Carter Barrett

In this Curious Juneau, we look into the origins of the eye glaring over downtown.

“When I first moved here in 1974, as a kid in the playground at Harborview we’d look up and all the kids would always wonder what that eye was,” local Paul Prussing said.

Prussing was one of many people that asked Curious Juneau what the story is behind the bloodshot eye painted on the side of Mount Juneau.

“Was it something scary looking down on us? Was it the mountain looking down?” Prussing said. ”Of course it always ended up being something scary and suspicious.”

Is the eye a high school prank? Part of an underground rock climbing club’s initiation? A Masonic conspiracy?

The eye is an age-old symbol of the divine and all-knowing. In parts of Europe and the Middle East, the evil eye is an emblem of misfortune. In George Orwell’s “1984” it symbolizes government surveillance and omnipotence. The Eye of Providence on the dollar bill is a source of conspiracy theories and “National Treasure” films.

Here in the capital city, it seems like everyone has a theory about the Mount Juneau eye.

“I was always thought it was a group of seniors a couple years ago just went up there and painted it,” Amber Rounds-McPherson said.

Fred Triem thinks an avalanche caused it.

We picked up the story with the Juneau-Douglas High School class of 1970.

“All I know about that spot is that it’s been kind of a spot for mountain graffiti for many years,” Skip Gray, a longtime Juneau resident who sometimes work for us in television production. “Dating back to when I was a senior in high school. Somebody in my class wrote a big ‘70 up there for the graduating date of our class. ”

Before it was an eye, it was a huge, fluorescent ‘70. Gray cautiously put me in touch with a classmate who claims he originally painted the rock face.

In the spring of 1970 my best friend and I, Joe Smith, took a day off from school and a case of fluorescent orange spray paint and hung off the rock on the side of the mountain and painted a big 70,” said John MacKinnon.

He was skipping school, but MacKinnon said it wasn’t exactly vandalism. He claims they had permission.

“We researched that and discovered that was a claim,” MacKinnon said. “We went to AJ Mines and talked to a very nice old gentleman …  and he typed up a permission to paint Class of ’70 on the rock up there. … Class of ’70 had a tremendous amount of class spirit and there were spirit competitions in high school and that particular class won it every year from freshman to seniors. And this was just another show of our class spirit.”

Today, an eye’s been painted over that same rock face. Up close, it looks pretty rough. It’s barely recognizable as an eye.

The pupil looks like it might be the face of a black bear, and its gaping maw could be the zero in a faded “2010.”

We couldn’t confirm MacKinnon was the first to paint the rock. And a lot of longtime Juneau residents with fuzzy memories had conflicting accounts of when it became an eye.

Paul Prussing likes to think it’s always been there.

“Well, I’d like to always think it was like the ever watchful eye of hope on Juneau,” he said. “One of my friends, I remember, in grade school said his dad said it was when the federal building was built it was the eye to watch the feds.”

Whatever it means or wherever it came from, it’s probably not as exciting as the stories dreamed up here at ground level.

“It’s probably high school kids and a case of beer,” Prussing said.

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Can you help us nail down the eye’s origin? Email us at curious@ktoo.org. 

In this newscast

• Coast Guard cutter commissioned.
• Burglary in Mendenhall Valley, suspect caught quickly.
• Bear attack near Anchorage.

A long-standing Juneau tradition ended May 1 when the Alaskan Brewing Co. decided to no longer offer free 6-ounce beer samples.

In the brewing company’s tasting room, summer tourists and locals sample beers and, theoretically, learn about the brewing process. Locals had mixed opinions about the end of the free 6-ounce beers.

“Well, we really go in, we just bring people in, you know, now. So yeah, we probably would still continue to go in. Yeah, I mean, I’d like to have free beer,” Tom Lane said, trailing off with a laugh.

“It’s pretty lame. I mean, I get where they’re coming from but at the same time it would be nice if they still did do that,” Molly Sanders said.

“My thought on free stuff is, hey, there’s a bottom line, there’s cost for everything,” Jonathan Coney said.

“I suspect it’s the right thing to do,” Nick Coti said. “It always struck me that they gave away a lot of beer.”

Two-ounce samples are still free, but Alaskan now offers beer flights for a price.

Alaskan Brewing marketing manager Will Race said the company wants to emphasize an educational experience for their customers.

“As hard as we try, sometimes, if someone is just coming in to get a free beer when they’re swinging in, they don’t really want to engage and talk and try something new,” Race said.

The change also lets Alaskan cover the cost of small batch brews and specialty beers.

“We want to take people through an experience not just have them come up and have one sample and disappear,” Race said. “So really education, experience and then just us being able to offer more styles and smaller batch brews was kind of the reason for charging.”

Founded in 1986, the free samples were part of Alaskan’s grassroots marketing campaign as the first craft brewery in the state.

“It’s a wonderful problem to have when someone really finds their favorite. … Now you can offer them four tastes, different styles and it’s really fun from a serving perspective to see minds start to open up,” Race said. “People try dark beers or sour beers, different things like that, that really go, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t think I’d like that but I really do,’ and they start engaging and it’s fantastic, which is really great, instead of getting their favorite and heading out.”

For the Matt Barnaby the owner of the new Barnaby Brewing Company in downtown Juneau, it’s a welcome change.

“It makes it a little easier for us now, because we don’t have to fight that battle of, ‘Why don’t you give free samples like Alaskan does?’ So from that standpoint it was nice, but other than that it didn’t have a huge impact,” Barnaby said.

Families of recent missing persons have been contacted about the human leg pulled out of the Gastineau Channel on May 22, Juneau’s Police Chief Bryce Johnson said Monday on A Juneau’s Afternoon. But tests results on the leg could take as long as a year to be completed.

“We’ve worked back through our missing persons cases … We’ve contacted, I believe, at least the most recent missing person cases – the families,” Johnson said, “To let them know, hey, for example ‘if your missing loved one had a size 5 foot, well, we have a good idea of whether that would match or not.'”

Johnson also addressed a story from the Juneau Empire that he is one of four finalists for a police chief position in Idaho Falls. The possible start date for that position is uncertain.

“I’m assume it’s going to be sometime after late August, but I really don’t know,” Johnson said.

Violent crime rate is down 8 percent in Juneau, however property crimes such as burglaries are still high, he said.

“What we’re really having a problem in town is with property crime, especially burglaries,” he said. “They have been up, I won’t say significantly, they’ve been up in percentages I have not seen before. They have spiked really significantly, but that spike has started to level off.”

Early this year the Juneau Assembly passed the controversial anti-camping ordinance to ban homeless people from sleeping on private property downtown.

“I’m unaware of a ticket being written. We’ve gotten some pretty good voluntary compliance,” Johnson said. “Officers will go out and explain the law and people are pretty good about trying to work with us.”