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As the Arctic warms, a changing landscape on the Chukchi Sea

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Ice researcher Andy Mahoney, joining polar bear guard Robert Nageak at the top of a pressure ridge on the Chukchi Sea off Utqiaġvik. In decades past, this landscape would have been full of much taller pressure ridges and more of them, partly due to the presence of thicker ice that survived more than one summer. That type of ice is disappearing as the Arctic warms. (Photo courtesy of Rowan Romeyn)

It’s well established that Arctic ice is changing in dramatic ways. As the climate warms, ice coverage is decreasing, the amount of multiyear ice has gone down significantly and in Alaska, many communities are seeing the ice come in later, and leave sooner. So, what do those changes look like up close?

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On a late-May evening, about a dozen grad students and postdocs gather at the north edge of Utqiaġvik, by the Barrow Arctic Research Center. They’ve come to Alaska for an Arctic field school and are about to go out onto the sea ice, led by two men who have logged a lot of time out there.

One is Craig George, a wildlife biologist with the North Slope Borough since the early 1980s. He’s spent months of his life on the ice in this part of Alaska, often camped out for days or weeks at a time doing bowhead whale counts, and helping to measure and sample whales during spring whaling.

The other is Andy Mahoney, an ice researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who has been coming up to Utqiaġvik for the past 18 years to study sea ice.

“Craig was there at the very beginning of my sea ice career,” Mahoney said by way of introducing George to the group.

“During the Pleistocene,” George quipped.

“During the Pleistocene, yeah,” Mahoney said. “Back when ice used to be ice. Before this ‘new ice’ that we’ve got now.”

The group piled onto snowmachines, and charted a path toward the Chukchi Sea, whipping over snow-covered lagoons, down the slope leading to the ocean, and over several miles of relatively flat ice close to shore.

Then, the surface got rougher. Big piles of broken ice start appearing — pressure ridges; they’re created when big chunks of floating ice bump up against the shore-fast ice the group is snowmachining on, forcing it to crumble and push both up above the surface, which you can see, and down below it, which you can’t.

The group stopped to get off the machines and look around. As Craig George surveys the landscape, he says he sees a lot of differences from when he started coming out here decades ago.

“The ice tells you what it’s made out of, when it formed,” George said. “The ridges… see the thickness? So that’s relatively thin first-year. I haven’t seen any multiyear.”

Multiyear ice is ice that’s survived at least one summer. It’s usually several feet thicker than the ice that forms and melts away in a single year. Back in the ’80s, George says he used to see a lot of it out here.

“First/second year ice looks like the Rockies, the Rocky Mountains,” George said. “And the old multiyear ice looks like the Appalachians, sort of rounded.”

A few decades ago, 61% of the ice on the Arctic Ocean was multi-year ice. Now it’s about half that.

One reason that multiyear ice matters is that it’s one of the ways the Arctic stays cold. Ice reflects heat from the sun, while water traps it. So if a ton of ice stops being ice during the summer, and instead becomes water… the Arctic is going to get warmer. Which means it won’t be able to help keep the rest of the earth cool.

The students clamber up onto a 20 ft pressure ridge. Out to the north is a seemingly endless field of ice rubble — sharp blue shards jutting up in every direction. No rounded Appalachians here.

A field of ice rubble, pictured from the top of a pressure ridge. All of this ice is “first-year” ice, which means it was formed sometime in the last year. (Photo courtesy of Rowan Romeyn)

The lack of multiyear ice doesn’t just mean that certain shapes are jagged when they used to be round. Andy Mahoney said it helps explain why the landscape looks different in other ways.

“These ridges that we’re standing on, there would have been more of them, and they would have been bigger,” Mahoney said. “So it really has changed. I mean you look back at some pictures of that era, and the features that we now see, they’re something of a shadow from the past.”

There are other changes too. The ice here is forming later, and in some places this year was record thin.

But that doesn’t necessarily translate to a bad ice year for people who depend on the ice, like hunters here in Utqiaġvik. Yes, it means the window of time to hunt certain animals on the ice is shorter. But when it comes to the ice conditions that make for a good whaling year, wind, currents and weather play a huge role too.

“Weather, it plays a big factor in our hunt and this year the weather was pretty windy,” Joseph Leavitt, an Utqiaġvik whaling captain, said. “Pretty windy but… our ice stayed solid… there was hardly any current on the ocean, and so it turned out to be a good year. At least, we got 8 whales.”

Billy Adams is another whaler who works for the North Slope Borough Wildlife Department. He said that yes, ice is freezing later, and yes, parts are thinner, but even as they see changes in the ice, whalers are adapting.

“We just make changes to how we’re going to hunt, and when we’re going to hunt. That’s the biggest thing,” Adams said.

So even as the ice continues to change, whalers say they will keep finding ways to bring whales home to the community.


Two planes collide north of Anchorage; one dead upon Susitna River crash

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UPDATE: 3:30 p.m.

Investigators say two small airplanes collided in the air west of Anchorage about noon today.

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One plane crashed in water at the mouth of the Susitna River – killing one person on-board – while the other was able to continue flying to Anchorage, where it made an emergency landing.

Clint Johnson, head of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska Region, says the pilot who landed the damaged Cessna 175 in Anchorage reported the planes were flying directly at each other.

“He suddenly saw an airplane that was basically spinner to spinner, nose to nose. He made an evasive maneuver by pulling back on the yoke, which obviously the airplane climbed very quickly,” Johnson said. “There was a collision. Don’t know where the other airplane was struck, but it struck his nose gear and left landing gear, sheered both of those off in the collision. Then the second airplane descended uncontrollably into the waters of the mouth of the Big Su.”

Johnson says the surviving pilot described the other plane as a “high-winged” Cessna but had no better description than that. He says the NTSB believes the person who died was the pilot and sole occupant, but it remained unclear Wednesday afternoon if there were any passengers.

Johnson says the deceased person’s name is being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.

Original post via Associated Press

Two airplanes collided in the skies over Alaska north of Anchorage.

Alaska State Troopers shortly after noon were notified of the crash in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

Spokeswoman Megan Peters says wreckage of one airplane was spotted a short time later near the mouth of the Susitna River.

The number of people on board was not known. Search and rescue teams were launched after the crash.

Landing gear on the second airplane was damaged but it made an emergency landing on a dirt airstrip at the Lake Hood Seaplane Base, part of Anchorage’s largest airport, just before 1 p.m.

Anchorage Fire Department Assistant Chief Erich Scheunemann said he was not sure how many were on-board the second airplane but there were no injuries.

Kake to reuse historic cannery for tourism

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The cannery in summer 2017 after repairs. (Photo courtesy of Gary Williams)

The Organized Village of Kake is working to turn its historic cannery into a tourist destination. The tribal government has already worked to save the buildings in the complex, so the next step is to bring the buildings up to code so the community can use them.

In 1910, a private company opened the cannery, which was purchased by the OVK about 40 years later. Former OVK Executive Director Gary Williams has been working for years to get funds to preserve the cannery. He never saw the cannery in operation, but he has heard secondhand how important it was.

“As I listen to elders over the years it seemed like everybody in Kake was somehow involved in the cannery. It was like the heartbeat of the community from everything I can gather,” Williams said.

People from across the world came to Kake to work in the facility before it closed in 1977. Williams moved there shortly after that, and he says for the next couple of decades, the local economy chugged along. There were jobs in logging and cold storage and the village population was large enough to support two grocery stores.

“And then in 2004, it was the first year that there wasn’t any major logging nor did the cold storage operate,” Wiliams said. “So it was a double whammy for the economy and we’ve been working to build ourselves back from that ever since then.”

Throughout all these changes, the cannery was standing by. In 1997, the National Parks Service named it a National Historic Landmark for its part in the history of labor and salmon in Alaska.

“After that, we started looking at things that could be done with it, and also of course saving it, because literally as an NHL it is a national treasure. And there’s a responsibility that comes along with that,” Williams said.

The cannery buildings were at risk of crumbling – a couple of them actually did. About three years ago, contractors began work to stabilize the structures, paid by the OVK and a grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Williams says local workers and local timber brought the project full circle.

“We saw people working in there that were the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people that perhaps worked in there a hundred years ago stabilizing it, and also lumber going in there that was locally milled from perhaps the same stand of trees going in there, second growth of the first growth that had gone in 100 years ago,” Williams said.

Now, the community will use $1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce to add plumbing, electricity, public bathrooms, and a commercial kitchen, plus fire protection.

“So the sprinkler system and fire system will open the door to have larger groups of people to do the tours and the dancers to perform,” Williams said. “And from an economic standpoint, the vendors can have spaces to sell their artwork, their different wares and services.”

The hope is that having tours, performances and vendor space will enable Kake residents to earn income from tourism and raise the community’s profile among small tour groups. Williams said another asset of the cannery is that it is right next to the dock used by cruise ships and other boats. It is also near the airport and ferry terminal. The cannery project is a major piece of Kake’s Comprehensive Economic Development strategy. Williams and others see it as a tool to bring money into the community and keep it there.

Romig Middle Schoolers present history project at the Smithsonian

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Romig Middle School students Annika Colberg (left) and Ava Liles (right) look through photos of the Berlin Wall. The photos and the exhibit in the background were shown at the Smithsonian on Wednesday as part of National History Day. (Photo by Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)

Thirteen-year-old Annika Colberg and 14-year-old Ava Liles never expected their National History Day project to win the statewide contest in their division. But, when they found out they were headed to the Smithsonian, they were proud, surprised and a little bit nervous.

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“We put in so much effort, and we knew that it was like a job well done because we spent so much time on it,” Liles said.

Colberg and Liles along with their Romig Middle School classmates Liza Lebo and Emma Knapp spent hours working after school on their exhibit “The Berlin Wall: A Symbol of Isolation and Unification.” Made up of two grey tri-fold boards stacked on top of one another, the exhibit stands taller than they do.

“The top is more of the information that we needed to have for our project, so more facts. And then the bottom we have split west and east with quotes and photos from kind of each side of the wall,” Colberg said.

A timeline decorated with string lights runs horizontally. In one of the photos, a guard reaches through a gap in the Berlin Wall, offering a flower to the camera. John F. Kennedy’s quote, “A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war,” is centered on the board in big, bold letters. Another from Ronald Reagan: “We don’t mistrust each other because we’re armed. We’re armed because we mistrust each other.”

Their exhibit features photos, quotes and historical information about the Berlin Wall. (Photo by Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)

“I think those are also things (that) can be applied currently. Kind of realizing our faults,” Colberg said. “Like learning from our mistakes and what works and what doesn’t.”

Forty-one students from across Alaska headed to Maryland this week to compete in the National History Day contest. They’re joining students from across the country and the world. As part of the contest, the girls were also invited to showcase their exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Wednesday. 

The girls’ exhibit features a piece of the actual wall that once divided Germany. It also includes a small replica made of Styrofoam.

“One half of the wall has graffiti on it, ’cause it shows how people from the west side were able to come to the wall and write on it,” Liles said. “And how on the east side it was just one blank wall because everything was restricted.”

For National History Day, students conduct original research on a topic of their choice. They then work to create an exhibit, performance, documentary, essay or website explaining their research and compete on a local, district and statewide level in different divisions before advancing to nationals. The competition was started in 1974.

Adam Johnson, the group’s social studies teacher, said the contest helps his students develop the research skills they need for high school.

“They have to do their own research. They have to find primary and secondary sources, and they have to use that research to create a project,” Johnson said. “It’s really higher-level thinking.”

Annika Colberg, left, and Ava Liles, right, stand next to their National History Day exhibit “The Berlin Wall: A Symbol of Isolation and Unification” (Photo by Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)

Johnson said what made this group stand out was their diligence.

“Their research was spot-on. They were passionate about the project. And they worked well together as a group,” Johnson said. “On top of that, they made a display that looked like a museum exhibit.”

Colberg said they chose the Berlin Wall partly because it fit with this year’s theme of “Conflict and Compromise in History” and partly because they didn’t know much about the Cold War, a conflict that had impacted their parents’ generation.

“It was important and it was a pretty major event, and it’s still relatively recent where there’s people that have actually been impacted by it like still living today,” Colberg said.

All four girls said that studying history is an important way to understand the present and the future.

“With the Berlin Wall, obviously that didn’t turn out well. So by having that event and time in our history, I think we can definitely learn from that,” Liza Lebo said over the phone. “Which is, I think, a really great example because of recent events.”

Neither Colberg nor Liles are sure yet what they’ll go on to study, but they haven’t ruled out history.

Anchorage moves forward on LIO purchase

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The Legislative Information Office in downtown Anchorage.
The Legislative Information Office in downtown Anchorage. (Staff photo)

Officials in Anchorage are one step closer to purchasing the embattled Legislative Information Office and using it to house the city’s police department.

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During its Tuesday night meeting, the city’s assembly cast a crucial vote that allows the Anchorage Community Development Authority, a semi-independent municipal agency, to buy the LIO for $14 million. That’s substantially lower than the appraised value of just over $18 million.

One of the reasons offered for the bargain pricing is the building’s fraught political baggage. It drew criticism and condemnation for an expensive, opulent re-design that many said was inappropriate. That shadow, plus a lawsuit, ultimately caused state legislators abandon it.

Assembly member Eric Croft said that after sitting vacant for almost two years, ACDA was right to pounce when it saw the opportunity for a deal.

“We know the history, and the optics, if you will. But it’s not like this building is haunted,” Croft said. “It was a stupid move by the state and we get to take advantage of it.”

The administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz announced last week that the large downtown building could soon house the Anchorage Police Department. APD currently occupies a facility five miles away near the U-Med District that officials say the force has drastically outgrown. Supporters of the proposal say leasing the LIO building to the police department will save on the expense of constructing an entirely new headquarters, which officials on Tuesday night estimated could cost $30 to $65 million.

Assembly Member John Weddleton said that having a tenant lined up calmed his concerns over the purchase.

“I was not excited about it until I found out we’re really buying something for the police department that we’re going to have to buy anyway,” Weddleton said. “I think the optics are really, really bad, to put government stuff in this amazing crystal palace, but I’m willing to overlook that because this is a good deal.”

During testimony, criticism of ACDA’s purchase focused on the speed with which the process has advanced, which some felt has left members of the public and business community out of the loop.

Among Assembly members, only Amy Demboski voiced serious opposition, saying that as long as the police department is potentially paying to lease the building, it’s still tax-payers who are on the hook financially.

“This is a rush job. I think it reeks of some sort of special favor. And at the end of the day the tax-payers of Anchorage are going to take it in the shorts,” Demboski said.

Demboski was joined in her no-vote by fellow Eagle River Assembly member Fred Dyson.

The measure was overwhelmingly approved, eight to two, clearing a major hurdle for ACDA’s purchase.

Alaska News Nightly: Wednesday, June 13, 2018

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Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

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Two planes collide north of Anchorage; one dead upon Susitna River crash

Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Two airplanes collided in the skies over Alaska north of Anchorage.

Walker vetoes Knik Arm bridge money, Vitamin D study

Associated Press

Gov. Bill Walker has signed into law state spending bills, rejecting funding for a south-central Alaska bridge project and a Vitamin D deficiency study.

Rating agency improves Alaska’s credit outlook

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

Standard & Poor’s has improved its outlook on the state’s bonds, from negative to stable. It took the action Friday in part as a response to a new state law.

Rural healthcare facilities struggle paying Internet bills as FCC rate review holds up subsidies

Lori Townsend, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

A program that provides millions of dollars in federal subsidies to help pay rural Alaska healthcare facilities’ high internet bills has been on hold for nearly a year.

Seward receives funding relief for December storm damage

Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is awarding the City of Seward disaster relief after a storm in December severely damaged a road that leads to a small village south of town.

Anchorage moves forward on LIO purchase

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Officials in Anchorage are one step closer to purchasing the embattled Legislative Information Office and using it to house the city’s police department.

Juneau seeks community help with $1 million endowment for Alaska College of Education

Adelyn Baxter, KTOO – Juneau

The City and Borough of Juneau is looking to the community for help meeting the remainder of its $1 million commitment to the University of Alaska’s new education college.

As the Arctic warms, a changing landscape on the Chukchi Sea

Ravenna Koenig, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Fairbanks

“These ridges that we’re standing on, there would have been more of them, and they would have been bigger,” ice researcher Andy Mahoney said. “The features that we now see, they’re something of a shadow from the past.”

Romig Middle Schoolers present history project at the Smithsonian

Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Forty-one students from across Alaska headed to Maryland this week to compete in the National History Day contest. They’re joining students from across the country and the world. As part of the contest, a team of eighth graders from Anchorage has also been invited to showcase their exhibit about the Berlin Wall at the Smithsonian today.

Rural healthcare facilities struggle paying Internet bills as FCC rate review holds up subsidies

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YKHC consists of a regional hospital in Bethel. Photo Courtesy of YKHC.
YKHC consists of a regional hospital in Bethel. Photo Courtesy of YKHC.

A program that provides millions of dollars in federal subsidies to help pay rural Alaska healthcare facilities’ high internet bills has been on hold for nearly a year. Internet service providers have not been getting paid what they expected as the Federal Communications Commission conducts a rate review. The result for one facility, the Cordova Medical Center, was a shutoff notice due to an unpaid internet bill of nearly $1 million.

Alaska Journal of Commerce reporter Naomi Klouda has been reporting on the delays with the FCC’s Rural Health Care program. She spoke with Alaska Public Media’s Lori Townsend and says the rate review came after the $400 million dollars for rural health care programs across the country ran out.

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KLOUDA: That’s what held up the payment, but it also triggered a rate review because the FCC realized they wanted to understand the rates. How do you justifythese costs? What are you charging?

TOWNSEND: Naomi, give us a little perspective on this. A million-dollar internet bill… What’s the range of what these hospitals are paying for service?

KLOUDA: Well, for example, the Cordova Community Medical Center, because of the fees not getting paid by the FCC, Alaska Communication Services was really having revenue problems. One of the issues was in December, ACS laid off 30 workers, which was a fifth of its workforce. So they sent the letter to the Cordova hospital and said, “Hey, somebody’s gotta start paying these fees.” And it cost roughly $1 million — not quite that, it was 800-some thousand dollars. Now each month is an $80,000 bill at the Cordova Medical Center in order to pay for their telemedicine, just that portion. Of that, because of the way that they wanted to make it fair for rural and urban medical facilities to not be paying these outrageous sums, they are subsidized by the FCC. So Cordova’s portion was $1,060 per month, which is pretty reasonable. So you’ve got about $12,000 to 13,000 per year for that clinic to pay. Now the FCC portion of that was whatever was left over, $78,000 per month — that times 12. So that’s how it ended up being almost a million dollars. Imagine a facility that’s much larger and serving more people like the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation. They would be many, many times that amount.

TOWNSEND: Let’s talk about what’s at risk here. Rural healthcare providers need reliable high-speed internet. They’re doing telemedicine. How much is that a part of rural health medicine now?

KLOUDA: It’s a huge part, and it really does save lives. We’ve heard lots of stories like, we’re talking about Fort Yukon or Brevik or places outside Kotzebue, those cluster villages, the 56 villages outside of Bethel. We’re talking down King Salmon. So, there’s something like 300,000 people, which is almost half of our Alaska population, that benefits from some form of telemedicine.

TOWNSEND: Naomi, you reported some movement on this issue recently. What’s going on? What’s the current situation?

KLOUDA: So, back to when there was the $400 million allotment, this pot of money, that wasn’t enough to stretch across the nation — this was the amount of money that was alloted when the program was created in 1996. Now $400 million is like a joke when it comes to all 50 states sharing that. So, they appealed to the FCC and said, “Hey. This needs to be raised somehow.” And Chairman Pai listened; he’s the head of the FCC. He decided, just last week, to go ahead and propose $571 million which would be the amount if $400 million had kept up with inflation during those 20 years. That would be the exact amount it would be today. So that’s under discussion right now. They’ll be voting on it.

TOWNSEND: And in the meantime, they have said that the bills will be paid. Is that correct?

KLOUDA: Yes. At that point, the FCC spoeksman explained to me just this week that it would be 100% of whatever those invoices are. So going back to ACS, and it’s 70-some thousand dollars per month invoice to the Cordova hospital; that would be repaid to ACS 100%.

Rating agency improves Alaska’s credit outlook

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Standard & Poor’s said it could lower Alaska’s credit rating if the state sells pension obligation bonds. (Creative Commons photo by eflon)

Standard & Poor’s has improved its outlook on the state’s bonds, from negative to stable. It took the action Friday in part as a response to a new state law. The measure outlines a plan to draw money from Alaska Permanent Fund earnings to pay for state government.

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The improved outlook means the rating agency no longer expects to lower the state’s credit rating. The rating affects how much the state must pay those who buy Alaska bonds. The lower the rating, the more the state must pay to borrow money.

S&P analysts cited the law as one of several factors that led them to revise the outlook for Alaska. The law says the state can draw up to 5 percent of the permanent fund’s value each year. The money can be used to pay for state government, as well as for permanent fund dividends. Higher oil prices also contributed to the improved outlook.

Gov. Bill Walker signed the law Wednesday.


Seward receives funding relief for December storm damage

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Waves wash over Lowell Point Road in Seward during a storm on Dec. 4. (Photo credit to the City of Seward)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is awarding the City of Seward disaster relief after a storm in December severely damaged a road that leads to a small village south of town.

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City Manager Jim Hunt said a strong tidal surge in the Gulf of Alaska combined with strong southerly winds sent waves crashing over Lowell Point Road during a high tide cycle in Resurrection Bay.

“We actually had waves coming up and over onto the road because it was eroding the road bed. I declared a state of emergency, sent that to the borough mayor asking for assistance,” Hunt said. “They did and forwarded our request to president Trump’s administration, to FEMA.”

Hunt adds that the waves also damaged RV parks near the city.

FEMA announced Friday that it would pay for 75 percent of repairs to the road. Hunt said the city still needs to assess exactly how much those repairs will cost.

“We’re looking at likely in the $4 million to $5 million range. We’re still trying to narrow down the exact cost for the FEMA participation,” Hunt explained.

The city will be required to pay for a quarter of the repairs, and it plans to have the road assessed by September to determine the exact cost. Hunt says FEMA funding will only pay for damages caused during the storm.

Hunt said road will still be drivable throughout the summer, but he notes the roadway can be narrow at times and shoulders could be soft.

“As you’re heading south, the left side is bay – some areas drop off to 400 feet right off the road,” Hunt said. “On the right, you have the mountain face. It’s quite an adventure right now taking that trip south, that mile and a half.”

Hunt said the city hopes to begin repairing the road after the summer tourism season.

Gov. Walker lets Juneau road money stand, but maintains no-build policy

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The end of the road, May 25, 2015. (Photo by Jeremy Hsieh)

Gov. Bill Walker committed $21 million to the Juneau Access Project with his signature Wednesday on the state’s capital budget.

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Back in 2016, the governor decided against building the ever-controversial road megaproject citing the state’s fiscal crisis. Why was the road money spared the veto?

Business interests, environmentalists, politicians and neighbors in JuneauHaines and Skagway have gone round and round for years on whether to build the road.

“We’re delighted that the money was left in the budget, it’s back where it belongs and it gives us an opportunity to continue working on an important project for Juneau,” Denny DeWitt, head of the pro-road First Things First Alaska Foundation, said.

“We were disappointed in Gov. Walker’s decision not to veto this dead end project, given his opposition to wasteful megaprojects,” Buck Lindekugel, attorney with the environmental group Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, said. “But we urge him to continue to press his DOT commissioner to issue a decision selecting the no-build alternative this summer and address our other pressing transportation needs expeditiously.”

They’re referring to money lawmakers cobbled together for the road late in this year’s legislative session, which came from past, unspent transportation earmarks for upper Lynn Canal.

It’s a small victory for road supporters. Major hurdles to get to construction are still there.

Like securing huge federal grants, which largely hinges on reversing Walker’s 2016 decision not to build the road.

The governor’s spokesman Austin Baird said Walker’s policy on the road isn’t shifting. He said the governor didn’t veto the road money because it didn’t draw from new general fund money.

Previously, state plans called for extending Glacier Highway in Juneau about 48 miles north to the Katzehin River.

A new ferry terminal would be built there for a short trip to the road system via Haines or Skagway. State estimates from 2014 put the initial construction cost at $574 million.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Transportation’s final environmental review document on the project is expected this summer. Presumably, it will confirm the governor’s no-build decision.

Sport and personal-use fishing closes on the Copper and Chitina rivers

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Sockeye salmon (Photo by Daysha Eaton, KBBI – Homer)

There’s more bad news for dip-netters and sport anglers in Southcentral Alaska. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Wednesday that it will close the Chitina River to dip-netting due to this year’s abysmal sockeye return to the Copper River.

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Fish and Game will also close sport fishing for reds in the Upper Copper River Drainage.

“The main reason for that is the escapement past the sonar at Miles Lake is low at this point,” Mark Somerville, Fish and Game area management biologist for the upper Copper and Susitna rivers, said. “It’s indicating that we will not have enough salmon to meet the lower-bound sockeye salmon escapement goal and therefore we’ve had to close these two fisheries.”

The closures will take effect Monday. Dipnetting opened on the Chitina just 10 days ago and the season was set to run for next two and a half months. Somerville said closing the fisheries is unprecedented.

The Chitina River personal-use dipnet fishery attracts up to 8,000 Alaskans every year, and Somerville said the sockeye sport fishery in the upper Copper River Drainage typically averages about 15,000 angler days.

Roughly 180,000 fish have returned to the Copper River this season, putting it on track for the eighth smallest return on record.

But there is a silver lining for sport fishermen. Low sockeye numbers have also shuttered the commercial gillnet fishery near the mouth of the Copper River, which Somerville said should increase opportunity for king fishing upriver.

“Right now with the commercial fishery closed, the king salmon return to the Copper appears to be at or above our forecast of 43,000. So, I expect king salmon sport fishing to be spectacular this year,” Somerville added.

There may also be a bright spot for commercial gillnetters. Fish and Game Commercial Fisheries Biologist Jeremy Botz said a late sockeye return to the Copper River Delta could provide opportunity in the commercial fishery.

“Starting in about mid-June, we start to do a hybrid between managing for our delta sockeye and our upper-river sockeye,” Botz explained. “If we’re tracking at daily anticipated for the later component of the upper river and we’re meeting delta sockeye salmon objectives, we could have the fishery open before the coho salmon season starts.”

Botz said opportunity would be limited if the commercial fishery does reopen, and whether that happens will still largely depend the number of sockeye that make it upriver.

UA Board of Regents discuss approval process for Chilkat Valley timber sale plans

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Forest Ranger Jason Anderson, left, University of Alaska Land Management Director Christine Klein, USFS Forester Chris Maisch and Mental Health Land Trust Executive Director Wyn Menefee respond to questions at the timber sale open house. (Photo by Henry Leasia/KHNS)

The University of Alaska’s Board of Regents will review plans for a proposed timber sale in the Chilkat Valley.

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The decision on whether the board would approve the development and disposal plan for the sale was postponed at a meeting last month.

University of Alaska announced in March it was working toward a timber sale on 13,400 acres of land in the Haines Borough. The proposed 10-year negotiated sale would produce 150 million board feet.

The Facilities and Land Management Committee for the University’s Board of Regents met at the end of May to review the proposed timber sale.

Some regents raised concerns about the lack of information on the proposed sale.

Regent Jo Heckman questioned the university’s policy on the negotiated sale process and stated that the board was being asked to make a decision with inadequate information.

“When you say the brevity of the document is because that is how it is defined in our policy, are we really proud of that policy?” Heckmen said. “It’s hard for us to make a balanced, informed decision when the information is not there.”

No specific details have been provided about what areas of the university’s lands will be harvested and how the timber would be logged.

Vice Chair John Davies suggested that the board seek public comment further along in the negotiations and submit the final contract to the board for approval.

UA Land Management Office Director Christine Klein opposed this idea, saying it could disrupt the sale.

“It could put us in a situation where the buyer looks at other markets instead of this one,” Klein said.

Davies’ recommendation was voted down 2-1 by the committee, but they did not rule out the possibility of discussing it further when the entire board was present.

The University of Alaska provides a public comment period for its timber sales. The deadline for comments on the sale in the Chilkat Valley was extended twice and ended May 22.

Haines Borough Assembly expressed frustration with the university’s public process.

The Assembly sent a letter in May criticizing the format for its open house on the timber sale. Assembly members requested the university address concerns and answer residents’ questions in public rather than individually.

The university’s timber sales have come under scrutiny before for lacking transparency.

During a previous university timber sale on Mitkof Island, the Petersburg Borough and the City of Kupreanof requested the university suspend the finalization of its contract.

In a 2014 letter, the borough claimed that the Board of Regents made the decision in “the absence of a meaningful public process.”

The university has not provided specific information about where and how the buyer would harvest timber in the Chilkat Valley because they are engaged in a negotiated sale.

Not all terms of the sale will be available until negotiations are complete.

At the open house, the land management office explained that a negotiated sale allows them to secure a purchaser and avoid a deal falling through after years of negotiation.

Director Christine Klein said that even though it speeds up the sale process, once it is set they will be able to better address the community’s needs.

“If we do a negotiated sale, which we can lock in at least the interest in the buyer, then there’s room for flexibility to negotiate things that can be done to meet the community’s needs,” Klein said.

The Facilities and Land Management Committee voted at a May 31 meeting to postpone the discussion of the development and disposal plan in order to allow more time for the university administration to provide a full presentation.

The university’s land management office will begin talks with the buyer, UA Public Affairs Vice President Roberta Graham said, if the board approves the plan.

The administration expects to bring essential terms back to the Board of Regents for review and approval.

Graham noted that a vital process for exchange of input and information is being established by the UA Land Management Office and the Haines community through the on-going development of the Haines Action Committee, a local committee of stakeholders.

The Board of Regents will discuss plans for the proposed sale at a special meeting June 19.

A live stream of the conversation will be available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the University’s website.

Four young filmmakers from the Y-K Delta tackle climate change

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Katie Demientieff from Akiuk is documenting climate change as part of a film workshop. (Photo by Katie Basile / KYUK)

Climate change is slowly disrupting the subsistence lifestyle in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. And some of its younger residents are documenting the changes they’re seeing through film.

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In a two-week workshop hosted by the Lower Kuskokwim School District in Bethel, four high school students composed a short documentary about the climate change impacts to their communities and subsistence lifestyle.

The film opens with Nicolai Fisher, one of the filmmakers who lives in Napaskiak, narrating the importance of subsistence in Western Alaska.

“Yup’ik and Cup’ik people have subsisted off the land and sea for thousands of years. What our ancestors taught us is our way of life,” Fisher said.

The film explores the shifting weather patterns they are seeing in their short lifespans. Changing animal migratory patterns and less snow on the ground are key themes in the piece.

“I’ve noticed the moose going to the coast and the geese heading more and more out of our villages,” Fisher said in an interview.

Erosion is another issue. Sam Tinker, a high school student who lives in Akula, has witnessed erosion worsening in his 16 years.

“The land was starting to fall apart into the water and the river was almost high enough that it’s around your knees and waist area,” Tinker said.

For Katie Demientieff, the youngest of the filmmakers at 14, who lives in Akiak, making the documentary was a way to learn about what the climate was like decades ago.

“I chose climate change because I wanted to know how it was in the past and how it is now,” Demientieff said.

All four students see the film as a wakeup call to their communities.

“I want to spark the mind of the people on why climate change is so important and the subsistence way of living of our land is so important to the Yup’ik and Cup’ik people,” Tinker said.

A total of twelve students completed three films on different topics during the workshop. The videos can be found on the school district’s YouTube channel.

Murkowski concerned about Sessions border policy

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions, left. Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday she’s troubled by the Trump administration’s practice of removing children from their parents when a family is caught crossing the border without authorization.

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“If we’re talking about young children here, young families and a forced separation for an indefinite period of time, I have concerns about it,” Murkowski told reporters.

Murkowski said the separations are especially worrisome when there isn’t a clear process or a focus on the needs of small children.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month announced a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal crossings at the Southern border. He warned that parents will be jailed and their children detained separately. Sessions defended the policy again today, saying consistent enforcement of the law is good and moral. He said the parents are to blame.

“They are the ones who broke the law,” Sessions said, in a speech in Indiana aimed at countering criticism from Christian leaders. “They are the ones who endangered their own children with this trek.”

“Normally, the adults are only held in custody for a week or two or three before they would enter a plea of guilty for time served and allowed to go home, with their children,” Sessions said.

A spokeswoman for Don Young said the congressman believes detaining people who cross illegally is important to border security but thinks there are solutions that can keep families together. She said he looks forward to considering a bill that allows for family unity.

Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office did not respond by our deadline.

Special election set for vacant West Anchorage assembly seat

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The Anchorage Assembly chambers at the Z. J. Loussac Public Library in Anchorage.
The Anchorage Assembly chambers at the Z. J. Loussac Public Library in Anchorage. (Staff photo)

Anchorage will hold a special election to fill a newly vacant seat on the city’s assembly. In the mean time, West Anchorage will be represented on the body by an interim appointee.

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After announcing the news a week prior, assembly member Tim Steele effectively resigned from the 11-person body at its Tuesday night meeting, citing serious health issues. West Anchorage residents in neighborhoods like Spenard, Turnagain and Sand Lake will pick a new representative in a special election that the municipal clerk’s office has scheduled for later this summer. Candidates will have a week to file, starting on June 26th. The vote will be conducted by mail, with packets sent out to West Anchorage voters in mid-July, and ballots due by August 7th.

So far, two candidates have announced bids to fill the vacant West Anchorage seat. One is Austin Quinn-Davidson directs legal affairs for the Great Land Trust, an environmental conservation nonprofit. Sam Moore, an accountant active in Republican politics, has also announced a campaign. It is both candidates’ first time running for elected office.

But the assembly decided it will not simply wait until the seat is filled. The clerk’s office is now taking applications for an interim member, who will serve for a little more than a month once the Assembly votes on candidates July 12th. Interested West Anchorage residents have until June 25th to file.


New Anchorage museum exhibit hopes to shed light on pingoes

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The exhibit Murmur opens Friday at the Anchorage Museum. It was inspired by Arctic formations called pingoes and a murmuration of birds. (Photo by Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)

When Seattle-base sculptor John Grade first headed to the Arctic, he was searching for the northernmost tree he could find. But, along the way, he was struck by something else: hills in an otherwise flat and open landscape. Those hills, called pingoes, inspired his sculpture Murmur which opens at the Anchorage Museum on Friday.

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“I’m a little bit surprised by how many people weren’t familiar with what a pingo was,” Grade said. “And I think that’s because a lot of Alaskans aren’t up in the Arctic.”

To design the sculpture, Grade spent three and a half days camping on top of a pingo and then used a drone to map it from above.

The sculpture’s scale is impressive. The mound is 42 feet tall and almost as wide. It’s light brown and formed with different-sized panels made of salvaged Alaskan yellow cedar. They’re curved and splattered with small holes.

“I wanted to have the sense of the wood being sort of ossified or that the wind had sort of formed its surface,” Grade said. “So what we did when we’d finished carving all the surface of this wood was blast it with walnut shells.”

A member of his team rides a boom lift and peers in through the pingo’s top. Others sit around the edges staring at computer screens. Three more work on the inside, testing out the sculpture’s moving walls.

Sculptor John Grade works on his exhibit Murmur ahead of its opening on Friday. (Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)

“When that artificial light’s turned off, you get all of this shadow play. And the shadows are overlapping one another,” Grade said. “And then as these panels start to unfold, all of those shadows start moving all over the place.”

A trip to the Arctic through the Anchorage Museum’s Polar Lab program inspired Grade to make the sculpture. Hydrostatic or “closed-circuit” pingoes form when trapped water beneath the ground freezes and expands. Hydrostatic pressure forces the mounds slowly upward.

“And each year it’s cycling through and growing incrementally,” Grade said. “So it could take 1,000 years before a mound grows just below the permafrost that might be 75 feet tall.”

Their cores are made of ice. As that ice melts, pingoes collapse, forming lakes and then scars in the landscape.

“They’re a very moving phenomena, and I think that they’re something that we can watch to kind of see how the climate’s changing in the Arctic,” Grade said.

But it’s not just a pingo that Grade was looking to simulate for the exhibit. While paddling toward one on the Noatak, he watched a flock of birds create a murmuration that looked like the profile of a pingo. Murmurations are when birds dance together in massive, moving shapes. Most people associate them with starlings.

“Seeing the birds in this very ephemeral fleeting moment and then comparing it to this glacial rise of a pingo over hundreds of years,” Grade said. “I wanted to do two things that I can’t do. I wanted to be in the middle of a murmur of birds, and I wanted to be inside a solid ice core of a pingo. So bringing those two things together with one sculpture was the initial drive.”

Hence the name Murmur. Grade also wanted to give visitors a better sense of the Arctic environment through sounds and through visuals. To do that, he brought in Reilly Donovan, a new media artist.

“Some of what you’ll see are puddles from the marshlands,” Donovan said. “You’ll also see mosquitoes flocking and very delicate fungi and flowers.”

The exhibit uses something called augmented reality. Visitors wear HoloLens headsets that add sounds and holograms to their surroundings. Inside the pingo, a holographic ice core extends beneath the floor. Although scientists have cored pingoes, Donovan and Grade mostly had to use their imaginations.

The top of the sculpture opens and closes, letting in shadows and light. (Photo by Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)

“As you traverse the terrain, you actually start illuminating and revealing holograms that populate the floor space,” Donovan said.

Grade and Donovan worked with a team of 20 to create the exhibit, including a computer programmer and a mechanical engineer. The exhibit will be at the Anchorage Museum until September before it travels internationally. It’ll return to the museum in 2020, where it will hang upside down from the ceiling, meant to symbolize the collapse of a pingo.

“What’s most important to me, is that people come into the experience and they’re able to project their own ideas about what that landscape might mean and how it is to interact with other people within the exhibit as well,” Grade said.

Alaska News Nightly: Thursday, June 14, 2018

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Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

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Sport and personal-use fishing closes on the Copper and Chitina rivers

Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Wednesday that it will close the Chitina River to dip-netting due to this year’s abysmal sockeye return to the Copper River.

Murkowski concerned about Sessions border policy

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday she’s troubled by the Trump administration’s practice of removing children from their parents when a family is caught crossing the border without authorization.

Gov. Walker lets Juneau road money stand, but maintains no-build policy

Jeremy Hsieh, KTOO – Juneau

A governor’s spokesman said Walker’s no-build policy on the road isn’t shifting. Previously, state plans called for extending Glacier Highway in Juneau about 48 miles north.

Special election set for vacant West Anchorage assembly seat

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Ahead of an August election, the Assembly members will pick an interim representative from a pool of applicants.

Optimism scarce as commercial fisheries start up in Southeast

Joe Viechnicki, KFSK – Petersburg

Activity is picking up in the harbors in Petersburg this week as fishing boats and tenders prepare for the start of several commercial fishing seasons, but optimism is a little scarce on the docks. Fishermen this summer are feeling the impacts of reduced catches, low forecasts and increasing competition from marine mammals.

UA Board of Regents discuss approval process for Chilkat Valley timber sale plans

Henry Leasia, KHNS – Haines

The University of Alaska’s Board of Regents will review plans for a proposed timber sale in the Chilkat Valley. The decision on whether the board would approve the development and disposal plan for the sale was postponed at a meeting last month.

Four young filmmakers from the Y-K Delta tackle climate change

Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel

These students practice subsistence and are documenting how climate change is changing a way of life that has been passed down for millennia.

New Anchorage museum exhibit hopes to shed light on pingoes

Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

A new sculpture is more than something to look at. It’s an interactive, mixed-reality experience that can educate urban Alaskans about the northernmost part of our state.

AK: Keeping memories alive on Father’s Day

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Father’s Day celebrates the dads in our lives, but for some, it’s a reminder of pain and loss.

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The Dinner Party is an organization that connects people grieving the loss of a loved one. This Sunday they’re sharing stories on social media from the thousands of Dinner Partiers all over the world whose dads have died.

Kami Miller is standing in her kitchen over a bright blue pot of boiling water. She says she wants to be clear about one thing.

“I don’t fancy myself a cook,” Kami said. Instead, she said she likes to experiment.

“And usually when I experiment cooking it just means I get a bunch of stuff from the refrigerator and I put it in a pot and I see what happens,” Kami said, laughing, “But this time I’m actually following a recipe.”

The recipe is for Chicken Florentine. Kami turns to the sizzling pan on the side burner.

Steve Miller with his daughter, Kami Miller. (Photo courtesy of Kami Miller)

“Do you like spice in your food?” she asked me.
“I do, yeah.”
“Alright let’s add some ‘Kickin Chicken,'” Kami said.

This is just the second time I’ve met Kami. Both meetings began with a hug.

We were first introduced over email by The Dinner Party. It’s this organization that connects people in their twenties and thirties who have experienced loss and grief.

Becca Bernstein is the The Dinner Party’s Community Organizer.

“My mom died in November 2015 and I found The Dinner Party on Thanksgiving Day in a CNN article like two weeks after she died.”

Becca hosted dinners for two years before coming on as staff.

“We’re in over 100 cities now across the world– everywhere from California to Amsterdam in the Netherlands,” Becca explained.

Becca said the group realized a lot of Dinner Partiers who’d lost someone they loved had specifically lost their dads. So on Father’s Day, they’re publishing stories on social media about some of those dads.

“At some point people stop asking and they shouldn’t stop asking,” Becca said. “Those are stories that are deep inside of you and there should be a way for those [stories] to come out.”

Kami’s dad, Steve Miller, duck hunting on Fox Lake in Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy of Kami Miller)

For Kami, a lot of those stories she has with her dad, Steve Miller, are about birds. He worked for decades as a wildlife ecologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“We’d go to the marsh and just look at the ducks and the geese,” Kami said. “One time I was with him and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Dad,’ because he’s swerving and looking up and [saying] ‘I can hear the flock. Where are they? Oh there they are,’ and he’d swerve back around.”

Sitting around the dinner table, Kami told me about a trip to Alaska her dad took right after retirement. It was a dream trip, she said.

He came up for a whole month in the summer of 2016. Kami showed me a photo of her dad. He’s got a salmon in his hands and a smile across his face.

Kami and her dad, Steve, charter fishing out of Homer. (Photo courtesy of Kami Miller)

“He’s like, ‘I’m always the person who doesn’t catch the fish.’ There’s always that one person who it’s like, ‘Come on! Get a fish!’ And he was always that person,” Kami said, grinning. “He had never caught a fish in the ocean on a charter. He was the only one who caught a salmon on that trip. Isn’t that amazing?”

On her dad’s last night in town Kami called to see if he wanted to get dinner, to cap off the great month. He didn’t pick up, so Kami drove to where he was staying.

“I opened the door and he just looked so helpless,” Kami said. “And I think my dad is never helpless. He always has the answer. He’s always the one you call when you don’t know what to do. And he looked so fragile.”

It was sudden cardiac arrest. Kami’s dad died on Aug. 8, 2016. The next few hours were a blur, she said. The police showed up and asked if there was someone they could call.

“My emergency contact is my dad,” Kami said. “In that moment I felt so alone. Who do you call when your dad dies?”

But as the first person to find out about her dad’s death, Kami did have to make a phone call. She had to tell one of her sisters.

“And she’s like, ‘Not my dad. My dad doesn’t die. He doesn’t die,'” Kami said. “Our dad knew everything– he fixed everything. He doesn’t die. He’s never going to die. I think that was worse than finding him dead.”

Mark Russell and daughter Emily Russell at Tintagel in England the summer of 2017. (Emily Russell/Alaska Public Media)

My conversation with Kami was different from most of the interviews I do because I’m not here just as a reporter. I was on the other end of one of those calls back in October. I remember being on the phone and saying, “No, no, no, no it can’t be.”

I took a video of my dad, Mark Russell, a week before he died. He’s wearing a white tee shirt tucked into khaki shorts. His legs look like toothpicks, but he’s smiling walking down the sidewalk in the September sunshine.

He had just been released from the hospital after having a heart attack and he thought he was in the clear. He died of sudden cardiac arrest on Oct. 1, 2017.

“It should have been 20 years from now,” I said to Kami at dinner.

“People experience the death of parents, but it shouldn’t be when you’re a teenager or when you’re in your twenties or thirties and haven’t been married, haven’t had kids, haven’t bought a house,” I said.

Mark Russell at home on Hay Island, Ontario in the summer of 2016. (Emily Russell/Alaska Public Media)

My dad will never see me do those things. Kami’s dad won’t either.

We talked at dinner for more three hours — about what we miss, what we remember, what we regret, and why it’s so important to keep the stories of our fathers alive even after they’re gone.

“Well cheers to our first dinner party,” Kami said.

“And to our fathers,” I added.

“And to our fathers,” she agreed.

49 Voices: Bruce Gordon of Excursion Inlet

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Bruce Gordon of Excursion Inlet (Photo by Henry LEasia, KHNS – Haines)

This week we’re hearing from Bruce Gordon in Excursion Inlet. Gordon works as the watchman for the Ocean Beauty cannery.

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GORDON: Excursion Inlet is about 60 miles west of Juneau as the boat goes and 45 minutes west of Juneau as the crow flies. And my neighbor to the west is Glacier Bay National Park.

I started coming to Alaska in 1971 with Northern Radio Company. And Wordsco Packing Company hired me in 1976 to be their communications supervisor for the corporation. And Wordsco sold out their Alaska assets in 2003, and I got sold with the cannery to Ocean Beauty Seafoods — just like a generator or an iron shank. Just part of the package.

There’s nobody around except for my local neighbors, and there are never more than, like, 20 of those at any one time.

We had a murder at a cabin at the head of the bay two years ago. Because there’s no communications up there except for marine radio, I’m sitting in my chair that I’m sitting in now and I hear this radio call on channel 16. “Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Hello! Bruce, are you there?!” And it was one of the neighbors up there, and he says, “I got kind of a situation, and I need the troopers!”

And even if we called for a Medevac, and they launched the second we called, they’re still 45 minutes to an hour away. So, your golden hour is shot to Hell by the time you get here.

And they finally convicted that guy about a month ago.

NN Cannery History Project collects stories of former cannery workers

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The now-closed NN Cannery at South Naknek. Since 2015, the NN Cannery History Project has been working to preserve the story of the cannery. (Courtesy of Katherine Ringsmuth)

In canneries, the term “Mug Up” means coffee break. It’s also the name of a new effort to share the history of the NN Cannery, a now-closed cannery in South Naknek that functioned almost continuously for 120 years. At last weekend’s Bristol Bay Fish Expo, the NN Cannery History Project launched the new effort with the MugUp Conversations event, where they invited former cannery workers to share their stories.

“I think that you know you may have never even worked in a cannery or even care about canneries, but there’s something to be said for appreciating the history of work,” historian Katie Ringsmuth, who started the project, said.

Since the cannery closed in 2015, Ringsmuth has been working with partners like the National Park Service and the state historic preservation office to ensure its place in history isn’t forgotten. In May, the project received a $50,000 Maritime Heritage Grant from the park service to collect oral histories from people who lived and worked there. They’re partnering with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and the stories will be available on UAF’s site Project Jukebox.

Katie Ringsmuth in the fish house in South Naknek (Courtesy of Katie Ringsmuth, ca 1989)

“Many of the people who worked at these canneries, no one knows about them,” Ringsmuth said. “And when you start looking at these canneries and you’re looking at the international crews that contributed to one of Alaska’s most significant industries, I think it’s very important to record these stories.”

Until the mid-90s, Ringsmuth’s father ran the cannery, which is now owned by Trident Seafoods. She spent time sliming fish there in the summers to work her way through college, working shoulder to shoulder with people from all over the world.

“The experience of being able to work next to people who were different than me, had different customs, a different perspectives, different understanding of the world, but nevertheless, we all were working toward a common goal,” Ringsmuth said. “Allowed me to, without even knowing it, appreciate the world.”

The grant also means the project is one step closer to becoming the first Alaskan cannery designated as a Maritime Historic District. The designation would make it easier for the project to receive additional funding in the future and recognize its importance in Alaskan and global history.

“In part, what I’m trying to do is bring dignity to the cannery work, the cannery story. Yeah sure it’s great you know everybody talks about how cool it is to be a Bristol Bay fisherman,” Ringsmuth said. “But I want kids out there to speak equally as proud of the cannery work. Yeah, my mom worked in an egg house, that’s awesome, right.”

The storytelling project is just one piece of a multi-faceted effort to preserve the cannery’s history. They’re also working to create a traveling MugUp exhibit that would bring the story of the cannery around the state, the country and the world.

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