A white raven lands near a pair of black ravens next to a dumpster on Wednesday, Dec. 13, in Spenard. (Loren Holmes / ADN) If you want to find Anchorage’s white raven, follow the paparazzi.

“Each generation seems to get one in Alaska,” Sinnott said of the white raven. “Nobody knows a number, but it’s rare.” Another off-color raven, he recalled, made news in the ’90s.

Messimer said “white raven” is also an idiom. “In Europe, it turns out, a ‘white raven’ is a saying for something that has a very low chance or an impossibility,” he said.

NENANA — Beth Norman drives through vast stretches of wide-open Interior Alaska every day on her daily commute from Nenana to Anderson School. She has learned to keep her eyes ...