Once again I get to prove my unfathomable ignorance.

When I left Alaska, I canceled my internet service, but apparently my email address there is still active.

I now use gmail, but an acquaintance told me that he tried to send an email to my old Alaska email address, and the email bounced saying that the mailbox was full. This suggests that email address is still valid.

It looks like the only way I can contact my old ISP is through that old Alaska email address, but they won't be able to reply if the mailbox is full, will they?

I have no idea how to log in to that old account. I am pretty sure I know the user name and the password, but have no idea how to get to somewhere that I could type them in.

How do I log into an email account when I am no longer using the ISP that provides the account?

tanstaafl.

How did you get the email from them before? Do they have some web based way to check it on their website maybe?

Just because you're not using them as an ISP doesn't mean you can't access the email account. At least when you used them as an ISP you should have been able to get your mail via POP3 or IMAP from outside their little network.

It's possible that whilst you cancelled your service, the mailbox just kept running along.

Do they have a webmail server you can use (like gmail) to at least log in and delete some messages and perhaps setup a forwarding email address if you want.

Why can't you contact them from your gmail account? My ISP does use my contact from address to automatically assign support requests to my account but that's about all. Unless they actively block all emails originating from non-ISP email addresses you should still be able to contact them.

What's the ISP?