Cook Inlet Chronicle

🫙 Salmon for Solidarity

The refugees displaced by Typhoon Halong are finding safety in Anchorage, but many are struggling to adjust to an unfamiliar diet. Their bodies—accustomed to traditional foods—are reacting harshly to processed American-style meals.

We’re asking our friends across Cook Inlet to help.
If you have salmon, moose, berries, seal oil, or other subsistence foods you can share, please reach out. These contributions are more than nourishment—they’re medicine, memory, and belonging.

📦 Donations can be coordinated through your local Red Cross office.
In Homer, please contact KBBI, Emilie Jackinsky, or Nancy Hillstrand. Freezer space is available at Coal Point Traders on the Spit.

Huge thanks to Emilie, Nancy, and the Coal Point team for their generosity, time, and heart—and to Emmy, whose inspiration sparked this effort.

🐟 Together, we can remind the world what Alaskan care looks like: practical, communal, and full of soul.

💭 We’re also gathering community voices for an upcoming feature in The Cook Inlet Chronicle.
If you’d like to contribute, tell us:
— What’s your favorite subsistence activity?
— What’s a recipe or food tradition that feels like home to you?

Tag us or send a message—we’d love to include your story.

The nights are long, the forests whisper, and the inlet keeps its secrets. Send us your flash fiction before the tide comes in. Up to 150 words of fright. Share link in the bio or go to cookinletchronicle.com

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdU4PvWfoJQq2lVASFOXUHPVMD_v9R8zsqPgaZS9eTBx3fZAg/viewform?usp=header

“A Republican is a Democrat who got their way.” — Jim Holcomb

“If you’re not a liberal by the time you’re 20, you don’t have a heart. If you’re not conservative by the time you’re 40, you don’t have a head.” — Jim Holcomb

A friend reminded me of those lines tonight — both from our beloved high school government teacher, Mr. Jim Holcomb. He was the kind of teacher who didn’t just teach civics — he made you argue it.

In his seminar-style history classes, we spent our time reading Rousseau, debating current events, and scouring newspapers for spicy global insurgencies to defend (it was the early 90s — we had our pick: the IRA, the PLO, the ANC). Well…. Maybe that last one was just me.

Holcomb believed in thinking deeply, questioning everything, and sharpening our ideas against each other until they sparked.

Mr. Holcomb was brilliant, tough, and relentlessly fair. He modeled to us best practice in citizenship. A Catholic, a moderate Republican, and a man of history — he expected every student to speak out and defend their convictions, to grow, and to learn to listen, even when you disagreed. He was my favorite teacher.

This week, as families meet with teachers across the Kenai Peninsula Borough and Kodiak Island school districts, we’re inviting you to share a short tribute to a teacher who shaped your life.

Whether it’s a memory, a lesson that stuck, or something you didn’t understand until years later — tell us about the teacher who made you who you are.

⸻

✏️ Submission Guidelines: “My Favorite Teacher”

Category: Community Voices — Education Tribute
Theme: Honoring the teachers who made a difference in KPBSD or Kodiak schools.
Length: 200–600 words
Tone: Personal, heartfelt, and honest.
Optional: Include a photo (your teacher, your class, or a symbolic image).
Submit: cookinletchronicle.com
Deadline: Ongoing through Parent–Teacher Conference week.

⸻

Let’s celebrate the people who shaped our minds, challenged our ideas, and helped us find our way.
Add your story to the Chronicle — because good teachers deserve to be remembered.

Can Sativa's owner please message us with contact info!

🌊 Flash Fiction Friday

After a week of strange low tides, something unexpected appears on the beach — not driftwood, not debris, an object that clearly doesn’t belong.

Can you tell its story?

🖋 Write your flash fiction in 150 words or less.
📍 Set it anywhere along Cook Inlet, Kachemak Bay, or Kodiak — or let the tide take you someplace new.
📫 Submit your story at cookinletchronicle.com or tag with for a chance to be featured.

Let’s see what the tide brings in. 🌊

😭😭😭

🎃 Inktober: Alaska Style!

🖋 All over the world, artists are taking part in Inktober—a daily doodle challenge that celebrates creativity, ink, and imagination. But here around Cook Inlet, Kachemak Bay, and Kodiak, we’re putting our own spin on it.

This October, The Cook Inlet Chronicle invites you to show the world how we do Inktober, Alaska-style!
🌊 Follow the official Inktober prompts, but give them a local twist—think “frost,” “tentacle,” or “haunt” with a Homer harbor sunset or a Kodiak fishing ghost vibe. 🐙🎣

🗓 Submit your art all month long at cookinletchronicle.com.
💀 Each piece will be considered for a daily feature on our Instagram and website blog.
🏆 At the end of the month, we’ll host a community vote for the best submission for each day’s prompt!

PG-13, please—haunting, not horrifying.
Let’s make this spooky season one for the sketchbooks. ✨

Submit your work at

https://sites.google.com/cookinletchronicle.com/cookinletchronicle/publication-guidelines


We look forward to hearing from everyone!!!

The Cook Inlet Chronicle - Publication Guidelines Editor's Note

Welcome to the Cook Inlet Chronicle.
We’re a community journal born from the belief that stories keep us alive. Across Cook Inlet, Kodiak, and Kachemak Bay, voices are rising again—artists, elders, scientists, writers, and neighbors—each adding their piece to the living record of who we are.

This is your space to read, reflect, and contribute.
You can share your work through the submission link in our bio—essays, art, poetry, photography, investigations, or reflections of life along the Inlet and the Bay. Some stories may also be featured (with permission) on KBBI Public Radio “Where the Sound Meets the Sea.”

Together, we’ll document what it means to live, work, and dream here—one story at a time.
Welcome to the Chronicle.