The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education meets at 7 p.m. in Assembly Chambers in the borough building, at 148 N. Binkley Street in Soldotna (unless otherwise noted). For more information, call 714-8888 or visit http://www. kpbsd.

JUNEAU - A winter in an Arctic village is not for the weary. Northern Alaska is subject to some of the harshest conditions on the planet. Negative 40 degree weather isn't uncommon, and strong winds make it even more dangerous to go outside.

JUNEAU, Alaska - Bill Carter had been planning his bucket-list winter vacation to Alaska for 30 years, and he couldn't have picked a better time to take it. The retired chemist from Jesup, Ga.

JUNEAU - An Alaska state senator is proposing a bounty on sea otters, the cute little marine mammals often seen by tourists swimming on their backs between cruise ships, sometimes munching on a fresh crab or clams. Sen.

Jane Madison and her husband missed the taste of Midwestern tomatoes. Store-bought vegetables don't taste that great, she said. To remedy the problem, they constructed a greenhouse.

A Lesser Yellowlegs leaves a brackish marsh off the Guiana coast of northeastern South America and begins its spring migration by crossing the Gulf of Mexico.

Bill Osborn has gardened in Kenai's community garden for more than 20 years. "It's kind of a therapy thing for me to put things in the ground and watch them grow," Osborn, 84, of Kenai, said.

The Kenai River Brown Bears acquired forward Jordan Paine just before Wednesday's North American Hockey League trade deadline. Paine, at 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, comes to the Brown Bears from the Texas Tornado.

A new multi-artist exhibit at Ptarmigan Arts, "Aurora Borealis," not only offers some of the best northern lights photographers in Homer, it also shows that to take awesome photographs of the Alaska winter sky you don't need the newest and best digital camera equipment.Opening last week, and on display through January, photographs by Dennis Anderson, Don Pitcher, and the Wild North Photography partners Tom Collopy and Mary Frische capture the amazing displays Homer wishes for - but doesn't always get - in these dark winter months.

The grandson of Peninsula Pioneer Dr. Paul and Amy Isaak and son of David and Sharon Isaak of Soldotna, Joel Isaak is gaining acclaim as an "Up and Coming" artist and craftsman of Alaska Native Arts.