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January 18, 2019
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Northern Lights

A blog about the wonders and challenges of living in Homer, Alaska, by Miranda Weiss, the author of Tide, Feather, Snow: A Life in Alaska.

Previous posts

Looking Ahead

And saying goodbye

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, October 27, 2016

First Snow

Early delights of the season

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, October 20, 2016

Heading to Nanwalek

And hoping for a smooth approach

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, October 13, 2016

Election Day

The more things change?

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, October 06, 2016

Playing at Survival

Learning to forage, 4,000 miles from here

by Miranda Weiss | Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Outbreak

Evergreens gone brown

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, September 22, 2016

Closing Up and Putting Away

The summer is gone; so too are the crowds

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, September 15, 2016

Walking in the Dark

Sometimes you don’t want to look straight ahead

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, September 08, 2016

Thinking Locally

If you dream it, you can do it

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, September 01, 2016

A Good Day Fishing

From the bountiful bay

by Miranda Weiss | Thursday, August 25, 2016
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Newsletter

THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK

School Survival

by Anne P. Beatty

As L.A. teachers prepare to go on strike, we’re revisiting an essay by Anne P. Beatty about her time teaching high school in South Central Los Angeles, where her homeroom class often paused for a moment of silence to mourn students who had died in drive-by shootings. Her students knew that this was not the case in wealthier school districts. “They knew that somewhere there were schools with computers that worked, just as they knew that somewhere it was safe to walk through the streets at night,” Beatty writes. “They knew it wasn’t normal for 16-year-olds to die.” But what she found shocking, her students had to learn to endure. “Apathy was involved in giving in to the violence, and there was despair over the prospect of a better future.”