Jenna Schnuer

The New York Times: In Alaska, Slowing Down to Take Things In

 With rain hitting the roof, the temperature outside hovering in the low 50s and a cast iron stove keeping things warm inside the cabin that, on this July weekend, is serving as an art studio and classroom, I feel a nap coming on. Summer days in Alaska. They are not always the bluebird skies promised in travel ads.

But there’s no time for napping on this trip to McCarthy, a bustling summer community of artists, writers, seasonal workers and visitors that sits 60 miles down a gravel road in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.

I’m here to expand the techniques I use to observe and record the natural world, to gain a deeper understanding of the animals, plants and geology of the state I’ve called home for eight years. Over the next two days I’ll attend a field-sketching workshop taught by the science illustrator and natural history artist Kristin Link through the Wrangell Mountains Center.

Read the piece on the NYT site.

Via Podcast

I worked as the editorial consultant and launch producer to help get the Via Podcast up and running. Was a great joy working with the team at Via to develop a show that would get people dreaming about their next great trip in the American West. 

Listen to the show. 

National Geographic: The Essential Guide to Visiting Alaska

Here’s everything you need to know about exploring the cities and vast wilderness of Alaska—when to go, where to stay, what to do, and how to get around.

Read the piece.

CNN: Fossil Discovery Causes Monumental Shift in Understanding of Whale Evolutionary History

On the tail of the discovery of a whale fossil that is the largest animal on record, researchers in Egypt announced the unearthing of one of the smallest early whales known to science. The find is also the oldest fully aquatic whale found in Africa, according to a new study.

At an estimated body weight of 412.3 pounds (187 kilograms) and length of 8.2 feet (2.5 meters), the newly documented species is comparable in size to a modern-day bottlenose dolphin.

Read the piece.

CNN: Scientists Identify Which Butterflies are Most at Risk as the Climate Warms

Challenging times are ahead for smaller, lighter-colored butterflies as Earth’s climate continues to warm, a new study has found.

Unlike their relatives with larger wings and darker colors, small butterflies with paler hues — particularly those belonging to the Lycaenidae family — have trouble regulating their body temperatures as the air temperature increases, according to the research.

Read the piece.

National Geographic: This U.S. National Park Above the Arctic Circle is an Adventurer's DreamApril 2021

 To accompany a photo spread shot by Kiliii Yuan, this short piece details travel to and around Alaska's Gates of the Arctic National Park. 

Read the piece online or pick up an April 2021 issue to read it in print.

AARP: Guide to Denali National Park

Denali National Park doubles as an immersion course in the cultures, landscape and wildlife of interior Alaska.

Along with Denali herself, a 20,310-foot stunner swaddled in snow and ice, the 4.74 million-acre park houses many of the Alaska Range's other famed mountains, including Mounts Foraker and Hunter. You'll also take in braided rivers carving out new paths, glaciers and wildlife: Bears (both black and grizzly), caribou, Dall sheep, moose and wolves roam these wild acres, as do 160 species of birds, including regal bald eagles, northern hawk owls and Swainson's thrushes.

Denali is no tame Disneyfied experience; your first bear sighting will zap any notion of that. Yet, no matter your level of comfort in the great outdoors, you'll find your place here.

Read the rest of my guide to Denali National Park on the AARP website.

National Geographic: Lynx Take Epic 2,000-Mile Treks—But Why is a Mystery

One of the Northwest Boreal Lynx Project’s star travelers, nicknamed Hobo, was radio-collared in Alaska’s Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge in March 2017, just over the border from the Yukon. The lynx took off from his home range in June 2017, and, by July 2018 had traveled a whopping 2,174 miles, across mountains and often powerful rivers.

“That was the first one that really took off. We had inklings of this, but we didn’t really know too much about it,” says Knut Kielland, a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Arctic Biology. It “was pretty exciting.”

Read the full piece on NationalGeographic.com.

National Geographic Travel: The breathtaking beauty of Alaska's Gates of the Arctic National Park

Close your eyes. Imagine an Arctic landscape. What do you see?

Even for an experienced tundra traveler like photographer Kiliii Yüyan, the 13,238-square-mile Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve—which sits in the Alaskan interior, above the Arctic Circle—can be hard to picture.

“I think there’s this sense that the Arctic is a vast, barren plane,” says Yüyan. But the park, which protects parts of the 600-mile-long Brooks Range, is ridged with “incredibly photogenic and majestic” mountains unlike the coastal plains that make up most of the Arctic. “You’re in a true wilderness.”

Read the rest of the piece on NationalGeographic.com.

Delta Sky: Time Out: AnchorageJune 2017

With Anchorage’s snow and chilly temps lasting far longer than those of most lower 48 cities, locals take their summers very seriously. While the rest of America slows down once the season hits, Anchorageites go full tilt. Nature offers up extended hours of daylight—22 at the summer solstice—making it easy to go, go, go. There’s no time to be tired and no excuses for not doing some learning, hiking and plenty of tasting. Although more cosmopolitan than first-timers expect—there’s a Nordstrom and a sizable performing arts center—the city never lets visitors forget they’re in Alaska. The Chugach Mountains rise high to the east, bush planes zip overhead and, now and again, a moose wanders downtown.

What to do if you have a day off in Anchorage? I've got answers.

Edible Alaska: Farm USummer 2017

The first of four pieces that will take readers through a year of the farmer training program at Calypso Farm & Ecology Center. The Ester, AK-based program "brings together traditional in-the-field education with an extensive curriculum ranging from farm business plans to animal husbandry, blacksmithing, and seed saving. 'The main thing I left there with was this confidence and inspiration and drive to go out and start farming on my own. And I did,' says Stephanie Stallman, a Minnesota resident who went through the program's launch year."

Read the piece on the Edible Alaska site.