KHNS - Haines

Skagway was slated to be Alaska’s first recipient of grant funding under a Federal Emergency Management Agency program. But recent changes at the agency have put nearly $20 million in funding in question.

It’s a lot of money to lose for a community that hoped to use the funding to fix its unstable mountainside.

The title of the press release wasn’t encouraging: FEMA Ends Wasteful, Politicized Grant Program. That press release is how Skagway found out it likely won’t receive federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities funding to mitigate rockslides above its busiest cruise ship dock.

FEMA is cancelling all BRIC grants awarded from 2020 to 2023. Skagway was recently approved for phase one of its grant in 2022. Borough Manager Emily Deach said she was just about to send a project bid to the Assembly. Phase one, which is $1.3 million from the federal government, is for project planning. Phase two is the actual construction.

“It looks like we may still get phase one funding, because it’s already been awarded and obligated,” Deach said. “But it seems as though phase two for construction is not going to be funded. And we’re sort of, we’re sort of waiting on this to get more information.”

In 2023, Skagway spent a little over $3 million installing safety mechanisms on its mountainside. Last year, it cost just over $1 million to mitigate the site. Deach estimates that this year, the municipality will spend $2 million.

The BRIC grant was meant to help the borough find a long-term solution.

What happens if phase two funding doesn’t come through?

“I don’t think there’s a need to panic at this point,” Deach said. “I think the project will be done. I think, if anything, maybe it will delay it a little bit because we’ll have to accumulate funding, or look at other options.”

Deach said that Skagway collects $13 per passenger on its two municipal docks and $8 per passenger on the privately owned Railroad Dock. That money goes into the vessel impact fee fund.

“We could potentially spend maybe a few years accumulating funding that would go towards this project,” Deach said.

But she acknowledged that losing the federal funding isn’t best case scenario, with all of the other capital improvement projects Skagway currently faces.

There was a steady hum of chatter at the Haines/Klukwan Senior Center during a recent Wednesday lunch. On the menu: lasagna, apricot salad, bread and steamed veggies – all for just $5, for those who could afford to pay.

Lunch may be what brings seniors to the building three days a week around noon. But it’s far from the only draw. Haines resident David Kohlstaedt, who was sitting at a long table chatting with friends, said the space is a crucial social outlet.

“Three meals a week, I don’t have to cook,” he said. “I come almost an hour early every day, and we come around and shoot the breeze.”

Christal Verhamme, who manages the center for the Juneau nonprofit Catholic Community Service, says Kohlstaedt isn’t alone.

“A lot of them say this is the only thing that they do, their only outlet. Their only way to get rides,” she said. “And for some, it’s their only way to get a cooked meal.”

The Trump administration’s ongoing effort to downsize the U.S. government is fueling concerns over the future of this center – as well as other programs that serve people across Alaska.

At issue is the Administration for Community Living, a federal office that funds programs for older people and people with disabilities – including Catholic Community Service – from within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Or at least it used to. The Trump administration said late last month it’s dismantling the office and integrating its “critical programs” into other agencies. The announcement also said thousands of department employees would be cut, including many Administration for Community Living staff members.

The move is among several Trump policies fueling uncertainty for nonprofits and the people who rely on the services they provide, said Erin Walker-Tolles, executive director of Catholic Community Service, which operates 10 senior centers in Southeast Alaska.

“We’re just concerned that about additional cuts and lack of resources from the administration, because community need is only growing as the senior population continues to grow in Southeast,” she said.

So, what is the Administration for Community Living?

The Administration for Community Living was created back in 2012 to streamline federal efforts to support seniors and people with disabilities.

The office doles out grants to programs that run senior centers, provide rides and distribute millions of meals — including through Meals on Wheels. Catholic Community Service, for instance, received roughly $3 million from the office last year, much of which comes through tribal partners. That’s nearly 40% of the organization’s budget.

Walker-Tolles said that it remains unclear what the reshuffling will actually mean for programs, but that she assumes funding will be administered some other way. She added that she understands the importance of reducing costs and streamlining resources – but that the lack of clarity around these moves has consequences.

“As these changes come through, there is no plan that we are aware of to ensure that things are simpler. Instead, it is more work,” Walker-Tolles said. “It is chaos.”

That’s especially concerning in Southeast, where the population is older than most of the state. Haines specifically has long held the title of being Alaska’s oldest borough. The median age here is just under 50 years old, compared to about 37 statewide.

‘It’s very scary’ 

The Trump administration’s firings and program cuts at the Administration for Community Living – and to the broader department – won’t just affect seniors.

Southeast Alaska Independent Living, for instance, provides a bevy of services, including in Haines. Among them: loaning out walkers, crutches and wheelchairs, and supporting students with disabilities as they transition into adulthood. A report from last year says 20% of the organization is federally funded – at least some of which comes from the Administration for Community Living.

There’s also REACH Inc., a Juneau-based non-profit that supports people with disabilities. The group doesn’t get funding from the Administration for Community Living, said Naomi Studevan, the organization’s executive director. But it does get funding from another federal agency that focuses on medicaid and medicare, which reportedly lost 300 employeesto layoffs in recent weeks.

“There’s already a waitlist that is there when it comes to people accessing services in the first place. So to think that there’s going to be fewer people there to review applications, fewer people there to have oversight,” Studevan said. “It’s very scary.”

Back at lunch in the senior center, all seems normal. People eat, visit, participate in a book club and play disc golf on a Wii gaming system. But all it takes is one question about the administration’s recent moves to reveal lingering anxiety about the future of the senior center.

“We’re worried about it,” said Haines resident Todd Wagner, who comes to the center most days that lunch is served. “We don’t want it to get messed up where they don’t have it anymore. That could happen, we know that.”

Then there’s Donald Poling, who is 82 and has lived in Haines with his wife Dottie since the 1990’s. He said they heavily rely on the facility’s services, including for rides to the ferry and airport when they leave town to seek medical care.

Asked what he makes of the recent announcement, Poling took a swipe at Elon Musk, who has been spearheading White House efforts to downsize the government.

“It looks like President Musk is kinda taking the government apart,” Polling said. “And that means public services, services to poor people, services to seniors, even Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

Alaska has returned to a period of slow-but-steady population growth as births outpace deaths – making up for migration out of the state.

That’s according to this month’s economic trends report from the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The report found that the statewide population has been trending higher since 2020, and that the increase appears to have accelerated in 2024.

“Our net migration losses haven’t been that big, and we’ve been able to make up for net migration losses with what we refer to as natural increase, which is just births outnumbering deaths,” said David Howell, the state demographer.

The state’s population surpassed 740,000 people for the first time this decade in 2024. That’s nearly 8,000 more people than lived in Alaska in 2020, according to the report. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, the state saw a 0.3% population increase. That’s up slightly from the average increase per year since 2020: 0.25%.

Howell attributed the bulk of that growth to one area.

“All the growth since 2020 has pretty much been on that Rail Belt running from Kenai up through Fairbanks, with the Mat-Su kind of being our one standout area that’s grown consistently for decades now,” he said.

That comes in sharp contrast to other regions. The population of every borough in Southeast, for instance, has declined since 2020. Skagway specifically has seen its population drop by an average of over 2% per year – the largest decrease regionwide.

Howell said Skagway has yet to recover from the pandemic, which hit the borough’s tourism-dependent economy especially hard. But the general decline in Southeast, he said, is largely due to its aging population.

“There’s not as many people at high fertility ages, and you have more people at these ages where mortality is higher,” Howell said, noting that in Skagway deaths now outnumber births.

Meanwhile in Haines, which is Alaska’s oldest borough with a median age of 50, the population has dropped between 1% and 2% per year on average, according to the report. Local officials say it’s becoming harder and harder to attract younger families to the area due to insufficient housing and childcare.

Haines Mayor Tom Morphet raised the issue during a recent meeting of the Haines Planning Commission. The commission has been working on an ordinance that would aim to create more housing in town by making it easier for homeowners to build auxiliary dwelling units on their properties.

“The housing crisis in this town is extreme,” Morphet said during the meeting. “We cannot keep teachers, we cannot attract new employees.”

It’s a different story entirely in Western Alaska, which has also seen its population decline over the same time period – but for a different reason.

“Out there, the population is very young. But what you see is a lot of people moving for work or something like that. So they’re moving more to population hubs or out of the state,” Howell said. “So, very different reasoning than Southeast.”

Four years ago, an Oregon-based timber company won a contract to harvest some 23 million board feet of spruce and hemlock outside Haines. Now, the company’s plan to get that timber out of Alaska – and into buyers’ hands – is sparking pushback.

That’s because the company’s local operator is seeking permits to build a log transfer facility and storage site in Haines’ Lutak Inlet, a popular spot for commercial and subsistence fishing.

“We all fish right there,” said Erik Lembke, a commercial fisherman in Haines.

The concern pushed the State Department of Natural Resources to make an about-face late Wednesday afternoon by temporarily closing the permit application’s public comment period. The period was originally set to end on Friday.

Tony Keith, a natural resource manager with the department, said the feedback the agency had received so far made it clear the public needs more information. In response, the agency will require the company to provide the public with more details, including a dive survey of the ocean floor.

“Then, once you’re finishing the log transfer facility, or if you’re trying to bring it back under review or anything, you’re able to do another dive survey and go out there and check bark accumulation and stuff like that,” Keith said.

The Chilkat Valley’s first major timber sale in decades

The so-called Baby Brown timber sale lies in the Haines State Forest, just over 35 miles northwest of town between Porcupine and Jarvis Creeks. The state first awarded the sale to a contractor in 2016 but later canceled it after conservation groups appealed the land use plan. Later, in 2021, the sale was awarded again, this time to an Oregon-based company named NWFP Inc.

State Forester Greg Palmieri said the company has been developing what he called a “responsible plan” for the project over the last several years. As he sees it, Baby Brown presents a “huge opportunity” for Southeast and the Chilkat Valley specifically, which used to be home to a booming timber industry – but hasn’t seen a major sale in decades.

Palmieri said 8 million board feet of timber were harvested in the area in 1995, and there were a few other, smaller sales until about 2000. But he added that the last time there was a sale around the size of Baby Brown, “it was probably around the mid-70’s.”

“If there’s no industry working in the area, there’s no potential for growth. So this sale was designed to encourage the development of the industry,” Palmieri said. “Conceptually, does it crack that egg? We’ll have to see. It has the potential to do that.”

The contractor’s local operator – NSEA Timber Inc. – submitted the permit application on March 11, according to Keith of the Department of Natural Resources. The company also needs permits from the borough and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The application proposes a log transfer facility and storage area on a 12-acre site about four miles out of town, off Lutak Road. The property is in a borough-designated waterfront industrial zone near the Alaska Marine Lines dock.

The facility would include a slide to transfer log bundles into the water. A boat would then place each bundle into a floating log raft and tow the raft to a storage site close to shore. Later, they would be loaded onto ships, which would transport them to buyers.

“This is a fundamental step in that process to get the product to market,” said Palmieri.

This type of facility has been around for decades, said Charles Nash, who used to be employed by the contractor but is no longer associated with the sale. Nash has worked in Alaska’s timber industry for years.

“There used to be log transfer facilities all over Southeast, and they come in many types. Some are slides, some are cranes,” he said. “But that’s how, generally, how logs got in the water.”

Palmieri, the forester, said the facility is a conservative option that aims to reduce traffic and limit impacts on the inlet – and the fisherman who use it. He estimated the storage site would be about 1,700-feet long, roughly one-third of a mile.

Fishing concerns

But some worry about the log rafts affecting water quality and access to the inlet.

“The way that you fish Lutak Inlet, you know, you fish out from the shoreline,” said Rafe McGuire, a commercial fisherman in Haines.

He added that a log area close to shore would mean fishermen would lose access to that area and more because they would need to make sure their nets wouldn’t get swept closer by the tide.

“You can’t fish very close to it. So you’d lose most of that distance,” McGuire said.

Lembke, the other fisherman, said there could be up to 20 boats fishing the area during the sockeye run.

“I think if there was a lot of logs and a big ship, it would pretty much make it impossible to do that,” he said

Polly Johannsen – who signed the permit application for the local operating company, NSEA Timber Inc. – did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Nicole Zeiser, area management biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game, did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Earlier this month, a separate lumber company confirmed it was temporarily shutting down a work site near Kodiak. The company attributed the decision to China’s pause on imports of U.S. logs in response to ongoing trade disputes.

Palmieri says he’s received no indication that the trade war has affected the sale. The permit application, for its part, says logging could begin as soon as this spring and run through 2028. The agency did not say when the dive survey will take place or what the permitting delay will mean for logging operations.

On Saturday morning, Tom Morphet – the mayor of Haines, Alaska — played “O Canada” on a trumpet as cars streamed into a parking lot along the Klondike Highway. Temperatures were hovering in the mid-teens as Alaskans and Canadians got ready for a Nordic ski race.

Carmen Gustafson, from White Horse in Yukon Territory, was among them. Decked out in Canadian swag, she said making the trip this year felt more important than ever – despite a burgeoning movement among Canadians to boycott the U.S.

“Our idea was to still come,” Gustafson said. “But we thought we’d wear some flags and be patriotic and just let everybody know that things aren’t really okay right now.”

The Buckwheat International Ski Classic is a themed event that’s been around for decades. The races – a 5K, 10K, 16K and 32K – happen in British Columbia. And the awards ceremony and afterparty are held just across the border, in Skagway.

But the run-up to this year’s event looked a little different. President Donald Trump has called multiple times for the annexation of Canada – conducted by, quote, “economic force.” He’s also sparked a global trade war, in part by imposing 25% tariffs on some Canadian imports. 

The ordeal has led some Canadians to decide against spending money in or visiting the U.S. for the time being. According to a survey of more than 1,500 Canadians by Canadian market research firm Leger, 36% have canceled pre-planned trips to the U.S.

And U.S. Customs and Border Patrol data shows that about 2.2 million travelers crossed land borders from Canada into the U.S. in February of this year – roughly 500,000 fewer than last year, CBC reported this week. That’s the fewest since April of 2022, when some Canadian travel restrictions were still in place after the COVID-19 pandemic.

For months, that’s been top of mind for many in Alaskan border towns, including Jaime Bricker, Skagway’s tourism director.

“We’ve received a lot of correspondence from potential Canadian visitors that have expressed their frustration with the current situation, and that they may not be able to visit Skagway until this has resolved itself,” Bricker said.

The situation has pushed some local government officials to write letters and take other steps, both to show supportfor Canadians and to encourage visits to Alaska amid escalating hostility.

The week before the Buckwheat ski race, organizers said the turmoil might lead fewer Canadians to register or to attend post-race events in Skagway. But roughly the same number of participants – around 270 – registered this year as last year. And nearly 70% were Canadian.

Which means on race day, the parking lot was bustling. Many people arrived dressed to this year’s theme: “creatures of the deep, enchantment of the ski.” Skiers took off from the start dressed as mermaids, jellyfish, sea monsters – and a can of tuna.

Not long after the final skiers started their race, a party at an aid station was in full swing. Music blared as volunteers served burgers and beer from inside a giant snow fort carved with sea creatures.

Whitehorse resident Ghislain de Laplante was busy chasing his kids around the sculpture after he finished the race. But he stopped for a minute to chat. He said Canadians are ‘“right pissed” at the U.S. government.

“The tariffs obviously feel like a slap in the face,” de Laplante said. “And then the talk about annexation and military intervention is absolutely disrespectful and not welcome.”

But de Laplante also noted that nobody at the race seemed to be talking politics at all. He thought that was because people were more interested in unity than antagonism – and that they understand federal policy has little to do with their friends in Alaska.

“We love our American neighbors, which is why this comes as such a shock and an offense,” de Laplante said. “It is an offense.”

Ed Gillis, also a Whitehorse resident, acknowledged the boycott movement, but thought it might pertain more to the Lower 48 than Alaska. He didn’t change his plans to attend Buckwheat this year, as he has for much of the last decade.

“We weren’t going to miss it again this year, just because of everything going on,” Gillis said. “We were saying it’s like a diplomatic mission, we’re coming up to get to see our neighbors and chat and just show support for each other.”

Gillis said he would go to the awards ceremony in Skagway, as he always does.

Later that evening, the emcee announced race winners and other awards to a noisy crowd. Among them was best costume. The prize: a free weekend in a cabin near Skagway, and a helicopter shuttle to get there and back.

This year, the award went to a Whitehorse resident – who raced as a floating island of trash.

The Alaska House Resources Committee met on Friday to hear testimony on a resolution recognizing the longstanding partnership between Canada and the United States. It also acknowledges Canada’s sovereignty.

Two of Skagway’s elected officials participated and outlined how a trade war with Canada could, and perhaps already is, harming the Upper Lynn Canal.

Skagway Vice-Mayor Deb Potter had just two minutes to articulate her support for House Joint Resolution 11. She participated in the hearing telephonically.

“We are seeing very real effects here in Skagway,” she said. “One of our local restaurants, one of the few of them that is able to stay open year-round, received some calls from folks in Whitehorse expressing that because of actions that are being taken in Washington, D.C. they will be boycotting and no longer supporting our locally-owned restaurant that’s owned by a fantastic year-round family with a couple of young kids.”

Potter said that the Skagway Borough Assembly has received letters expressing a similar sentiment.

Assembly member Orion Hanson, who is also a builder, made the trek to Juneau to testify in person.

“We need our Canadian neighbors,” he said. “We need each other.”

Hanson shared numbers to illustrate how intertwined Skagway’s economy is with Canada.

“Skagway welcomes 1.2 million cruise ship tourists,” he said. “Nearly half of those tourists originated their cruise in Vancouver. At least half of the cruise ship tourists that come to Skagway take a shore excursion … Since the Gold Rush, millions and millions of tons of Canadian ore have traveled from the mines of the Yukon through Skagway and onto the world marketplace. In 2024, 24 million gallons of fuel was transported from Skagway’s Ore Dock to Whitehorse.”

Hanson, who often gets building supplies from Whitehorse, said that Skagway families rely on Whitehorse dentists, vets and grocery stores due to the remote location of his hometown.

“If a trade war ensues between the United States and Canada, the cost of living in Skagway will go up,” he said. “It’ll spiral up very fast.”

State Representative Chuck Kopp is a Republican from Anchorage and a co-sponsor of the resolution.

“What we are saying is that we recognize that there is a lot on the line here, besides a dollar value in a partnership that goes back thousands of years,” he said. “And that the mutual trust and support that Alaska and Canada specifically have with each other is unparalleled in modern times within a shared 1,100 mile border.”

Anchorage Republican Julie Coulombe is a member of the House Resources Committee. She asked Kopp about the purpose of the tariffs.

“The context in which these tariffs are being put forward, though, is in relation to border security and drugs,” she said. “Do you have any concerns about — maybe Canada is not doing all it needs to do to stop drugs coming through their border? Or is that not a concern for you?”

“I don’t have any such concern,” Kopp said. “So, the U.S. Border Patrol itself reports that less than 1% of all fentanyl comes across the Canadian border.”

Coulombe said she supports the partnership between the two countries, but has a “problem” with Canada’s leadership.

“I want to support that partnership, but this is basically, running against our own leadership and supporting the leadership of Canada, and that’s not something I’d like to do,” she said.

“Just in response, I would say this isn’t about the leadership of two countries,” Koff said. “This is about the people of two countries and standing together.”

The premier of Yukon, Ranj Pillai, also spoke telephonically. He introduced his location distinctly.

“In Canada, a country that is not and will never be the 51st state,” he said.

Pillai praised the relationship between his territory and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, calling it the strongest he can remember.

“We are pleased to be working with this administration on important issues like salmon conservation, justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women, as well as building up northern infrastructure, trade and tourism,” Pillai said.

Besides trade, Alaska has agreements with Canada for help with search and rescue and fire incidents near the borders.

The resolution’s next stop is a full House vote. It’s not yet clear when it might come up for debate.

A similar resolution is awaiting a floor vote in the Senate.