Chatter Marks

Feb 28 2025 100 ep. 76 mins 8

Chatter Marks Podcast artwork

Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to exploring Alaska’s identity through the creative and critical thinking of ideas—past, present and future. Featuring interviews with artists, presenters, staff and others associated with the Anchorage Museum and its mission.

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EP 105 Dogsledding, The Iditarod and making history with Libby Riddles

Feb 28 2025 76 mins

Libby Riddles was the first woman to win the Iditarod. Back in 1985, she made the decision to push through a storm — a choice that would cement her place in history. While others hunkered down, she bet on her team’s strength and her own resilience, forging ahead into whiteout conditions and brutal winds. It was a bold, calculated risk, and it paid off. But for Libby, just doing

EP 104 The Arctic Man with Howard Thies

Feb 17 2025 63 mins

Howard Thies is the founder of Arctic Man, a winter race that combines snowmachines, skiers and snowboarders. It takes place at Summit Lake in Paxson, Alaska and it pairs a snowmachiner and a skier or a snowmachiner and a snowboarder. It’s one of the fastest and most unique races in the world. Skiers and snowboarders start at 5,800 feet and descend to the bottom of a canyon. Ther

EP 103 Northern Boarder’s presents: A Conversation with Local Legends

Jan 28 2025 113 mins

Jason Borgstede is one-half of JB Deuce, a local snowboard and skateboard video that ran from the late-1990s to early-2000s. It was funded by Boarderline Alaska Snow and Skate shop — a retail business host Cody Liska's dad owned — and featured snowboarders and skateboarders from Alaska. Jesse Burtner was the other half of JB Deuce, and together he and Jason filmed their own vid

EP 102 Avoiding unnecessary risks with Merrick Johnston

Jan 15 2025 68 mins

The best way to describe Merrick Johnston is that she’s an athlete. Rock climbing, ice climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking, gymnastics, surfing, whitewater kayaking. You name it, she’s probably at least tried it. But professionally, she’s a skier and a mountaineer. It all started at a young age. She showed interest in the outdoors and her mom was more than happy to oblige

EP 101 Teamwork and compromise in Alaska politics with Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins

Dec 31 2024 76 mins

Ever since Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins was a kid he’s been interested in politics and sports. Electoral politics and baseball, to be specific. But when it came to politics, he was a prodigy. He could recite groups of politicians — the 50 state attorneys general and all 100 U.S. senators, for example. He was interviewed on NPR at 14, and at 23 he dropped out of Yale, moved back home

EP 100 Conservation and decolonization with Monica Shah

Dec 20 2024 82 mins

Monica Shah is the Deputy Director of Collections and Conservation at the Anchorage Museum. She’s interested in the things that we surround ourselves with, the things that bring us comfort, familiarity and memories. Manifestations of culture and identity. These materials are important to us because they embody our stories. In areas affected by war, for example, we see people rall

EP 99 Listening to the soundscapes of Alaska with Erin Marbarger

Dec 02 2024 65 mins

Erin Marbarger is the Senior Education Director and Director of Climate and Sustainability at the Anchorage Museum. And for the last six years Erin, Museum staff and schools and communities have been collecting soundscapes from around Alaska. Anchorage at first and then other locations like Nenana, Nuiqsut, Portage, Seldovia, Sitka and Soldotna. They recorded sounds from rivers to

EP 98 A better future through design and landscape architecture with Jonny Hayes

Nov 19 2024 76 mins

Jonny Hayes is the the Chief Design Officer at the Anchorage Museum. But before he was at the Museum, he worked in architecture firms where he preferred to spend his time on projects that improved peoples’ lives. Like playground design and transportation. He enjoyed what he was doing there, but the more he learned about the Museum, the more he appreciated it as a community learni

EP 97 Telling Alaska’s story with Mr. Whitekeys

Oct 30 2024 77 mins

For over 50 years, Mr. Whitekeys has been entertaining Alaska with his music, his shows and his books. He started playing music in Anchorage in the 1970s at Chilkoot Charlie’s. In those days, the bars didn’t close until 5 am. So, a band could play for as long as 7 ½ hours — from 9 pm to 4:30 am. Keys says that for a musician it wasn’t about the entertainment, it was an end

EP 96 Around the world with Lael Wilcox

Oct 21 2024 78 mins

Lael Wilcox is an ultra-endurance cyclist and racer, and she recently set a women’s Guinness World Record for fastest time cycling around the world. The trip was 18,000 miles long and it took her 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes to complete. She averaged 166 miles a day. And with the help of some friends, she planned her own route. She wanted it to include the kind of riding she