The 2011 Alaska salmon harvest figures will rank second-best all time in value after postseason price adjustments.

The preliminary estimate from Alaska Department of Fish and Game for the 2011 salmon harvest value is $603 million, just trailing the $605 million final value in 2010.

The preliminary estimate for 2010 was $533 million, but postseason price adjustment reports provided to ADFG from processors, buyers and direct marketers this spring added some $72 million to the final harvest value.

A pair of contentious halibut measures are on hold until at least 2013 following the meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Dutch Harbor.

National Marine Fisheries Service, which is responsible for implementing the halibut catch sharing plan approved by the council in October 2008, asked for more input before moving toward publishing the final rule.

Picks and pans are flying off the shelves and helicopters are in short supply as prospectors - from mom-and-pops to multi-national corporations - try to cash in on record-high gold prices.

It is certainly a good time to open a gold mine in Alaska. Nixon Fork mine restarted operations in July and expects to be cash flow positive by the fourth quarter of 2011 with sales contracts lined up for gold and silver bars and for copper concentrate.

Alaska-based telecoms don’t expect to be competing with Verizon Wireless until 2013 at the soonest.

In reporting their second quarter results, both Alaska Communications Systems Group Inc. and General Communications Inc. addressed the potential timing of Verizon’s entry to the Alaska market and each reached the same conclusion.

Verizon purchased a block of spectrum in August 2010 that will facilitate its eventual entry to Alaska with 4G LTE service, but without any other infrastructure in place its future competitors see 2013 as the soonest it can deploy.