigniks in Alaska all within a few miles from each other. They are, however, three distinct villages: Chignik, Chignik Lagoon, and Chignik Lake. This area was originally occupied by Kanaigmuit Ekimos and there are some archeological remains. When the Russians arrived they intermarried with the Kanaigmuit and became known as Koniags and half the native population was wiped out by d...

Chickaloon sits in a beautiful valley among the Talkeetna Mountains and is by far the most fun village name to say. Founded by Chief Chiklu and is still called the native name Nay'dini'aa Na' in the village constitution. Chickaloon is home to the Chickaloon Retreat Center which looks like a nice place to book your next church retreat. It's also near Kings Ranch where Kindom Air Cor...

Chenega Bay is located in Sawmill Bay on Evan's Island. What's up with that? The reason is fascinating. This area has been home to the Alutiiq people whom Captain Cook encountered in 1778, and later a scoundrel named Ivan Petroff was the first to mention a village here in the 1880 census. The 1964 earthquake created a tsunami that killed a third of the village population, an unbelievable t...

Chase is a sparsely populated village near Talkeetna, AK with just 19 residents sharing nearly 100 square miles of land. If you are interested in a life of isolation, you might want to check out Chase, AK. Chefornak was founded in the early 1950s by Alexie Amagiqchik who wanted to find higher ground to live on. The village is located inside a large wildlife refuge to protect waterfowl nesting grou...