KHNS - Haines

The Polynesian Voyaging Society has docked their canoe Hōkūle‘a in Haines. The canoe is at the center of a cultural renaissance for the Indigenous seafaring nations of the Pacific. We spoke with crew member Moani Heimuli about traditional navigation.

Moani Heimuli started sailing traditional canoes in Hawaii when she was 15. She is now a boat builder, teaches sailing, and captained the Hokulea — a 60’ twin-hulled voyaging canoe — on its latest trip from Hoonah to Haines.

The Hōkūle‘a has been central to the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s work in reviving traditional knowledge.

“Non-instrument navigation was once a lost art form to the Hawaiian people,” Heimuli said. “And it took a man by the name of Pius Mau Piailug, from Satawa, Micronesia. We call him Mau, or Papa Mau, and it just so happened he was in Hawaii at the time Hōkūle‘a was being built.”

The Hōkūle‘a was built at the time of the Hawaiian renaissance.

“That was a time of our language being brought back into schools, so that little babies are now starting to learn their culture and their language again,” Heimuli said. “And Hōkūle‘a was built to really fill that void of the seafarers. And prove that Polynesian people knew how to navigate, knew how to wayfind, and we voyaged, and we traveled with purpose.”

There was a theory that Pacific Islands had been populated by people drifting aimlessly through the ocean. Heimuli says Papa Mau connected with the Polynesian Voyaging Society and translated the knowledge he had learned at home into Hawaiian. He translated the compass.

“It’s a star compass, it’s 360 degrees, four cardinal points, and in between those point are seven star houses, I’m going to get really complex on you. So each star house is 11.25 degrees. Those star houses have the same name in each quadrant,” she said.

In each quadrant, stars, sun and moon will rise in the east and set in the west.

“If a star is rising, in the east, in the house of Laa, which is just above east, Laa Honolao, so the star rises, it’s like a first name and last name,” Heimuli said. “And then the star goes up, reaches it’s zenith, and  sets in the west, and it will set in Laa Honolua.”

Heimuli says the canoe is the center of the compass, and the horizon is its edge.

“That is our whole compass. And if you look on the canoe Hōkūle‘a, we actually have markings for each house. So a navigator will sit at a certain point in the canoe, and you can use the lines that are pointed out to know the different houses and watch, really watch, stars rise out of the sky, or set into the horizon,” she said.

This system’s reference points are different from those of modern navigation.

“When we start to learn navigation, we are taught that the canoe never moves, the island is pulled to you,” Heimuli said. “So you have to really use your imagination in all these things, but really trust in what our teachers have taught us over the generations.”

In the morning, when the stars fade, navigators observe the swell. Heimuli says the two most important times for a navigator are sunrise and sunset. This is the time to calibrate the direction of the boat in relation to the swell.

“So the swells are a constant,” she said. “It takes a long time for a swell to change, but there is always going to be this constant swell, which is the trade swell that we have in Hawaii. So we memorize the feeling of the canoe at that point, and the swell, and the direction the swell is coming from.”

Knowing the direction you are traveling is good, but how do you find islands in the great wide ocean?

“There are signs,” she said. “One you look at clouds, clouds tend to gather up over islands. We also use birds. In Hawaii we have a bunch of different type of birds that will fly out to sea in the morning, they’ll feed and then come back in the evening to feed their babies. So we’ll watch for those birds, because we know if we see that bird in the morning, we don’t want to follow it. But as soon as it turns afternoon time and we see that bird fly a particular way, we know, OK, that bird is going to go home and feed its babies, so we are going to watch that bird.”

Heimuli says some marine life can indicate the canoe’s position.

“There is a particular pod of dolphins around the equator,” she said. “And we’ll know, ok, it’s very interesting to see, the water just starts boiling. And it’s this huge pod of dolphins. So we know that they are around the same spot every time we sail.”

Heimuli says she is thrilled to see how traditional navigation skills are being taught in schools. Hawaii now has a fleet of eight ocean-going canoes. Many other nations are building traditional canoes and teaching the skills.

“We have to keep doing it,” she said. “Because if we stop traveling, then we stop visiting our cousins all around the world, but then also the teaching ends right there with us. So we need to keep on teaching.”

The Hōkūle‘a returns to Juneau on Saturday, June 10 at Auke Rec and sets off on its voyage on Thursday, June 15. The arrival will air live on KTOO 360TV starting at 3 p.m. Information about how to attend Saturday’s event and the global launch on Thursday can be found on Sealaska’s website. 

A passenger plane collided with birds at the Skagway airport on Friday. The plane landed safely and no human was hurt.

Everything was normal until the end of the flight. The Cessna Caravan from Alaska Seaplanes was approaching the runway, when the pilot noticed a bird near the wing.

“When they went down to the end of the runway, they found five birds that were killed,” said Andy Kline, the marketing director at Alaska Seaplanes. “It was clear from inspecting them that they hadn’t got into the prop or anything like that.”

Kline says Alaska Seaplanes flew in a mechanic to inspect the aircraft. The mechanic could find no sign of impact or damage on the plane. Kline says the birds most likely got hit by the landing gear.

The plane returned to service and has been flying without issues since the incident.

The Skagway airport is located near the mouth of the Skagway River. In the spring and early summer many birds congregate there, which causes a risk to air traffic. The Alaska Department of Transportation currently uses explosives to scare the birds away from the runway. The practice has recently been criticized by residents who say their dogs are scared by the explosions.

But Kline says the safety concern is justified.

“Bird strikes are a serious potential incident, so it’s something that we are concerned about, and that’s just something that’s part of flying in Southeast Alaska,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s wildlife strike database has recorded 58 bird collisions and one involving a coyote in Alaska in the past year.

Getting the M/V Hubbard online has matched the slow pace of the Alaska ferry’s namesake glacier. Construction started in 2014 and it took four years to complete. Then the marine highway system changed course and upgraded the boat with crew quarters, to allow it to run continuously.

On Tuesday morning, the Hubbard sailed up the Lynn Canal with about 70 passengers on board. It now links Juneau, Haines and Skagway every day of the week but Mondays.

But its long-awaited docking in Haines was even further delayed. The ferry Columbia, carrying an unusual load of heavy equipment, was late leaving the terminal. So the Hubbard‘s crew circled around Lutak Inlet for an hour and a half.

Finally, about nine years and ninety minutes after construction began, the M/V Hubbard let out its first load of passengers. Haines resident Tom Faverty was one of them.

“Except for the delay at the end, it was a beautiful voyage,” he said. “The boat was very clean,and very well organized, and it’s nice to have another ship in the upper Lynn Canal. We need it.”

The Hubbard, which is 50 feet longer than the LeConte, can hold more than 50 cars. Its top speed is about the same as an electric scooter’s. Captain Gabe Baylous pointed to 40 feet of living quarters added to the upper deck. A crew lunch room has been converted to sleeping quarters.

“This is all steel deck here,” he said. “All the unlicensed crew lives on this deck”

Adding crew quarters cost $15 million and delayed the boat’s maiden voyage until this week. The ship’s passenger capacity didn’t change – it was built to hold 300. The galley is tight, but the new stainless steel shines.

Baylous is confident that once a permanent cook gets assigned to the boat, some warm meals can be provided to passengers.

“I don’t anticipate this vessel ever being able to serve hot meals to 300 people. Perhaps on the lighter loads, we will be able to serve hot meals,” he said.

Baylous says with a full load of passengers, the new galley will turn out soups, salads and sandwiches that will be sold at the cafeteria.

The Marine system has said that bringing the Hubbard on line in the Lynn Canal will free the LeConte to increase ferry service in other Southeast communities.

The ferry system has had difficulties recently hiring and retaining staff. Captain Baylous says a ship like the Hubbard is well positioned to address the problem.

“We are going to have a smaller crew size, which I personally like,” he said. “It makes it feel more efficient operation and also a closer knit crew.”

Baylous says having a new ship will improve morale. He says although he loves the 60 year-old Malaspina, a recently retired ship in the fleet, he could see that working on a slowly decaying vessel had an impact on the crew’s energy. He points to an area on the Hubbard’s deck where crew will be able to have barbecues when in the shipyard.

“It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “If you focus on the good of these ships, they are great ships. And the things that are bad, or a little off, I know are going to improve in time. So it’s more of a living thing and a growing thing.”

The car deck of the Hubbard is spacious and wide open. The turnaround time in Haines was only twenty minutes. Baylous said he expected to make up much of the lost time by night.

A recently passed state bill would allow small sawmill operators to grade their own lumber. This could open some new markets to Alaskan operators.

Senate Bill 87 would allow Alaska sawmill operators to become certified to grade and sell certain types of dimensional lumber they produce for residential construction. As it stands now, Alaskans have to ship in graded lumber from the outside, which is expensive. The grading is required to sell lumber in places that enforce building codes, like Juneau and Anchorage.

The bill passed the House on May 1, 38-1. It passed the Senate unanimously last month, with a vote of 16-0.

Sage Thomas operates a sawmill in the Chilkat Valley.

“In our town of Haines, there is no building codes and there is no inspectors, so you can build with whatever you want, so our local sawmills have been selling lumber here for years,” he said. “But in Juneau or Anchorage or places like that, you can’t.”

Thomas says he doesn’t plan on selling lumber outside the Haines area but would be interested in taking the training to learn about grading lumber.

The state’s Department of Natural Resources would oversee the certification program and provide free training for sawmill operators. Greg Palmieri is the state forester in Haines. He describes what grading lumber means.

“What you are doing is identifying the quality of the stick of wood,” he said. “So you are looking for things that are going to impact the structural integrity of the piece, so in other words the distribution of knots, the size of knots, those all have factors in the quality of the lumber and therefore the grades of the lumber will reflect that.”

Palmieri says there are three training locations being planned, one near Fairbanks, one on the Kenai Peninsula and one in Southern Southeast. He says the program could be a boost to local sawyers.

“The grading certification allows them to produce that product and enter into that market, which is a significant opportunity for the local rough cut and full dimension lumber,” he said.

The bill is now waiting for Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s signature.

In 2020, The fish runs were small in the Chilkat Valley. The berry crop was, too. It was an especially difficult year for the Chilkat Valley’s bears. They resorted to feeding from trash, breaking into cars, some broke into homes. Close to fifty bears were shot.

Last week in Haines, the Takshanuk Watershed Council organized an event aimed to advance one conversation: how we can share our valley respectfully with our furry neighbors?

There were opportunities to practice using bear spray, discounts on electric fences, and talks by bear behavior experts. And three dogs traveled to the event from Fairbanks. They were there to teach the community a new trick.

“These are Karelian bear dogs,” said Nils Pedersen, the director of the Wind River Bear Institute. “It’s a primitive big game hunting dog from eastern Finland and western Russia. These dogs are traditionally used for hunting big game like moose and grizzly bears. So we are taking that instinct they have and using it for conservation.”

Pedersen’s organization has been working in the western U.S. and Japan to reduce conflict between humans and wildlife, and the dogs are their favored tool. Pedersen claims no person or dog has been harmed in the 27 years of the organization’s existence. And many bear lives have been saved.

Pedersen said the Wind River Bear Institute tries aims to change bear behavior. It uses many tools to chase bears away from trouble. The organization’s founder developed the original bear spray. Pedersen says he has used rubber bullets to chase bears. But the dogs are his silver bullet.

“I do think these dogs are the most versatile tool out there,” he said. “The dogs could be used to find the bears quickly in the dark, in areas of poor sight lines, using scent detection. What we can do is drive around with these dogs in the back of the truck, so they are going to sniff and bark when they smell a bear. Thereby we can cover a lot more ground and determine if that bear is in the area quickly and effectively.”

Once a bear has been located, Pedersen and his crew — ideally two people and two dogs — proceed to push the bear away.

“Getting between that bear and the area we want to defend, outnumbering it, stacking the odds against it,” he said. “We want these bears to know they can leave, they have to leave, and this is the way out.”

Some bears get the message fairly quickly. Others need to be reminded. Pedersen says some of his most important work is to teach sows to stay away from human activity.

“Cubs learn everything from their moms,” he said. “So we actually specialize in working with sows with cubs because they are the future of human-bear conflict. You have to be real careful and not ask them to do things that they aren’t able to do. You have to give them time. Cubs are often pretty pesky, you have to let mom manage them and put the pressure on them but allow her to do as she needs to do to get out of the situation that she is in.”

The Wind River Bear Institute breeds the bear dogs and provides training for handlers. This way, communities can develop their own wildlife K9 capacities. Pedersen says with well trained dogs and well trained handlers, it is possible to produce well trained bears.

“We almost never have aggression from bears,” he said. “We make it so easy for them to do the right thing. For folks who think we should be shooting every bear around, we can talk to them about other tools that we have at our disposal, like dogs. It just changes the conversation about bears.”

Bear tracks have recently been seen near the beach at the mouth of the Chilkat river. Bears are waking up from hibernation. Pedersen says the first thing we can do to keep bears safe is to deny them access to our food and secure our garbage.

Two weeks ago, a caddisfly was reportedly seen circling a Haines light bulb. A few days ago, a large mosquito was observed landing on a pile of wood.

The insects of the northern Lynn Canal are coming out.

Bob Armstrong was a biologist for Fish and Game. He retired decades ago, but he’s since turned his attention to the insects around his home in Juneau. Armstrong says some of the early insects we are seeing have spent the winter in their adult form.

“Caddisflies, there are some that overwinter under the bark of trees as an adult. And then when spring arrives, they go into their mating ritual,” he said. “And there is another one called a snow midge that comes out in midwinter and its sole purpose is for mating. And they run about on the ice and mate with one another. They are very tiny, look like a little fly.”

Armstrong says the mourning cloak butterflies also overwinter as adults. They have dark red wings with a yellow edge and are the first butterflies out in the spring.

Some spiders also stay active throughout the winter.

“There is quite a few that come out on the snow to hunt,” he said. “There are insects that come out and run about on the snow and they go after them in winter.”

Armstrong says spiders tolerate frost, but only to a certain point.

“Once they do their hunting, they have to go back down into the ground below the snow,” he said. “And from what I understand if they are out and about and we get some rain or things start to melt a little bit and then the temperature plummets, they can’t go back down into the ground, and they end up freezing and dying.”

Armstrong says willow catkins, the budding flower clusters on willow branches, are already attracting a lot of bugs near his home in Juneau

“And there is one fascinating insect called the willow weevil, which is a beetle with a big snout,” he said. “And they mate on the willow catkins, and then the female lays her eggs on them. And then the larva eats the inside of the catkin.”

That is just one link in the food chain. Armstrong says some birds have learned to recognize an infested catkin by its curved shape. He has observed birds feasting on catkins full of larvae.

Other iconic bugs are feeding on the willows. The spotted tussock moth spends its youth as a black and yellow caterpillar known as the wooly bear.

“They are toxic. So birds won’t eat the caterpillars. But when they go into their cocoons they lose that toxicity,” Armstrong said. “Chickadees have learned to target them and eat the larva inside, so that is why have learned to build their cocoons under rocks where other creatures can’t get to them.”

As adults, the moths make a clicking noise that helps prevent them from being eaten by bats. The clicking acts like a warning flag.  Armstrong says there is some evidence the clicking interferes with bat sonars.

“But probably the most important insect in Alaska is the queen bumblebee,” he said.

Armstrong says those important pollinators overwinter by themselves in the ground. In the spring they have to rush to eat enough food to be able to lay eggs.

“There is a plant called an early blueberry that blossoms probably any day now. And you’ll see quite a few bumblebees coming to the flowers and feeding on them. At this time of year, they would be the queen bumblebee,” he said.

Blowflies are also pollinators. Those metallic-looking flies spend part of their youth as maggots in salmon carcasses.

“Then the maggots maybe go through up to six stages and then burrow into the ground and pupate and emerge as adults,” Armstrong said. “And I read one report where they determined they were more important than bumblebees.”

After watching insects closely for many years, Armstrong says he sees their individual personalities.

“Most interesting is I did quite a bit of work with crab spiders,” he said.

These spiders do not weave a web. They hunt on flowers. Bumblebees are a prized catch for the females because that gives them enough food and energy to lay their eggs.

“It’s just fascinating to watch the different bumblebees that will approach a flower with a crab spider on it. Some of them will hover there looking, and going around the flower and so on and zoom away, and some others will just land on the flower and feed and get caught,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong says nowadays he sees fewer insects than in past years. Studies around the world confirm this observation.

“There is quite a bit of evidence worldwide that a lot of insects are declining because of climate change. Almost everywhere they looked there’s been up to a 70% decline in insects. So it’s pretty sad what is happening,” he said.

A friend of Armstrong’s in Gustavus also has observed a decline in bumblebees. He tied it to the decline in willows, an important food source. He says a large moose population has been feeding on the willow, reducing their number.

“Probably what is needed is to eliminate the wolf predator control program, so it will help control the moose, so the bumblebees will survive better,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong says life is complicated, and humans often get it wrong. Maybe observing our insect neighbors more closely can help us get it right.