This undated photo shows Anna Brown Ehlers, right, and her daughter wearing Chilkat blankets she’d woven. (Photo courtesy of Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie/National Endowment for the Arts)
Chilkat weaver Anna Brown Ehlers is one of nine fellows named this week by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The NEA’s director of folk and traditional arts Clifford Murphy said this year’s National Heritage Fellowship artists are a diverse lot.
“If you look at this class of fellows you have Anna Brown Ehlers, who’s a Chilkat weaver; you have Phil Wiggins, who’s a blues harmonica player from the metro Washington, D.C., area; and then you have everything in between: craft, dance, music – it’s pretty extraordinary,” Murphy said.
Traditionally, mountain goat wool is woven on a loom and blended with thin strips of cedar bark to create elaborately patterned blankets.
“One thing that is just stunningly beautiful about it is that to see something like this outside in the natural environment,” Murphy said. “It’s like the colors are utterly complementary to the landscape. These are the colors that you see in your trees and in your waterways and on the mountainside. It’s really quite striking.”
Anna Brown Ehlers was born and raised in Juneau. Her Tlingit ancestors come from the village of Klukwan.
“The designs on the Chilkat blanket represent our clans,” Ehlers said. “The designs say who you are and by knowing that, I’m from the Whale House, people know where you’re from. And it’s not an ownership of the land, it’s our identity.”
Ehlers said the art seemed to come easy for her when she started in the early 1980s.
“It was as if I’d always done it, it was kind of like deja vu,” Ehlers said. “I’m really happy to be included in this group and I’m really satisfied that us Chilkat Tlingit Indians are included.”
One of the challenges Ehlers said is gathering the traditional materials needed. Her children have helped her since they were old enough to use a knife, she said.
“We prepare the materials in the springtime and whenever mountain goat hunters call me and ask me to meet them at the ferry terminal or they send me a hide on a plane, my children and friends and relatives of mine, all show up and work the mountain goat together,” Ehlers said. “It’s not a fun job, that part I can tell you – but it’s a necessity!”
Ehlers spoke of one of her latest works: an 8-foot-by-7-foot blanket with the design of a newborn orca.
“When I finished that one, I did some research on the baby killer whales and when they’re born, they’re 7 feet long and they weigh 400 pounds,” Ehlers said. “That weaving, the killer whale was exactly 7-feet wide. So it’s a life-size killer whale.”
Ehlers and the other eight National Heritage Fellows will receive $25,000 and be honored at a September awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.
CBO sees peril in Senate bill for uncrowded regions
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.
The Congressional Budget Office has what amounts to a warning for “sparsely populated areas” in its analysis of the Senate’s draft health care reform bill: The bill could drive out insurers.
Trump’s Interior secretary takes first baby step on King Cove road
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
There was a bit of a victory Monday for supporters of a proposed road in Southwest Alaska that would connect the village of King Cove to an airport at Cold Bay via the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
More Alaskans mauled by bears
Associated Press
Two more Alaskans were mauled by bears in Alaska over the weekend, bringing the number of bear attacks in the state to four in less than a week, including two fatal ones.
Wilderness race cancelled due to bear mauling
Associated Press
A popular wilderness race in Alaska has been suspended for one year following the fatal maulings last week.
Chilkat weaver receives national folk art honor
Jacob Resneck, KTOO – Juneau
A 62-year-old Juneau woman has received one of the nation’s top awards recognizing traditional folk art.
Chitina dip netters can now catch salon in Copper River after spring ban
Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks
Chitina dip netters are now able to harvest a king salmon. The usual allowance in the popular Copper River personal use fishery is back after being rescinded this spring out of concern about a weak king run. With the commercial and subsistence harvests indicating a better than anticipated return, fishing restrictions have been pulled back.
Low tide reveals Alutiiq fishing method in Kodiak
Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak
A Kodiak archaeologist said there may be the remains of a historic Alutiiq fish trap on the north end of Kodiak Island. He said those types of man-made formations are rare to discover in the region.
New treasure trove of Inupiat recordings being assessed for possible digital use
Lori Townsend, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
In Kotzebue, An aging trove of Inupiat photographs, books and recordings at risk of deteriorating are being assessed in the hope they can be digitized for future use.
Talkeetna’s inaugural Pride celebration draws a crowd
Phillip Manning, KTNA – Talkeetna
What began as an idea between two friends turned into a LGBTQ+ Pride event that drew hundreds of people in Talkeetna on Sunday.
Study examines the ripple effect of charter operators’ choices
Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer
An ongoing study published in the scientific journal Public Library of Science aims to find out how charter operators’ fishing habits have evolved and the ripple effect of their decisions.
Man becomes first person to Race to Alaska on a stand-up paddle board
Emily Atkinson, KRBD – Ketchikan
On a cool Sunday evening in Ketchikan, Team Heart of Gold’s Karl Kruger became the first person to finish the Race to Alaska on a stand-up paddle board.
The Congressional Budget Office has what amounts to a warning for “sparsely populated areas” in its analysis of the Senate’s draft health care reform bill. The CBO said while most insurance markets would remain stable under the Senate bill, the legislation would drive out insurers that serve a “small fraction” of the population, or these areas will see premiums rise very high.
The CBO attributes this to the bill’s lower subsidies, which it said will entice fewer people to buy insurance. The bill would end the mandate to buy insurance. And markets with few purchasers are less profitable for insurers.
The CBO isn’t pointing to Alaska, but no other state would lose as much in subsidies, and no other state is as sparsely populated.
Judy Solomon is vice president at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. On several scores, Solomon said she can’t think of a state that fares worse, in either the Senate or and the House bill, than Alaska.
“If it’s not the worse, it’s probably tied or way up there in terms of the most serious harm,” Solomon said.
Insurers are already withdrawing from some markets under current law. The CBO did not quantify the withdrawal effect of the Senate bill.
The law would also impose major changes on Medicaid. The state estimates Alaska would lose $2.8 billion in Medicaid spending over six years if the House bill went into effect. Solomon said the Senate bill would inadequately compensate states for inflation.
“Over time, the difference between what states need to support their Medicaid program and what the federal government contributes just gets larger and larger and more and more costs are shifted to states,” Solomon said.
The Senate bill has few defenders from right-wing think tanks, though Heritage Foundation said it’s better than existing law.
One fan of the Senate bill is the insurer Anthem. The company says the bill will stabilize the individual market by spending $50 billion and eliminating a tax on insurance plans.
The CBO says the Senate bill will increase the number of uninsured by 22 million and reduce the deficit by $321 billion.
Neither of Alaska’s senators has stated a position on the bill.
A People Mover bus. (Anne Hillman/Alaska Public Media)
Anchorage is trying to figure out what’s next for the downtown Transit Center. The facility was a central hub for city buses, but problems with loitering, substance abuse, and crime created what some have called a “hazard to health and safety.” Now, officials are reaching out to developers and the business community for ideas on how to re-invent the property.
On a relatively quiet Monday morning inside the Transit Center’s bright atrium people read or chit-chat on benches as noisy buses drop people off outside. A small group of city employees, developers, and business owners stood around a man wearing a slim blazer with a neatly folded white pocket square.
“Did you want to take a tour?” Andrew Halcro, executive director the Anchorage Community Development Authority, asked. The group did, and eventually headed up a flight of stairs to look at vacant office space on the building’s second level.
ACDA is a quasi-governmental appendage attached to the municipal body. It controls all of the city’s parking facilities, including meters, several surface lots, and a few big parking garages, like the one attached to the Transit Center at 6th Avenue. Under Halcro, ACDA has gotten creative with parking and transit resources, treating them less like infrastructure, and more like real-estate. In May, a dance-party DJed by international musicians took place on the roof of the parking garage at 5th Avenue.
In 2015, when ACDA announced plans to quote “shut and gut” the Transit Center, it began phasing out the businesses and social service providers that rented space in the building.
“A year ago there were 12 tenants in here,” Halcro told the group. “Now there’s only one.”
All that’s left is Burger Express. And of course the buses, along with office space used by People Mover. But even those are going away. Over the next couple months, the city is overhauling its bus system, and new routes are designed in a way where the Transit Center will be less like a bus station, and more like a mere hub. So the city is reaching out to private partners, trying to get their ideas and proposals for what to do with the space.
“We’re really trying to get the building to a point where developers such as yourselves can come in and take a look at the facility and envision what it could be,” Halcro told the small cluster of people.
“Because obviously a building that’s been around for 30 years has gained a reputation, and to some degree a stigma,” Halcro continued, referring to the Transit Center’s low public regard, which many blame for deterring nearby development and investment. When Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s administration announced it would be gradually shuttering the facility, among its most frequently cited reasons were widespread public intoxication, drug dealing and sex crimes.
In the broader ambition of revamping downtown Anchorage, Halcro sees the Transit Center overhaul as the first move in a domino sequence that could get nearby parking lots and substandard buildings turned into apartments and businesses.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking with economic development agencies outside, especially in Oklahoma City and Wichita,” Halcro explained. Parking garages are a popular focus of redevelopment efforts across the country, in part because they tend to have prime real-estate in urban centers, according to Halcro. “So they’re doing all kinds of creative things with putting housing on the façade or mixed-use…so those are the kinds of ideas we’re looking for.”
Halcro doesn’t mean converting the parking garage itself into condos. The towering structure would stay the same, along with its capacity to store several hundred vehicles. His general idea would be affixing a new building beside the garage, one with around five dozen housing units above one or two floors of retail shops. Adding housing stock downtown is a growing goal for the Berkowitz administration, and something national chains like Walgreens have said they’d need to see in the area in order to consider opening franchise locations.
Achillius Gagnon was one of the business people on the tour. He runs AK Business Interiors, a company that rehabs building interiors.
“We design and tear down, and put up new Lego’s,” Gagnon laughed.
Gagnon thought the idea of potentially adding new shops and residential units to a parking garage was an interesting proposition. He came on this optional tour as he and some business partners were readying to submit a bid under a request for a proposal the city.
“We’ll see who we can team up with, and maybe– hopefully–be on the winning team to do something in here,” Gagnon said. “I think it’d be great.”
Any eventual redevelopment plan will likely have to involve multiple partners working closely with the Municipality.
Halcro expects proposals to be submitted and vetted during the summer, and potentially have a clear vision for what happens to the Transit Center by October.
The statue titled “Joe Redington Senior on the Trail.” (Henry Leasia / Alaska Public Media)
A new bronze sculpture of Iditarod co-founder Joe Redington Sr. was unveiled at Redington High School in Knik on Friday. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held the day before signups for the 2018 Iditarod race.
Patrick Garley, a bronze sculptor from Palmer, spent roughly 18 months making this life-size sculpture of Joe Redington Sr. and his seven-dog team. Redington, a dog musher who ran a kennel in Knik, co-founded the Iditarod with Dorothy Page.
The sculpture was made possible through Alaska’s Percent for Art program, which sets aside one percent of the construction costs for new or renovated public buildings for site-specific artwork.
This isn’t the first time that Garley has sculpted “the father of the Iditarod.” Last year, Garley created a new Joe Redington Sr. Trophy for the winner of the Iditarod. He said the most difficult part about these sculptures, is capturing the dogs.
“People here really know their dogs, so they will spot any inconsistencies,” Garley said.
Saturday marked 18 years since Redington passed away. Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley said he hopes this statue will help cement Redington’s legacy for the next generation.
“But more importantly I am hopeful they will develop enough of an understanding of his life that they make a connection with his undying spirit and his ability to pursue a dream even when others had a lot of doubt,” Hooley said.
During the ceremony, Mat-Su Borough Mayor Vern Halter presented a 25,000 dollar check from the borough to the Idatarod Trail Committee. Hooley said the funding will provide crucial resources for trail maintenance.
“We create a trail every year,” Hooley said. “And some of the underbrush has grown to a point where it’s impossible, when you don’t get six feet of snow, to lay it down adequately enough to go over the top of it.”
Two out of the last three years, the Iditarod has moved the restart to Fairbanks from its traditional location in Willow due to a lack of snow. Mayor Halter hopes this funding could help keep the Iditarod in the Mat-Su.
“The thinking was if they could get some of this brush and tough stuff out, even in smaller, lower snow years we could restart the race in the valley,” Mayor Halter said. “And that’s a big deal for us not only because of the history of Joe Sr. and the race, but for businesses. We have a lot of lodges and a lot of things revolve around the Iditarod.
Several members of the Redington family were at the ceremony. The founder’s great granddaughter Ellen Redington will be attending Redington High School in the fall. She will be the first family-member to enroll in the school.
Three of Joe Redington Sr’s grandchildren, Robert, Ryan and Ray were among the fifty-two mushers that signed up for the 2018 Iditarod over the weekend.
Haines resident Alex Stock has signed up to drive for Uber. He’s waiting on a background check and vehicle inspection. (Photo by Emily Files/KHNS)
In visits to the Lower 48, Alaskans may have caught a ride in an Uber or Lyft car.
Now, people around the state can use the ride-hailing companies at home. This month, Alaska became the latest state to make way for the transportation apps.
In small towns where taxi service has struggled to survive, the companies could fill a need.
If you’re catching an Uber in New York or L.A., you might expect a sleek black sedan.
Haines resident and aspiring Uber driver Alex Stock has a Ford Super Duty truck.
“It’s Alaska, what do you expect?” Stock said.
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker gave ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft the green light to operate in the state earlier this month. He signed into law House Bill 132, which permits transportation network companies in the state.
Uber did operate in Alaska for a short time a few years ago, but it shut down after a dispute over labor rules.
Uber and Lyft’s services are based on a smartphone app that connects passengers and drivers.
Drivers are considered independent contractors and they use their own cars.
For now, Lyft is only in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks. But Uber said it should be available wherever there are interested drivers.
“I’m gonna sign up, see how it goes,” Stock said. “I think it’ll be a good way to supplement my income.”
Stock runs a scooter rental business that caters to cruise ship tourists. He’s getting involved in Uber for the same reason he started the scooter business: Haines has no taxi service or public transportation.
“That was probably the biggest concern I started hearing from tourists,” Stock said. “I said, ‘Well you can rent a scooter from me. Other than that, I don’t really have an answer for you.’ Now, this seems to be the answer.”
“If Uber would be able to provide the same level of service that a taxicab company could provide, or better, then I would certainly encourage the community to go that route,” Haines Borough Manager Debra Schnabel said.
Schnabel said taxi companies haven’t lasted here because of the high cost of insurance required for commercial vehicles under borough code.
It doesn’t look like Uber drivers will have that burden.
HB 132 essentially disallows local governments from imposing regulations on ride-hailing companies.
Municipalities can levy a sales tax, but if they want to go beyond that, the law requires a public vote.
Alaska Municipal League Director Kathie Wasserman is frustrated by the lack of local control.
“The Legislature, for whatever reason, promised an out-of state-company that ‘oh yeah, if you don’t want regulation to come to our state, we’ll exempt you.’ What does that say to every other business in the state?” Wasserman said. “I mean that just seems crazy.”
The City of Juneau was also opposed to the bill’s limited options for local regulation.
But there are some restrictions.
Not just anyone can drive for Uber or Lyft. Prospective drivers must pass a federal background check, which screens for driving and criminal history. They have to be 21 or older. And cars must undergo an inspection and cannot be more than 12 years old.
Soon-to-be Uber driver Stock is still waiting on the background check. He downloaded the vehicle inspection form, which he’ll take to a local mechanic. He hopes to be driving for Uber by the end of the week.
When asked how he plans to maintain a five-star Uber rating (passengers and drivers can rate each other), Stock said he expected people would just be happy to be able to get an Uber ride in Haines.
And, he’ll probably wash his truck before picking up his first fare.
In Kotzebue, An aging trove of Inupiat photographs, books and recordings at risk of deteriorating are being assessed in the hope they can be digitized for future use. Aqqaluk Memorial Trust, a cultural arm of NANA regional corporation received a small grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to bring in a preservation specialist this week, to examine the materials.
More than 4000 items including 500 recordings made from 1965 into the 1980s are in the collection. Arctic Sounder reporter Shady Grove Oliver said the nearly 50 year old recordings include conversations with elders, highlighting the importance of understanding what it means to be Inupiaq. She spoke with Alaska Public Media’s Lori Townsend.
OLIVER: And this happened at the same time as a lot of the Land Claims discussions were happening, the times when the Native corporations were coming into being. So with this, it was this ton of rejuvenation in interest in one’s own history. So some of these recordings have interviews with people like Willie Hensley and John Schaeffer, who later went on to be huge figures in self-governance movements in the area. They also, in some cases, document things like the meetings that took place throughout the Northwest Arctic that discuss what people wanted their Inupiaq values to be, as in, if you go to that area now, there’s a lot of pride in one’s Inupiaq values. And it’s this agreed upon set of values that were actually determined at that time. So they have recordings of the original conversations discussing things as personal as what it means to be an Inupiaq person.
TOWNSEND: And Shady, what else is within this vast collection? What else have you discovered or you’ve been told about what’s contained within these archives?
OLIVER: The tapes are really the central focus to some degree. There’s more than 4,000 items all together in this collection, and there’s about 700 cassette tapes. So as a group, they’re one of the most important parts of it. And I’d like to point out some of the other things that are actually in these tapes that I’ve had described to me. There’s conversations with elders that are actually in Inupiaq, and that’s really important because there are a lot of people nowadays who are trying to learn the language as second language learners, as in they didn’t grow up speaking their native language. And these tapes are a really important original document of the language as spoken by fluent native speakers. So I know there are language learners who are looking forward to being able to hear how the language is spoken by people who knew it fluently. In addition, there’s recordings of elders talking about migration patterns, hunting and fishing traditions, traditional medicine, weather patterns. So a lot of things that would actually help communities nowadays understand where they are and how they got here, even if they weren’t able to speak to those elders that had that information themselves.
TOWNSEND: It’s sounds as if some of that information could be valuable for baseline information for climate change research and other scientific initiatives.
OLIVER: For sure. And it’s something that I know people are interested in seeing what’s actually on these tapes, and I say that because there so fragile at ts point. We know that tapes can last for 25-30 years fairly comfortably, but some of these tapes are pushing 50+ years at this point. So because they’re so fragile, many of these haven’t actually been heard in a long time, but people are hoping to be able to listen and see what’s on some of them. So in terms of climate change, if we could hear, firsthand, what conditions were like in the 1960s and 70s, that would help back up what some of the elders are saying today. That would help lay the baseline so we could understand how have the caribou migration patterns changed, did the migration routes originally go through some villages and not others, how far out does the sea ice extend? And by having that data, we can better understand the rate and way things have changed over the last 50 years.
Mat-Su lawmaker leaves Senate Majority, dissatisfied with budget compromise
Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau
For the second time this year, a Republican from Matanuska-Susitna Borough left the state Senate majority caucus. Palmer Senator Shelley Hughes left the caucus last week to oppose the state budget.
Alaskan protesters not letting up on their disapproval of the Senate healthcare plan
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.
U.S. Senate leaders postponed a vote on their health care reform bill, but Alaskans opposed to the bill aren’t letting up. One Alaskan, a three-time cancer survivor, was at the U.S. Capitol today to tell his senators to reject the bill.
Alaska communities to receive millions in Payments In Lieu of Taxes
Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The Department of the Interior announced today that local Alaska governments around the state would receive $29.7 million in Payment in Lieu of Taxes funds, or PILT.
Alaska volcano sends up ash cloud from Aleutian Islands
Associated Press
A 14-minute eruption by an Alaska volcano sent an ash cloud to 30,000 feet (9,100 meters) in the Aleutian Islands.
Anchorage seeks proposals for Transit Center overhaul
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Officials are reaching out to developers and the business community for ideas on how to re-invent the troubled property.
As Uber arrives in Alaska, towns without taxis have new transportation option
Emily Files, KHNS – Haines
In visits to the Lower 48, Alaskans may have caught a ride in an Uber or Lyft car. Now, people around the state can use the ride-hailing companies at home. This month, Alaska became the latest state to make way for the transportation apps.
Ask A Climatologist: A warmer North, but a lukewarm everywhere else
Annie Feidt, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage
Residents of Utqiagvik have experienced above normal temperatures for the last 17 months. But a cooler than normal June will end that streak.
Redington High School commemorates ‘father of the Iditarod’ with bronze statue
Henry Leasia, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
A new bronze sculpture of Iditarod co-founder Joe Redington Sr. was unveiled at Redington High School in Knik on Friday. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held the day before signups for the 2018 Iditarod race.
Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Anchorage, describes education legislation to the Senate Finance Committee in April. Hughes left the Senate majority caucus over the budget. (Photo by Skip Gray/360 North)
For the second time this year, a Republican from Matanuska-Susitna Borough left the state Senate majority caucus. Palmer Sen. Shelley Hughes left the caucus last Thursday to oppose the state budget.
Hughes was the only senator to vote against the $4.1 billion operating budget. She said she wished the majority had pushed for deeper budget cuts before it compromised with the House.
“I wish we would have pulled over a little bit more so that when we met in the middle … the middle would have been different than what it is today,” Hughes said.
Since the majority requires its members to vote for the budget, Hughes’ decision to vote no on the budget essentially meant she left the caucus.
Hughes opposed cutting Permanent Fund dividends.
Due to the budget gap, Hughes said she would first support further spending cuts. Then, she would support a statewide sales tax.
“People in my district, they just want to see more reductions first, and so I have to honor that,” Hughes said. “And that is how I campaigned … and I have to be a person of my word.”
Hughes will lose some of her four committee assignments, including her spot on the powerful Finance Committee. She will also lose funding for legislative aides.
Hughes joined Wasilla Republican Sen. Mike Dunleavy in leaving the majority.
Dunleavy said he understood why Hughes made her decision. He said it’s difficult for senators to balance their own positions with the caucus’s needs.
“I think that’s the problem for many folks still in the caucus,” Dunleavy said. “There are a lot of good folks, I mean, they’re all good folks, but in terms of thinking on your own and making your decision on your own, that generally goes against the whole caucus concept.”
Dunleavy said he also would have voted against the budget. Dunleavy added that he’ll talk with Hughes about forming a new, two-person caucus.
Steve Taylor confers with Rosalee Abbott outside Sen. Murkowski’s office. Abbott, also Alaskan, works for American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. (Photo by Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media)
U.S. Senate leaders postponed a vote on their health care reform bill, but Alaskans opposed to the bill aren’t letting up. One Alaskan, a three-time cancer survivor, went to Washington to make his pitch directly.
Steve Taylor is 42 and looks solid and strong. You wouldn’t pick him out as a person who requires expensive health care. He works at a title company, and lives in Anchorage with his wife, a dog and two cats. He likes to fly-fish. Until 2004, he was fine.
“I was in great health,” Taylor said. “I hadn’t been to an actual doctor in years.”
Two months after his wedding day, Taylor was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and went through chemo. A few years after that, it was pancreatic cancer.
“They ended up taking the head of my pancreas, my gall bladder, a portion of my small intestine and half my stomach,” Taylor said, in the hallway of a Senate office building, waiting to speak to Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Then came melanoma. Taylor learned it’s all related to a genetic disorder. Now he has to have monthly injections that cost $10,000 apiece. Like a majority of Alaskans, Taylor has insurance through his employer. He’s glad the Affordable Care Act of 2010 eliminated lifetime caps on insurance payouts. A lot of them were set at $1 million.
“Obviously, since that time, I’ve blown by the former caps,” Taylor said.
Taylor was one of 60 patients brought to Washington by a coalition of more than a dozen patient groups, including the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. They’re trying to make the issue personal, by putting patients face-to-face with their senators.
As they were making the rounds, word filtered through the Capitol that Republican leaders didn’t have the votes for the bill and will put it off until after the July 4 recess.
Taylor was eager to tell both Alaska senators to ditch the bill and start from scratch, because he said the proposal is bad for cancer patients.
“And not just cancer patients, diabetes, anybody that has any type of chronic illness or anybody that is going to have a catastrophic illness,” Taylor said. “They deserve to be protected.”
Among his complaints: The bill would allow states to redefine what insurance has to cover, and he says there would be financial pressure to bring back the lifetime caps.
Neither Sen. Dan Sullivan nor Murkowski has announced a position on the bill.
“How am I feeling about it?” Murkowski said when asked about the bill. “I’m feeling like I still have a lot of hard questions that will require a lot of hard data.”
In Alaska, a group of protestors was outside the senators’ Anchorage office building at lunchtime, chanting “health care for everyone.”
Ex-insurance agent Michael Dzurisin said speaking out makes a point to the senators.
“I think that their eyes will open up a little more, and they’ll understand that people are hopefully on top of this issue. They’ll think more about it before they pass any bill that’s sponsored by their party,” Dzurisin said.
At that hour, both Alaska senators were with their Republican colleagues at the White House to regroup on health care. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said he expects to put a revised bill on the floor in a few weeks.
Henry Leasia contributed to this report from Anchorage.
Residents of Utqiagvik have experienced above normal temperatures for the last 17 months. But a cooler-than-normal June will end that streak.
Brian Brettschneider with our Ask a Climatologist segment said the rest of the state has drifted back toward normal temperatures this year, after spending several years in above normal territory.
But he said Utqiagvik stayed warm — until this month.
Interview Transcript:
Brian: They’re going to break their 17-month string of above normal months and end up just probably about one degree below normal. So for them they get to experience what the rest of the state has so far in 2017.
Annie: How significant was that streak?
Brian: Well 17 months, that’s a long streak. I believe that’s the currently longest streak in the United States. There’s a few places in, say, Minnesota and in the southeastern lower 48 that that are running about 12 months in a row above normal. But 17 is a long time. It’s quite the statistical anomaly to be that above normal for that many months in a row. So it’s very noteworthy.
Annie: What about the rest of the state this summer, how are temperatures shaping up?
Brian: We consider June the first traditional month of the summer and we have both extremes in the state. On the North Slope, they’re a little bit below normal. And then down in southeast from Juneau southward, they’ve been a little bit below normal. And then everyone else is at, or slightly above, normal. Anchorage is about half a degree above normal. Fairbanks, Bethel and McGrath are about two degrees above normal. And then over on the west coast in Nome and Kotzebue, it’s about five degrees above normal. So even though in some respects it’s kind of felt like a cool start to the summer, we’re actually running a little bit above normal.
Annie: I think people in Anchorage will say you’re crazy to suggest we’re having even a little bit warmer than normal summer.
Brian: We’ll oftentimes think of how many 70 degree days we’ve had here in Anchorage. We’ve only had two so far. And normally we would have about five in by now and for the whole summer we’d have about 15 or 16. So sometimes people look at those warm events, those outlier events, and that’s their metric on whether it’s been an above-normal-temperature summer or below normal. You can actually run above normal even without having your requisite number of so-called warm days.
Annie: Explain how the average daily temperature is calculated?
Brian: When we talk about how it’s been x degrees above or below normal, we’re not talking just about the high temperature. You add the high and the low together and divide by two. And from a climate point of view, from an ecological point of view, it’s that average daily temperature that really matters. So in Anchorage, our normal high is about 65 degrees this time of year. You can actually have a 65-degree high temperature and that same day be one or two degrees above normal because you haven’t looked at the low temperature yet. And if that’s running one or two or four degrees above normal then the whole day will run above normal.
So over the long term, we’ve actually seen more of an increase in our low temperatures than we have in the high temperatures during the summer months. So don’t just keep an eye on the high temperature. You also have to look at the low temperature to see how we’re doing from a climate perspective.
When the ordinance was first introduced it drew support from advocates, as well as several women who had previously engaged in prostitution. Many testified they’d encountered heinous and violent crime, but were afraid of reporting it to law enforcement for fear of prosecution.
However critics said the proposal was vague, hard to enforce and targeted a problem Anchorage may or may not have. Even after revisions, the municipal prosecutor’s office remained firmly opposed.
But Assembly members like Eric Croft of West Anchorage felt the re-worked ordinance was narrow enough to potentially boost reporting to law enforcement without many negative impacts.
“And it’s not doing very much harm because, again, there aren’t that many prosecutions for this,” Croft said.
Under municipal statue, prostitution is a class B misdemeanor. The new measure specifies a person who witnesses or is victim to a some class A misdemeanors can receive immunity if he or she cooperates in reporting it to police. The move is aligned with a similar provision in SB91, last year’s state omnibus crime bill.
The ordinance passed 10 to 1, with Eagle River representative Amy Demboski opposed.
Elsewhere in the meeting, the Assembly voted to advance a complicated development project. The move opens the possibility of using tax abatement as a tool for converting the outdated Department of Health and Human Services downtown into senior housing, and building new residential units in a section of Midtown Anchorage off Tudor Road. The proposal from the mayor’s administration received some criticism for not working more closely with the school district, which uses a nearby property to operate its fleet
of buses.
The body also approved a parking proposal from East Anchorage Assembly member Forrest Dunbar. The measure establishes a grace-period for leaving cars parked downtown overnight on weekends up until 11am the next morning.
Governor Walker in Utqiaġvik on June 24, 2017 after signing Indigenous Peoples Day into state law. (Courtesy of the Governor’s Office of Alaska)
In Utqiaġvik over the weekend, Governor Bill Walker signed legislation recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day in Alaska. The law establishes Alaska as the second state in the nation to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday of October, replacing Columbus Day.
On Saturday, Governor Walker said, “This official recognition is just one way we as a state can acknowledge and celebrate the contributions made by First Peoples throughout the history of this land.”
For the past two years the Governor had issued one-year observances for the second Monday in October to be Indigenous Peoples Day. The signing of the new law will complete that effort and Alaska will join South Dakota in recognizing the holiday.
Representative Dean Westlake of Kotzebue, Senator Donny Olson of Nome, and Representative Zach Fansler of Bethel were in attendance for the signing, along with a number of representatives from the North Slope Borough. That’s according to Representative Fansler, who was also the first co-signer for House Bill 78, put forward by the representative from Kotzebue.
“At one point we were actually thinking about trying to carry this bill, you know. Representative Westlake ended up carrying it and we co-signed right away,” Fansler said.
The signing was held during Utqiaġvik’s annual Nalukataq whaling festival.
“They take the whales; they’ve been fermenting them, they, you know, obviously they harvested them back in April, and this is where they divvy up the whale parts to literally the entire community,” said Fansler.
According to Fansler, the Inupiauq tradition is a day-long festival where much of the town comes out to celebrate a successful whale hunt. Different parts of fermented whale are brought out with cakes and candy and followed by singing, a blanket toss, and then dancing. Fansler said that it was an appropriate occasion for signing the bill.
“People were already super enthusiastic,” Fansler said. “And then when you couple that with the idea that we were signing into law something that establishes the second Monday [of October] as Indigenous Peoples Day, you know it just made it all the better.”
The crowd and legislators were happy to see the bill finally come to fruition, said Fansler, as there have been several attempts over the years to pass similar legislation.
“You know, on the Senate side, on the House side, so I think there has been this push for some time, but, you know, for various reasons it just doesn’t move along. But this year was a year I think we have a historic legislature,” Fansler said.
Fansler considers this legislature to be historic for a number of reasons, one of those being that Alaska is finally seeing its first Alaska Native Speaker of the House.
“This is meant to be something that’s inclusive,” Fansler said. “And this is something to really promote Native culture throughout our state and recognize the amazing impact of our first people.”
Representative Fansler said that he’s looking forward to celebrating October 9 as Alaska’s first official Indigenous Peoples Day.
Results were released Saturday via Sealaska’s Facebook page during the Southeast regional Native corporation’s annual meeting, held in Hydaburg, on Prince of Wales Island.
Juneau-based Sealaska has about 22,000 shareholders, which gives it the largest base of Alaska’s dozen regional Native corporations.
Sidney Edenshaw of Hydaburg is one of the three winning incumbents. He’s president of his community’s tribal association and has been on Sealaska’s board for 12 years.
Another is Ed Thomas of Kingston, Washington. The former Juneau resident spent 27 years as president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. He’s been on Sealaska’s board for 27 years.
The third winning incumbent is Ross Soboleff of Juneau. The writer and fisherman won a board seat three years ago after running as an independent.
The fourth winning candidate is Morgan Howard of Kirkland, Washington, who owns a communications company. The board chose him from a group of about 50 shareholders who applied to run on its slate.
The seat he filled was vacated by Rosita Worl. The 30-year board member did not seek re-election this year. She continues to run the Sealaska Heritage Institute, the corporation’s cultural arm.
Eight independent candidates also ran for Sealaska’s board of directors. The highest vote-getters were Karen Taug and Doug Chilton of Juneau, and Nicole Hallingstad of Arlington, Virginia.
Taug works in finance, Chilton is an artist and teacher and Hallingstad works for the National Congress of American Indians. She used to be Sealaska’s corporate secretary.
The board-size measure would have shrunk the 13-member panel to nine members over several years. It targeted long-time incumbents.
Board election results list the number of shares cast for each candidate.
Thanks to the Pilgrim Produce program, which receives some funding from a USDA grant, various crops are currently being grown at Pilgrim Hot Springs on Unaaqtuq land. Unaaqtuq is a consortium of organizations and Native corporations, such as White Mountain and Mary’s Igloo, that has partnered with groups like the Bering Straits Development Company (BSDC).
Robert Bensin is the construction manager with BSDC.
“The staple ones are definitely the potatoes and the onions, and we’ve definitely gone real big,” Bensin said. “If we get to what the average yield is per plant for the potatoes, we are probably looking at a few thousand pounds. As with the onions, there is definitely a few thousand onions already, in the ground, that are doing very well.”
Bensin is one of the few people who is regularly found at Pilgrim with his boots on the ground and hands in the dirt. He explained that it’s beneficial to have the option to buy locally grown produce.
“Well it’s organic, so: GMO-free, no pesticides, no fertilizers — well, no bad fertilizers — obviously, you know, (we use) compost — and it will be competitive with the local markets here in town,” Bensin said.
For the other plants growing out at Pilgrim, including celery, squash, pumpkins, and much more, Bensin sid it’s hard to say what the yield will be at this point in the season.
Last summer, in 2016, the test garden that produced a crop harvest from a one-acre plot of land received a dusting of snow during the first week of September, forcing the team to end their growing season.
Plant starters in April prepared to be planted at Pilgrim Hot Springs. (Photo by Margaret DeMaioribus, KNOM)
This summer, Bensin said they started growing earlier than last time, but how much time they have to grow is uncertain.
“It’s really just, you know, keeping an eye on the weather and keeping an eye on the road conditions, as well, because that dictates when you get in and out of there for the end of the season,” Bensin said.
Overall, there have been many challenges to maintaining a growing farm next to the Hot Springs, such as voles snacking on the crops, beavers damming up culverts, which blocks water flow, and accessing the site on a regular basis.
Bensin suggests that transporting the plants to and from Pilgrim is most difficult.
“It’s the logistics, it’s starting the starts here in town and having to transport them out there,” Bensin said. “Still, we have to see what it’s going to take to get them back, once we harvest, what it’s going to take to get everything back here to market.”
Pilgrim Produce hopes to have a weekly farmer’s market stand within Nome city limits starting up on Saturdays sometime this summer. According to Bensin, more information about the vegetables for sale, the selling times, and the stand location will be forthcoming.
University of Alaska Fairbanks (Creative Commons photo by Jimmy Emerson)
University of Alaska researchers are planning new strategies to address suicide in Alaskan Native Communities. An over $4 million federal grant is funding creation of a clearing house of successful strategies drawn from villages and regions across the state.
The Alaska Native Epidemiology Center said between 2003 and 2015, one in seven Alaska Native High School students attempted suicide. And suicide is the leading cause of death for Alaska Native male teens. Dr. Lisa Wexler has been addressing these and other mental health issues in the Alaska Northwest for more than two decades. She said it’s important to realize those statistics are relatively new.
“Until the 1960s there were very few documented indigenous youth suicide cases,” Wexler said. “And it really came about as there was rapid change, as there were new generations of kids that were sort of disempowered.”
Wexler is one of the principle investigators of a $4.25 million grant from The National Institute of Mental Health. She said the grant, in part, funds a broad social approach to suicide research.
“So if we think of it as a social problem, that allows us to really conceptualize policy solutions,” Wexler said. “That allows us to conceptualize community-level solutions that we maybe haven’t been thinking about as well or as much as we might.”
Wexler says the grant will also create a hub at the College of Rural and Community Development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dr. Stacy Rasmus, at UAF is another grant principle investigator. She said the hub will serve as a clearing house of sorts for proven Alaska Native based community strategies. Data is available from other parts of the country about suicide prevention, but she said sometimes the contexts don’t fit.
“Trying to adapt them to fit within a village context, or to serve in these widely diverse geographic and cultural communities… they just don’t work,” Rasmus said.
Rasmus said she and her colleagues will develop a tool that is user-friendly and practical so both rural and urban communities can access approaches that work.
“So we have a study that will involve 65 communities and three regions to see if we can create that tool for communities to identify how exactly culture is prevention,” Rasmus said.
Rasmus said she and her colleagues are already meeting to put the five-year grant to work.
The University of Alaska’s information technology infrastructure and many of its network systems suffered a prolonged, widespread outage Wednesday on at least two campuses — Fairbanks and Anchorage.
Depending on the location, phones, Internet, external websites and internal sites like the ones staff use for human resources or that students and professors use for classes were down from 9:30 to noon or longer.
It all started with contractors on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus working in the Butrovich Building on the backup battery system.
“Something happened to cause a short in the electrical system,” UAF spokeswoman Marmian Grimes said. “That, in turn, brought down the network.”
The fix required special technicians and a specialized high-voltage replacement part was apparently not already on hand.
“Facilities Services crews were able to find a fuse in town and get that fuse replaced,” Grimes said.
Grimes said police and fire dispatchers at the university had no Internet but were still able to take calls and use radios.
But other public safety services tied to the system, including but not limited to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center, were also affected. The center tweeted that some automated earthquake information was unavailable, for example.
Grimes said there did not appear to be a far reaching threat to public safety.
The University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Public Media had some difficulties related to the outage.
There were persisting problems this evening for dozens of Alaska community stations and translators that are part of Alaska Public Media and the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Steve Hamlin, the technical manager for Alaska Public Broadcasting, said a little before 5 p.m., various systems that distribute programming were starting to come back online.
“It’s sort of like having to reboot and restart stuff and get all the traffic signs going the right way,” Hamlin said.
UAF also said late afternoon that its systems downstream from the outage continued to come back online as well.
Contractor’s blunder causes outage to University of Alaska statewide network
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The University of Alaska’s information technology infrastructure and many of its network systems suffered a prolonged, widespread outage Wednesday on at least two campuses — Fairbanks and Anchorage.
Wave of addiction costs is hitting Alaska’s healthcare system
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Like much of the country, Alaska is seeing a surge in opioid and heroin addiction. And state officials are scrambling to deal with the consequences. One side effect is a a big increase in diseases connected to injecting drugs, particularly Hepatitis C.This is raising concerns about a potential tidal wave of healthcare costs.
Assembly approves granting immunity to sex workers who aid police
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
On Tuesday night, the Anchorage Assembly approved a measure that gives immunity to sex workers who tell police when more serious crimes have occurred.
University of Alaska receives grant to address Native suicides in villages
Robert Hannon, KUAC – Fairbanks
University of Alaska researchers are planning new strategies to address suicide in Alaskan Native Communities. An over $4 million federal grant is funding creation of a clearing house of successful strategies drawn from villages and regions across the state.
Produce coming soon from Pilgrim Hot Springs farming project
Davis Hovey, KNOM – Nome
Nome residents could soon be able to buy locally grown vegetables from Pilgrim Hot Springs at a market stand in town.
Shareholders re-elect Sealaska board incumbents
Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska – Juneau
The management slate won this year’s Sealaska board election. Three incumbents and a newcomer who ran with them beat out eight independent candidates.
Business as usual for marine mammal deterrence
Nora Saks – KFSK – Petersburg
In Southeast Alaska, populations of some marine mammals, like humpback whales and Stellar sea lions, are on the rise. Some subgroups of these species have recently been removed from the Endangered Species list, leaving many commercial fisherman wondering what this means for them.
Governor Walker signs law recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day in Alaska
Christine Trudeau, KYUK – Bethel
In Utqiaġvik over the weekend, Governor Bill Walker signed legislation recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day in Alaska. The law establishes Alaska as the second state in the nation to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday of October, replacing Columbus Day.
Discarded needles at the 4A’s syringe exchange in Anchorage (Photo: Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage)
Like much of the country, Alaska is seeing a surge in opioid and heroin addiction. State officials are scrambling to deal with an expanding list of the consequences. One side effect is a massive increase in diseases connected to injecting drugs, particularly Hepatitis C, raising concerns about a potential tidal wave of healthcare costs facing Alaska.
On the wall of his midtown Anchorage office, Jay Butler has a framed picture of a Yup’ik mask made by artist Drew Michel. It’s colored in hot, garish shades of paint representing a face in pain from Hepatitis C.
“That’s certainly how I interpret it,” Butler said.
The piece is fitting, given that Butler is the Chief Medical Officer for the state health department, and has been loosing sleep over Hep C.
“We talk mostly about opioid overdose deaths, but there’s a lot more that happens related to opioid use than just deaths,” Butler said.
Like Hep C infections, which can slowly destroy the liver. As more people inject prescription painkillers and heroin, there is a parallel rise happening in blood-born diseases.
Especially among young people.
“The most concerning trend that we see is an increasing number of diagnoses age 18 to 29,” Butler said.
That’s new. Hep C used to hit Baby Boomers the hardest. The virus wasn’t discovered until 1991, and by then millions had been exposed to it through blood transfusions, tattoo needles, and syringes. Rates fell throughout the 90s and bottomed out in the 2000s. But since then, the number of cases shooting up.
Reported infections among 18 to 29-year-olds doubled in Alaska during a five-year period from 2011 to 2015, according to the Division of Public Health.
While chronic Hep C is not necessarily a death sentence, it creates a slew of long term problems.
“About one in five people will develop more progressive liver damage with fibrosis,” Butler said, referring to scarring of the liver. It can also cause Cirrhosis to the point where the scarring diminishes liver function. Aside from discomfort, this “slow burn inflammation” can exacerbate other conditions, and in up to five percent of people lead to the kind of full liver failure that requires an organ transplant.
Until recently, the treatment available for the hepatitis C virus was ineffective and fairly toxic. But in 2013 the FDA approved a new class of direct-acting antiviral drugs, which can clear the body of Hep C 90 percent of the time. It is effectively a new cure to a dangerous and widespread chronic condition.
But here is the catch: these medications are extremely expensive.
“The price is the downside and why I usually don’t say it’s a ‘miracle drug,'” Butler explained. “Because miracles don’t come with a price, they’re gifts.”
A course of treatment for Viekira Pak or Harvoni, two common medications, can cost $85,000 to $94,500. When these drugs first hit the market, Butler did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of what it would cost to treat the roughly 3.5 million Americans estimated to be infected with Hep C.
“I was coming up with more than 10 percent of all the medical care in the country,” he said.
In other words, not financially feasible.
It’s especially troubling for a state like Alaska. In rural areas people tend not to have regular access to clean syringes, which drives up the likelihood of re-use or needle sharing, increasing the risk of infections. And while Hep C medications are expensive on the front end, they’re cheaper in the long-term than treating people’s liver damage or paying for transplants.
But that’s putting real stress on a prime source of care: Medicaid.
“We’ve seen definitely an increase in the number of individuals who access these medications,” Erin Narus, the lead pharmacist for the state’s Medicaid program, said. As patients and doctors have grown more familiar with the new anti-viral meds, they’re being prescribed with greater frequency.
In 2015, Alaska’s Medicaid program spent $5.9 million dollars on Hep C treatments, according to Narus. The next year, that more than doubled to $13.6 million. And that money only bought treatment for around 150 people.
Nationwide, Medicaid spent about $2.2 billion on just one Hep C medicine, Harvoni made by Gilead Sciences. That was more than any other single medication. The second most purchased medicine that year was a brand of insulin that cost Medicaid $1.4 billion.
“It appears as if that outpaced the other drugs in that year,” Narus said of Harvoni.
Medicaid is just one of the insurers paying for these medications. Numbers from private providers, the VA and the Indian Health Service are not as public. A report by the McDowell Group calculated that treating just the 1,009 people in Alaska estimated to have been infected with Hep C from injecting drugs in 2015 would cost $90 million.
And even that model probably underestimates that full number of new cases. The areas seeing the steepest growth rates in Hep C infections are Southwest, Northern and Southeast Alaska — rural communities where healthcare, access to clean needles,and testing are spread the most thin. Among young people in southeast, the rate of diagnosis went up 490 percent during five years. Most of the officials interviewed during reporting said that when it comes to Hepatitis C in Alaska, the reality is likely worse than what the data show.
Which is especially bad, because right now the state has no money.
“This is not a time when it is likely that we’ll be able to increase the amount of money being allocated to addiction treatment,” Rep. Ivy Spohnholz (D-Anchorage) said. She chairs the House’s Health and Social Services Committee.
Without more funding for rehab programs or social services, legislators have been focusing on prevention efforts like those in House Bill 159, which limits access to pain pills and boosts reporting protocols to prescription drug data-base.
Gov. Bill Walker also accepted expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and lawmakers are now hoping to tweak how the state delivers behavioral healthcare through the program. According to Spohnholz, the Alaska recently requested a 1115 waiver, which could give the state more discretion from federal guidelines when it comes establishing what treatments Medicaid will pay for.
“We need to make sure that (a) person gets addiction treatment, therapy and that they’re getting their basic healthcare needs met,” Spohnholz said. “So we need a lot more flexibility to be creative with that. The 1115 waivers could allow us to do that.”
Right now, the US Senate is revising the Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, which could undermine Alaska’s approach to mitigating the worst effects of opioid abuse. Provisions in the first draft of the bill could end the requirement that private health insurance cover mental health benefits, leaving people without access to addiction treatment. More dramatically, it would make deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending compared to what’s in the ACA, and replace the open-ended system of reimbursements with a capped budget. Which means Alaska and other states would be forced to make more difficult choices about whether they can afford expensive treatments for growing problems like Hepatitis C.
A juvenile bald eagle goes for a stroll on Front Beach in Unalaska. (Berett Wilber/KUCB)
Unalaska is the national hot spot for bald eagle attacks. Biologists and law enforcement officials agree: You’re more likely to be attacked by a bald eagle here than anywhere else in the country.
You are most likely to be attacked by a bald eagle in the post office parking lot.
Wildlife trooper Damian Lopez Plancarte has just escorted the first eagle victim of the season to the medical clinic. He pointed out the eagle perched on a nest.
“There were no eyewitnesses,” Plancarte said, describing the attack. “When she looked up, that eagle was just sitting there, like ‘I didn’t do it. You looking at me? No, I didn’t do it.’”
Public Safety officials say the best way to avoid an eagle attack is to stay away from nests. If you are attacked, protect your head and leave the area. (Berett Wilber/KUCB)
Nesting season for America’s national bird runs from early June to the end of the summer. Deputy Police Chief Jennifer Shockley is on the frontline of the island’s eagle response team.
“We have these signs that we put up every year to remind people that there are nesting eagles in the area,” Shockley said. “They will do whatever it takes to protect their young, and that typically includes launching themselves at people and using their talons to lacerate their heads.”
With seven-foot wingspans, flesh-ripping beaks and vice-like talons, eagles rule the island. But why are there annual eagle attacks in Unalaska when raptors and humans peacefully coexist elsewhere in the state?
It’s because of the interaction between two eagle needs: food and space.
It’s that time of year again: the eagle attack signs are out in Unalaska. (Berett Wilber/KUCB)
“There’s a lot of food to support a lot of eagles,” Plancarte said. “But there’s not enough space in the small area where the food is to support that many nesting pairs.”
Fish are the staple of the bald eagle’s diet, and Unalaska processes more fish than any other port in the country. Boats, processors, and garbage create a year-round smorgasbord, which eagles want to nest as close to as possible.
But eagles usually nest in trees. Unalaska has no trees. Instead, eagles raise chicks on the tundra and cliff outcroppings. Their nests are a lot more accessible to people, which makes the eagles a lot more territorial.
“We actually have had to go in and chase some eagles off the playground equipment at the town park, because a couple of kids had been trapped inside,” Shockley said.
If you’re attacked by an eagle, call the police at 581-1233. If you come across a dead or injured eagle, call the Alaska Wildlife Troopers at 581-1432.(Berett Wilber/KUCB)
Shockley estimates six to 10 people a year seek medical attention for eagle encounters — usually head gashes from talons, which lead to stitches and expensive medical bills. But most Unalaskans remain pretty good-natured about the raptors next door.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Andres Ayures is a good example. On his third day in Unalaska, he was chased down the side of a mountain by a bald eagle.
“I thought for sure this eagle wanted to kill me,” Ayures said. “I’m thinking, one: ‘Oh heck no, I’m not going to die in Dutch Harbor.’ Two: ‘Oh, crap, I better start running.’”
The bird swooped at him repeatedly, ripped his hood off his head, and forced him to the ground. It even stole the cell phone that fell out of his pocket.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Andres Ayures received a gift from his coworkers after being chased down a mountain by a bald eagle on his third day in Unalaska. (Berett Wilber/KUCB)
“As I was getting attacked, I was still admiring the eagle for being so majestic,” Ayures said. “It was a fantastic-looking eagle.”
Now, Ayures keeps an eagle figurine on his desk. When he’s re-stationed, it’s a piece of Unalaska he’ll hold on to — knowing that somewhere out there, an eagle with his cell phone is holding onto a piece of him, too.
