KHNS - Haines

The Haines Sheldon Museum will feature a new exhibit of Lingít miniatures. It will showcase not only the artistic works but also stories of Lingít people forced to adapt to the rapidly changing times of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The Lingít miniatures come from the museum’s 23,000 item collection. It includes small-scale items like totem poles, canoes and dolls, which were popular as children’s toys. Items were both artistic and practical, says museum collections coordinator Zachary James.

“Small spiritual figures, kind of talisman-like objects, amulets, rings,” James said. “And then halibut hooks too.”

James is Lingít, with ancestry in the Chilkat Valley, Wrangell and Stikine Basin. He pointed out a doll with a stone face and calico dress. With the introduction of Western culture, he says the designs and materials used show how Lingít people took them and adapted them to new art forms.

“After Western contact, and the fur trade, there was a real explosion of art from Southeast Alaska and just Northwest Coast,” he said. “Because increased wealth, more trade, new materials, steel became widely available. And so it was easier to produce more carvings, and new ideas were coming in too. And within the old traditions, they would take these new ideas and make new things.”

With the onset of Russian, European and American traders in Southeast Alaska throughout the 1800s, Lingít people traded and adapted new materials into cultural practices, clothing and art.

“The people were still living totally in a Native economy, you know, Native society, Native principles, Native ideas,” he said. “But they would take what they wanted from the newcomers, the new ideas, new materials, and then make it their own. Same thing with regalia. Beads traditionally, it was porcupine quill beads or shells, but with the new materials, a whole new set of ideas, a whole new set of patterns, a new art form was created, just from, just from the introduction of new materials.”

Steamship tourism kicked off in the late 1800s, with mostly wealthy European and American tourists making the long journey to Southeast Alaska. James points to a 1905 pamphlet advertising ‘Alaska via the Totem Pole Route’ where ships visited different villages to see original totem poles.

“Either Native people needed to assimilate to a cash economy or they would disappear. But either way their old traditions wouldn’t survive,” James said. “That was how they promoted it, as ‘see the Native in their natural habitat before they disappear,’ which we know that to be not true now, but it was the thought at the time.”

James says starting in the late 1800s with the Klondike Gold Rush and massive influx of missionaries and settlers, fish traps decimated salmon runs and harmed traditional Native livelihoods. So Lingít artists began producing miniatures for tourists.

“So all of these things were going on. It compromised the traditional economy and the Lingít people here. So a lot of people turn to producing souvenirs for steamship travelers as a way to supplement their income,” James said.

Lingít people, mostly women, would set up on the docks and sell to tourists.

“We have a lot of old photographs from steamship travelers, and it’s almost always women who would be selling their wares,” James said. “And amongst the baskets that the women weave, they would have small totem poles and small carvings that the men made.”

James says Lingít people may have moved into small-scale art for sale as an act of economic survival, but at the same time the style and craft was exquisite. And, miniature totem poles are sometimes the only surviving record of full-sized totem poles in existence today, representing important stories and crests of the 30-foot originals.

“A lot of the model totem poles were based off of real totem poles that existed, that had stories and were owned by someone,” he said. “So sometimes, the model totem pole, based off the real one, the model is the only one that exists today. Because, it’s easy to store, it lasted longer than the original. So that’s the only record of that totem pole existing, is in that miniature version.”

James says the exhibit will showcase stories of the known carvers and provide the public an opportunity to learn more about Lingít people of the early 1900s in a time of cultural oppression and change.

“Understand the time period, and what people were going through at that time. What kind of pressures the culture and the art was under at that time period, what they had to do in order to keep making the art,” he said.

The exhibit on Lingít miniatures opens at the Haines Sheldon Museum on Friday, March 25 and will run for eight weeks until the end of May.

The Haines Assembly has voted to restrict non-traditional dwellings like yurts and container homes on lots smaller than a half acre. They would be allowed in residential zones on properties of a half acre or more.

It’s a water-downed version of the total ban in the townsite that was recommended by the planning commission.

Assemblymember Gabe Thomas told KHNS that the idea came from looking at parcel maps.

“I was looking at going wow, there’s a lot of land out here — two, three acre lots, five acre lots,” Thomas said. “But it was all included in single family zoning areas, and it made no sense to me to say, Hey, why can’t they build out there?”

The original proposal would have completely banned new yurts and container homes to outside the townsite – rural residential and rural mixed use. The new version allows them in the single family residential zone, which includes neighborhoods like Highland, Skyline and Cathedral View.

For smaller properties of less than half an acre, or the waterfront zone, residents would have to apply for a conditional use permit to be approved by the planning commission.

That means property owners would have to fill out an application, pay a $150 fee and send notices out to all neighbors within 500 yards. Neighbors would have a chance to weigh in on the proposal, and it would be approved or denied by the planning commission.

If the planning commission denies the permit, residents would be able to appeal to the Haines assembly.

But not everyone was on board with the plan. Haines Assemblymember Tyler Huling opposed restricting non-traditional housing. She says yurts are often a more affordable housing option for people starting out in Haines.

“This is just a bad PR move for Haines,” Huling said. “It’s a bad look. From my perspective, and I understand that other people see it really differently. But as a young person who’s trying to build a life in this community, it’s just like, not an appealing prospect to have any sort of personal lifestyle choices limited in this way, that are singled out and not really applied to other forms.”

The Assembly passed the measure 4-2. with Assemblymember Catie Kirby also cast a no vote.

Proponents of the measure had argued that non-traditional housing could hurt property values. That was the reasoning that led planning commissioners to make their recommendation.

Haines resident Nick Schlosstein, who lived in a yurt for five years while he and his partner developed their business, says he’s not sure what has been accomplished in a community that already struggles with affordable housing.

“I am still unclear as to what problem that it’s solving,” Schlosstein said. “There’s a lot of properties in town that are under that size. And so it sounds like it’s more of a way just to limit it without saying that.”

Existing container homes and fabric-covered structures like yurts are grandfathered in, but the measure goes into effect immediately.

New rules for first-time commercial drivers and for those upgrading their licenses took effect on Monday. The new regulations call for more thorough instruction for anyone seeking a new class B license or higher. But the costs for most tour companies in tourist towns like Skagway won’t be as high as some had feared.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new rules for entry-level commercial drivers will require more formalized training for anyone seeking to operate a vehicle over 26,000 lbs. In Skagway, small tour companies rely on hiring and training new tour guides from season to season. Luckily for most Skagway businesses, their vehicles don’t exceed that weight limit and won’t require the more extensive training.

Chris Lisenby from the Alaska Driving Academy in Soldotna says his Entry Level Driver Training program made the switch to the new curriculum when the administration first announced it would be increasing standards a few years ago.

“Too many people were going and getting the quickie license,” he said. “Get my license, get out there and drive, and it was bad for the industry. The motor carriers didn’t like it because they were getting drivers that didn’t know anything about the industry and their skills were bare minimum. And it’s not safe for the motoring public.”

The new requirements for new class A and B drivers call for an 80% or better score on 30 classroom units. Then drivers will spend time with an instructor learning how to drive the vehicle. In years past, drivers could study on their own, pass a test and be on the road quickly.

Greg Clem owns Klondike Tours and will begin operating Skagway’s shuttle service SMARTbus in April. He says all of his vehicles are under the weight limit, but there are some changes he’ll have to make to train new class C drivers to drive his airport shuttle-sized busses.

First, he’ll have to become a licensed instructor.

“It’s a lot of paperwork, but it’s all free. Assuming I am doing the training, they would come to me first. According to the laws I have to do the passenger endorsement, according to reality, I would train them on everything,” Clem said.

But for now, there is no road course or CDL examiner available in Skagway. That means, to get fully licensed to drive tours in Skagway, new drivers will have to bring a bus to Juneau to complete their testing. Clem says it will cost about $600 to put one of his smaller busses on the ferry, and another $200 or so in fees.

New school bus drivers will need to learn from a licensed instructor found on the national registry and complete the S endorsement. For new drivers looking to get into driving large vehicles with airbrakes or big rigs, the training is more intense.

“If you’re a Class A or B, you have to go do that from a trainer that has that credential,” Clem said.

Courses at training schools in Alaska vary in length from five days to several weeks.

Sarah Douthit of the Kenai Peninsula Driving School says her school has students complete a portion of their learning online before in-person instruction begins at the school.

“Whether you go to a big school for six months, or whether you come here for one week behind the wheel and one week of online learning, as long as those requirements are met by your program, then you can get into a CDL,” Douthit said.

The cost of courses at training schools in Alaska varies from a little over $5,000 to over $7,000, and most are located near large population centers.

The Haines Borough Assembly is looking for ways to ease the community’s housing crunch. On Tuesday, they introduced a tax incentive for developers of subdivisions. But they also furthered a proposal to restrict unconventional structures such as yurts and container homes, which are favored by some as a less-expensive housing alternative in the community.

The new ordinance would incentivize building subdivisions for single-family homes by amending borough code so that when developers subdivide land, they wouldn’t have to pay property taxes until the new homes are built and sold — or for up to five years.

Borough manager Annette Kreitzer said at the housing working group meeting last week that the new measure would mirror state law.

“When you have someone putting in a subdivision, and they pay for the sidewalks and the water and the sewer and the other amenities for that, it’s a lot of investment,” Kreitzer said. “The statute recognizes that that’s a lot of upfront cost. And so to encourage developers to subdivide, the state passed this law in 2012.”

The working group was formed last month to address a shortage of available and affordable housing. It’s made up of the borough planner, manager, mayor, clerk, and members of the planning commission, and community non-profits.

The tax exemption would only qualify for residential developments, not commercial or industrial projects.

The plan would require developers to pay borough taxes on the entire bulk property but not on the improved sites for up to five years. The working group also discussed lobbying the state legislature to change the law to allow for a longer tax exemption.

Haines Borough Planner Dave Long told the working group a greater incentive would be a tax deferral up to 10 years.

“And I did talk to two property developers and both of them thought five years is not long enough,” Long said. “Maybe seven or 10 years is more reasonable.”

Long said the proposal is aimed at lifting a portion of the tax burden from developers, but there are additional challenges to developing new housing in Haines — such as labor, expertise, and cost of materials.

Rob Goldberg, a member of the planning commission, cautioned the working group that the incentive may not actually create more subdivision development.

“Looking back on all these years, and how  many long plats (i.e. lots of four or more) have come to the planning commission over the last 20 years, it hasn’t been very many,” Goldberg said. “We can put these incentives in place, but it doesn’t really guarantee that anyone’s going to put in a subdivision.”

The assembly will hold a first public hearing on the ordinance on Feb. 8 and a second on Feb. 22.

Meanwhile, the assembly held a second hearing on a proposal to restrict yurts and container homes to areas outside the townsite. The issue has been the subject of heated debate over the last year, with proponents claiming that alternative housing structures like yurts harm property values.

Opponents say it would restrict affordable housing options for Haines residents.

Joe Aultman-Moore was among those who spoke out against the proposal on Tuesday. He said he was displaced from a dry cabin on Beach Road during last December’s deadly landslide, and he and other residents have struggled to find permanent housing.

“I believe I speak for a lot of people my age in this town in my situation is: we want to build,” Aultman-Moore said. “We don’t want to live in subsidized housing, we’re not looking for tax breaks for developers. We don’t want more landlords. And we don’t want to be worried that if we take another job, we might make too much money and lose our housing. We want to build. But what we can afford to build generally are cabins, tiny houses, yurts and container houses.”

Assemblymember Caitie Kirby brought up splitting the ordinance into two parts — one to define yurts and container homes in borough code, and the second to define where they would be allowed.

She also asked to define structure “creep” which was cited by the planning committee as a concern around alternative housing structures like yurts.

“I’m not really sure what creep means,” Kirby said. “And if it’s a definable term that can be used to say, objectively, oh, this person’s property is showing signs of creep, you need to do something about it. How we, as the borough are supposed to manage that. And if the zoning choices are based on a term that isn’t really something that can be objectively defined, I’m a little worried that we might end up with murky code in the future.”

The assembly is scheduled to hold a public hearing and possible vote on the ordinance at its Feb. 8 meeting.

Haines mayor Douglas Olerud has tested positive for COVID-19. He says he was asymptomatic at first but experienced light symptoms when he went into quarantine over the weekend.

Olerud said he tested positive on Friday after taking a routine rapid test before visiting the Haines SEARHC clinic.

“I was asymptomatic at the time, and so I had no way of knowing,” he said. “So I was glad that they made me test before going inside, so I was able to find out.”

Olerud confirmed that he’s not vaccinated but declined to explain his reasons. He says when he got the positive result, he was worried about getting sick.

“There’s two parts. Part of it is like, OK, I’m gonna have a few days to rest and recover from this,” he said. “Also, there’s a little bit of anxiety. Anytime you get a diagnosis of anything, you’re hoping you’re in the mild symptoms, rather than one of those that needs to be medevacced out of town and into the hospital. So far, luckily enough, I happen to have those lighter symptoms, which I’m very thankful for.”

He said he was isolating for the required five days and experiencing some symptoms.

“I’ve been feeling really good. Friday night, I had a headache and sore throat, and that went through Saturday. But since I woke up on Sunday morning, I’ve been feeling about 90%. So, feeling pretty good and very, very fortunate,” he said.

Haines is in the midst of a COVID-19 surge, with state public health reporting at least 55 new positive cases over the last two weeks, from Jan. 10-24.

Since March 2020, Haines has had 364 reported cases, three hospitalizations and one death. Haines does have a higher than average vaccination rate, with 66% of the eligible population ages five and above having received the first vaccine series. That’s 9% higher than the statewide average. Just over a third of eligible Haines residents had received their boosters as of Jan. 24.

“I think the odds were that I was gonna get it at some point,” Olerud said.

He says he believes this is his second round of COVID, after experiencing some symptoms during the last large COVID-19 outbreak in Haines last August. He said he felt sick at the time but never tested positive.

“But ever since then, I just really haven’t had the level of energy that I’ve normally had,” he said. “And so there’s a possibility that I could have already been having some of those long COVID symptoms, but they didn’t really have a way to test to find out if that was something there or not.”

He says the lingering loss of energy hasn’t prevented him from any daily activities, so he’s not too concerned, but it’s something he’s monitoring.

In addition to mayoral duties, Olerud is co-owner of Olerud’s Market and active in the retail operations there. He said he alerted close contacts immediately.

Olerud said he is able to conduct borough business from home via Zoom, as have other borough employees who have tested positive. That’s excluding the 911 dispatch team who tested positive earlier this month but elected to continue working.

Olerud said he does not have an estimate of the number of borough staff impacted by COVID-19, but so far he says it hasn’t affected borough operations.

“The ones that have gotten it have been able to work off site,” Olerud said. “There were some issues with dispatch, and none of them were sick enough that they weren’t able to come in — and very thankful that they were willing to work through being sick and take extra precautions, locking down the dispatch room and things like that. So they would be able to continue providing that service.”

He says contracting COVID-19 has not significantly changed his thinking or approach about the virus or current community outbreak.

“Each of us has a responsibility to do the best we can, talking to our doctors figuring out what our individual risk is for COVID, and making sure we’re healthy,” Olerud said. “And then on top of that, also remembering that there are a lot of people in our community that might have different health risks than we do personally. And so when we’re making our choices, you obviously look at yourself first, but then we have to look at the community as a whole. And how are our actions impacting those around us and trying to make the best choices to protect the vulnerable people in our community as well.”

Olerud says he plans to isolate until Thursday, and take a rapid COVID-19 test before leaving quarantine.

The Haines Borough Assembly meeting has been moved to Zoom only this week, it’s scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

All three of Haines’ emergency dispatchers have tested positive for COVID-19, but officials say they’ve elected to stay on the job anyway to field 911 calls from the public safety building.

Haines borough manager Annette Kreitzer says the dispatch office’s three-person staff tested positive for COVID-19 last week. She was alerted last Tuesday, Jan. 11 of the situation.

“Of course, our first inclination is to protect employee’s health and to protect the public’s health,” Kreitzer said.

The office fields 911 calls for police and emergency services throughout the Haines borough and coordinates via phone and radio between personnel during service calls. They also manage the Haines jail, maintain call logs and department reports and handle public records requests.

Haines Police Chief Heath Scott was out of town at the time, delayed from returning due to winter weather. But Kreitzer says she consulted with him and the dispatch supervisor on how to proceed.

“First of all, these are essential workers,” she said. “You can’t just have someone walk in off the street and do police or fire dispatch, it just doesn’t work that way. And so what you need to try to do is figure out if they are feeling well enough to work. And if they are, then we need to quarantine them and make sure that they aren’t having any interaction with any other staff, and with the public. And so that was put into place.”

Kreitzer says the team volunteered to keep working so that 911 calls would be answered locally.

“I just want the public to know that we did not ask them to continue working,” she said. “We made it clear that this is your choice. You do not have to work. You know, it was up to them to volunteer to stay on and work through. And that’s what they did.”

Kreitzer says the three infected employees felt well enough to work, but she declined to elaborate on their condition. She says they were instructed to go straight home and isolate after work hours.

Haines Police Chief Heath Scott declined to be interviewed. But in an email to KHNS, he wrote that he has full confidence in the dispatchers who are isolated in an office, asked to wear masks and clean their work station prior to the next dispatcher’s shift. He said they have closed the office to the public and ask residents to avoid stopping at the department in-person unless it’s an emergency.

Chief Scott said he’s proud of the department, and “they understand how important this work is and they accept that responsibility without complaint.”

Kreitzer said if employees had decided not to work or were unable to due to illness, the borough could direct 911 calls to state dispatchers in Fairbanks. Haines has at least one sworn police officer who is trained up.

“If they had not volunteered to work, then that’s when we would have been looking to other agencies,” Kreitzer said. “Or (we) would have brought in, we only have I believe, one other person who’s trained as a dispatcher, who is a police officer. And we would have brought him in to serve in the dispatch position.”

Kreitzer says dispatchers working from home was not an option because of the software and communication technology needed at the public safety building.

When asked what lessons were learned moving forward, Kreitzer says her office would be more prepared to take the appropriate steps to mitigate COVID-19 spread more quickly.

“Well, we don’t really know how the first case started. And so it’s hard to say, ‘Oh, we would do this different, we would do that different,’” Kreitzer said. “But I think that there is a good realization of how quickly things can move if someone becomes ill. And I think we would probably communicate much more quickly the next time.”

Kreitzer says the Haines police and emergency services employees and volunteers get tested regularly, and they are monitoring for any further transmission.

She says the Haines borough recommends but does not require COVID-19 vaccinations and masking for employees.