Inside Alaska Business
Span Elite
The founder of Arctic Harvest Deliveries transitioned to a new job helping entrepreneurs, so she sold the business to Alaska Commercial Company. The oldest retailer in Alaska is integrating the smaller company, which aggregates Alaska-grown vegetables and meats to distribute to local chefs, into its Span Elite ecommerce service. Meanwhile, founder Kyla Byers says her new role as senior finance manager for Anchorage Community Land Trust is a chance to help others receive some of the coaching that was so important to her own journey.
HOTWORX
A mother-daughter team who formerly lived in Alaska is returning with a workout studio guaranteed to thaw chilled muscles even in winter. Tracey Pidge and Ciara Boyce are bringing HOTWORX, a fitness franchise they’ve joined in Washington, to five locations across Alaska, beginning with a studio in Wasilla. HOTWORX combines infrared heat with a 24-hour studio model. Hot yoga, hot Pilates, and hot cycle sessions can be booked through an app and accessed day or night.
Little Caesars
A former Subway location in Anchorage’s Government Hill neighborhood is hot and ready with a new franchise. Little Caesars now occupies the location at 751 East Loop Road. Local franchise partners Walter Harmon and Gabby Lujan held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in July with a pizza-eating contest as a fundraiser for the West High School football team. The new location is Harmon’s fourth Little Caesars restaurant in Anchorage.
Wells Fargo
Two bank branches in Midtown Anchorage became one with the opening in August of a new Wells Fargo location. The bank redeveloped the property at Denali Street and Benson Boulevard, which was a Denny’s restaurant for more than forty years. That enabled Wells Fargo to close a branch across the street inside the Midtown Mall, and the branch inside Wells Fargo regional headquarters at C Street and Northern Lights Boulevard also moved.
Morris Media
The end of Alaska came as little surprise. Morris Media Network, publisher of the monthly magazine, informed readers this summer that the December/January issue would be its last. The magazine, in print since 1935, stopped taking new subscribers and ad clients late last year. Circulation was around 77,000 copies, with 90 percent of readers in the Lower 48, where it served as a research resource for trip planning. Morris Media continues to publish the annual travel guide The Milepost.
NOVAGOLD Resources
The developer of the Donlin Gold project in the Middle Kuskokwim region is Canadian no more. Vancouver-based NOVAGOLD Resources consolidated ownership of Donlin Gold, acquiring investor John Paulson’s 40 percent stake. All 100 percent is now held by a new publicly traded US corporation domiciled in Delaware, NovaGold Corporation. Consolidation is intended to simplify decision-making, project development, and financing during a bankable feasibility study.
Huna Totem Corporation
The Alaska Native village corporation for Hoonah will be welcoming Disney Cruise Line guests at Icy Strait Point at least through 2041. Huna Totem Corporation signed a fifteen-year agreement securing preferential access at the cruise destination, the largest employer in Hoonah. The agreement gives Disney Cruise Line preferential docking at Icy Strait Point for one vessel each week. Disney Cruise Line expanded its Alaska presence in 2026 to two ships, with select seven-night itineraries aboard Disney Magic and Disney Wonder featuring calls at Icy Strait Point.