Kayla Desroches

The line stretched around the block last night for the annual holiday open house at the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau.

Gov. Bill Walker, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott and their families greeted capital city residents, who took the opportunity to eat plates full of cookies, chocolate and fudge.

Just days after Juneau welcomed Walker into the Governor’s Mansion, he returned the favor. The new governor says he’s happy that Alaskans have the chance to see inside the historic site. He’s also grateful to be there himself.

“This isn’t the governor’s house. It’s the people’s house,” Walker said. “So we’re humbled to be a guest in the people’s house while we’re in Juneau.”

Mallott has taken part in the holiday open house before as a member of Gov. Bill Egan’s staff. The new lieutenant governor says he’s happy his responsibilities now involve shaking hands and posing for pictures.

“The rookie cabinet officer or the most recently appointed was given the responsibility of ladling punch for hours,” Mallott said with a laugh. “And I found myself in that circumstance once and I’m glad I’m not there to repeat it.”

Chef Abby Roha of Abby’s Kitchen has catered the event for the past five years. She says the baking process starts with a list of cookies from the governor’s office.

“They give us the flavors and then we start making them,” Roha said. “It took us about three weeks, a month, to make them, and we make them and then wrap them really tightly in boxes and then put them in deep freeze. So they’re froze at like negative 25 degrees to keep fresh.”

There are those who show up for the cookies, the model train set, or just to meet the governor. Catherine Allen is a long-time Juneau resident and came for the familiar faces.

“This is the third time I’ve been here and it’s always nice to see all the different people from around town,” Allen said. “I’ve here since 1972, so I know a few people here.”

Students from the Juneau Douglas High School band program played holiday tunes as the guests mingled.

The U.S. Forest Service wants to increase fees at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center starting in 2016, and for the first time the agency is proposing to charge visitors for using public spaces outside the center.

Visitor center director John Neary  says a $5 fee would be charged to use some of the trails near the facility.

“Namely the Photo Point Trail, the Steep Creek Trail,” he says. “The restrooms, the viewing pavilion, the bus shelter, if you use those items, you would pay the $5 fee.”

Other paths like the Nugget Falls Trail, the Trail of Time, and the East Glacier Trail will continue to be free. The visitor center entry fee would go from $3 to $5. Seasonal passes would be available, and the fees would continue to be waived during the tourism off-season from Oct. 1 to April 30. During the summer months, Neary says that the fee would be built into tour packages.

It would be the first cost increase at the visitor center in 17 years. Neary says the Forest Service believes the increases will more than double revenues, which the center would invest in facilities, staff, and other changes to improve the visitor experience.

“I have a vision that this place really could be run a whole lot more efficiently than it is, with the problems we have with traffic congestion and restroom lines and things,” Neary says. “In fact we would love to see the place become much more of a Climate Change Education Center where we really can model sustainable operations.”

The Juneau Ranger District will hold a public meeting to discuss the proposed fee increase. The meeting will be held Jan. 13 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.

About 40 people gathered at Juneau’s Downtown Transportation Center Saturday for an “I Can’t Breathe” rally. Those were the last words Eric Garner spoke before a police officer’s chokehold ended his life this summer in Staten Island, New York.

Similar protests have been held around the country since a grand jury failed to indict the officer who killed Garner. The incident has sparked a number of questions and conversations about race relations in the United States, because Garner was black and the officer who killed him is white.

The crowd gathered at the snow-covered bus terminal, where organizers set up a public address system for people to share their thoughts on racial profiling by police in Juneau and the lower 48.

Ibn Bailey, who’s black, says the last time an officer pulled him over was 10 years ago for speeding. He says his experience with Juneau police has been largely positive, perhaps because the officers who work in the capital city are local residents.

Bailey says Juneau is not like Ferguson, Mo., another community where a young black man – Michael Brown – was killed by a white police officer.

“The people that serve in our community actually live in our community,” said Bailey. “One of the things that you see, especially if you look at Ferguson, what’s happened there is that a lot of the police force do not live in the same community in which they police.”

Alaska Native educator and storyteller Ishmael Hope says even if Juneau is somewhat removed from the national conversation, residents can still play a role by acknowledging that racial profiling does occur and is not excusable or deniable.

“What Juneau could do even if it doesn’t have that same level of state brutality is to start to recognize some of the levels of institutionalized, systemic racism that denies the stories and the experiences of people of color and minimizes it,” Hope said.

Organizers invited Juneau Police Chief Bryce Johnson to the rally. Although he declined to address the specific events in Ferguson and Staten Island, Johnson said the police and public have much to learn from them.

“I think the number one lesson is that the police and the community have to be united and together,” Johnson said. “It is impossible to police an area without community involvement, community support, and community trust.”

Rally organizer Christy NaMee Eriksen says she hopes to see the discussion about race relations continue in Juneau. She invites those who are interested in being involved to come to her store, Kindred Post, Monday at 6 p.m.

On The Public Market floor, a customer is chatting with Mary Anne Wick – about porcupine carcasses.

“We are officially roadkill recyclers and the highways and byways of Alaska provide us with an abundance of inventory,” Wick says.

Wick and her husband work together turning the quills into jewelry in Talkeetna.

They’re the artists behind one of 155 booths at last weekend’s Public Market, which drew vendors from all over Alaska and some from the Lower 48. It’s part Christmas craft fair and part gallery.

“My husband does all the dirty work,” Wick says. “He plucks quills and he dyes them, and they’re washed several times, and then I sort them based on their size and use them in the different jewelry designs.”

Wick says she accepts adult porcupines in exchange for merchandise.

Another craftsman who uses animals for art is is Siberian Yup’ik carver and hunter John Wigiyi of Savoonga. The figurines on his table are of seals, walrus and other animals. They’re made from various animal parts including walrus ivory and whalebone. Carving can be a slow process, like winter seal hunting.

“We have to be very patient. Some days we’ll come home with nothing,” says Wigiyi. “We live to expect those situations.”

And respect is necessary.

“We rely on history, we have to rely on our spirituality. We have to know the mannerisms of the animal. The animal, the resource that gives itself up, it’s a gift from the creator,” says Wigiyi.

Steve Brown is from Washington and also carves in the Alaska Native tradition. Although not Native himself, Brown has formed close ties with the community over the years.

“I’ve had the privilege of being adopted by the Kiks.ádi clan in Wrangell and been given the name of a significant carver from that village from long ago,” Brown says.

He says the clan commissioned him along with some Tlingit craftsmen in 1984 and 1985.

“We duplicated the Chief Shakes house posts which date from the late 1700s,” Brown says.

He says that the company of artists is part of the learning process.

“I’ve had the privilege of working with a number of well-known Native carvers over the years,” Brown says. “And you know, even if you’re just standing around mutually working on things, you pick up ideas and techniques.”

Brown also does Native design with a twist. He carves the backs of pocket watches and credits the internet for that.

“I’d looked for years in junk shops and stuff to find an engraveable silver pocket watch,” says Brown. “And despite spending many hours in junks shops, I never ran into one until the advent of eBay.”

Mary Anne Wick uses the internet for her porcupine crafts, too. Her store, Stuckonu Quillworks, is on Facebook.

Community members with a vision to turn Auke Bay into a destination for shopping, dining and sightseeing present their plan tonight.

The Auke Bay Plan Steering Committee has been meeting for the last year. Gerald Gotschall is an architect and the committee’s chairman. He says that the area is already a place for locals to stroll and snack, but could grow more.

“They would love to have some place to meet,” says Gotschall.

“And there’s all sorts of potential for there being a slightly nicer, more well developed, more well thought out hub. Not just a bump in the road that happens to sell waffles.”

The committee is trying to satisfy all of the area’s stakeholders. That includes the City & Borough of Juneau, the state Department of Transportation and the university, as well as other landowners and businesses.

Hal Hart is the head of the city’s Community Development Department and says the committee needs to answer a wide range of questions.

“How much housing do we expect in the future? What are the needs for a vibrant, small community center that’s associated with the university? How do we take advantage and not harm the bay? Because for Auke Bay, it’s about the bay, it’s about quality of life,” Hart says.

Lawrence Lee Oldaker is a member of the committee and longtime Auke Bay resident. He says that he and other members of the community attended the meetings to voice their opinions. Oldaker was particularly concerned with road development.

“We are very mindful of the long range DOT vision to build a bypass route,” Oldaker says. “We were trying to protect the environment, historical structures and the viewing of the waterscape and marine environment.”

The committee meets at City Hall at 7 p.m.

While the big box stores fill their aisles with Thanksgiving and Black Friday deal hunters, small businesses in Juneau are eager for Small Business Saturday.

Like most businesses, small stores in downtown Juneau look forward to Black Friday and the holiday season. It brings in customers and racks up profits. But for new businesses, there’s also Small Business Saturday.

Aaron Suring is one of the owners of Alaska Robotics and its 2-and-a-half-year-old retail comic store and art gallery. Suring says that Small Business Saturday is like a follow up to Black Friday.

“We don’t have the big, huge discounts just ‘cause that’s just not the way our business works and we can’t afford to do that,” says Suring. “But we still want to have some kind of customer appreciation and welcome them into our stores.”

Colleen Goldrich is the owner of Annie Kaill’s, a fine art and craft gallery. She bought the store in 2013 and says they might offer snacks this year, but not discounts.

“I don’t know that for us Black Friday is a huge, huge day. I think that it’s a huge day for box stores. They’re, you know, either open on Thanksgiving or have screaming deals and all that kind of thing, which we’re not able to do,” she says.

But Annie Kaill’s has been open since 1975, and it’s not going anywhere.

“The locals really are our bread and butter. We’re able to stay open because of the locals,” Goldrich says.

Alaska Robotics also relies on year-long residents.

“It’s a huge drop when we get to October and November,” Suring says. “And December is back actually above. We target more towards locals, so it’s actually above what we do in the summer.”

Hearthside Books is a small-business exception. Brenda Weaver bought the 39-year-old business this summer and says they will offer discounts.

“Most of the money goes right into the economy locally and so we use that as one of our reasonings for offering discounts,” she says. “We also get some special purchasing from our vendors with special discounts that allow us to discount some merchandise.”

Rico Lanaat’ Worl is the founder and one of the artists behind Trickster Co. The store opened this summer and sells creative indigenous designs on skateboards, T-shirts, and other products.

“It’s sort of the kicking off into the holiday sales season and this being my first year with a shop in town, I’d really like to make myself available to anyone looking for gifts,” he says.

American Express started Small Business Saturday in 2010.