KHNS - Haines

The Haines Borough Assembly all agreed for once about plans for the Lutak Dock.

In a rare unanimous vote, the Assembly directed the interim borough manager to come back to their next meeting with a new contract that includes a smaller, less expensive dock. If approved, the agreement would also end litigation between the borough and the dock contractor.

After years of setbacks and frustration, Haines might be closer to having a new freight dock.

Interim Borough Manager Alekka Fullerton presented a modified concept proposal at the last borough assembly meeting to replace the deteriorating Lutak Dock.

“This concept will look familiar to you since it’s very close to the option 1B which was developed by R&M in 2017,” she said. “The main difference is that it’s a bit smaller. The dock will be a little bit smaller, and incorporates only the most essential elements.”

Fullerton said the new plan preserves the roll-on/roll-off function and fuel transfer operations. Depending on how far the money stretches, at least five cells will be encapsulated.

“After the seismic survey is complete and the required ground improvements are evaluated, it may be that the final design will allow us to include encapsulation of seven cells instead of five … we won’t know that until we finish the seismic design,” Fullerton said.

The guaranteed maximum price (GMP) for the project is $25,400,000.

Harbor Master Henry Pollan answered concerns about losing uplands.

“We will lose a fair amount of our uplands,” he said. “My conservative estimates, it’ll be roughly 20 to 30% of our usable uplands will be ceded in this design. The other options were like 60 to 75% of our usable uplands. So this is the best case scenario that we can put together.”

Fullerton added it’s possible that at a later date, uplands could be reclaimed in a phase two build that is not yet funded.

The last approved design is still in environmental review. Fullerton said she did not believe the replacement design would need a new environmental review, but it might require a seismic study.

If the contract is approved, Fullerton said Turnagain Marine Construction will complete a 35-65% concept plan, which would be submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration so that work on the grant agreement can continue. In the meantime, Fullerton said she will take the new plan to Port & Harbors, Planning & Commission and a Town Hall.

Assembly member Gabe Thomas thought the new concept was a good landing spot for a community that has bitterly argued over the best way to replace the infrastructure.

“This feels like it’s a kind of a medium compromise,” he said. “So hopefully we can just get the community behind it, and let’s get this thing built. Let’s stop fighting over it. There’s no mine.”

And it’s not just community members that have been fighting. Turnagain Marine sued the municipality after the company bought nearly $10 million in steel that the borough says the construction company was not authorized to purchase. The agreement would “release both parties from any claims related to any events prior to the execution of this change order.”

The roll call vote to bring forward a new contract was unusually verbose.

“Just on the record, I am going to compromise and I am going to say yes,” Assembly member Craig Loomis said.

And here’s Assembly member Cheryl Stickler: “Yes, yes, yes!”

Borough Clerk Mike Denker joked that there were a total of nine yes votes. There were in fact, six yes votes. The Assembly will see a contract at their July 8 meeting.

Skagway resident and historian Steve Hites says the Internet is wrong.

“If you look up on Wikipedia and the AI that generates online, they’ll say Ketchikan was the very first city because they call it ‘The First City,’ right? And it’s incorrect,” Hites said. “So don’t trust the computers and don’t trust your AI and don’t trust your Wikipedia … Skagway was the very first incorporated city in Alaska.”

In 1900, the tiny valley of Skagway housed thousands of people, who remained after the heat of the Klondike Gold Rush cooled. Hites described what the town looked like.

“We were a growing, booming, extremely busy community,” he said. “Clubs were forming — the Eagles Club, the Elks Club, the photography club, the Skagway Alpine Club. There were children and mothers arriving. People were making Skagway their home.”

Hites said the focus would soon turn to Nome’s gold rush. But for now, Skagway was still king.

“But at that particular moment in time, with the railroad being completed, with the docks in place, the town was humming,” he said. You can imagine, it’s just after the solstice and the sun is up. It’s a beautiful time to be alive and a great time to be in Skagway, Alaska. Anything was possible.”

That year, Congress passed an act allowing cities in Alaska to elect a representative government. Skagwegians quickly petitioned Judge Melville C. Brown to incorporate the town.

“And this petition is still on file with the state of Alaska archives, signed by 91 citizens of our town – they only needed 60 to petition the judge,” Hites said. “And it described the boundaries, how many houses there were, and that there were, quote: 3,500 souls that lived in Skagway. That was a little bit much more than there were.”

On June 28, 1900, residents gathered for a vote at Skagway’s City Hall — which still stands today. It’s a small log cabin on Fifth Avenue, between a bakery and an axe-throwing shop. It’s wrapped in Tyvek to protect the deteriorating wood.

The vote to incorporate won by a 4-1 landslide, with 246 for and 60 against. John Hyslop, the chief engineer for White Pass & Yukon Route Railway, became the first mayor of Skagway.

And it came just in time to secure Skagway’s place in the record books. The vote to incorporate beat Juneau by one day. Ketchikan incorporated about two months later.

Hites said that anyone who wants to learn more about Skagway’s history, should turn to another local historian.

“Compliments to Jeff Brady for his amazing book, ‘Skagway City of the New Century,’ which much of this information I’m giving you is taken right out of …” Hites said.

Hites, who came to Skagway in 1972, started by washing dishes at the Golden North Hotel. He now owns a tour company and performs a one-man-show, with his guitar and harmonica, aboard cruise ships that berth in Skagway’s docks.

“I do a 40 minute production which covers 30,000 years of Alaska history, from the Ice Age right up through till now, including Alaska statehood,” Hites said. “…But  I believe it’s a way that we can tell people, after their day in town, why the ship stopped here. And why this place is important, in terms of Alaska’s story.”

And that story continues. Skagwegians interested in securing their place in the history books can gather for a town photo at Shoreline Park from 4 to 5 p.m. this Saturday. Gold rush costumes are encouraged. Refreshments and a self-guided historical walking tour will be available.

A Haines guide died on Sunday during a non-work-related rafting trip on the Blanchard and Tatshenshini Rivers.

The guide, Marin Pitt, was a 33-year-old Montana resident with more than a decade of rafting and guiding experience. She moved to Haines this spring to work for Chilkat Guides, an Alaska Mountain Guides & Climbing School, Inc. company.

Pitt was part of a group of 24 people on a personal trip, according to a statement released Thursday by the Yukon Coroner’s Service. One of four rafts flipped at the confluence of the two rivers after high siding on a rock, the statement said. Five people were on the raft including Pitt.

Alaska Mountain Guides Director of Operations Sabrina Harvey said in a prepared statement on behalf of Chilkat Guides that the group was experienced and prepared, and that all safety protocols were followed.

“Our hearts are with Marin’s family, friends, and the entire guiding community as we mourn the loss of a truly beloved team member,” the statement said.

Russ Lyman is a long-time local guide who helps train guides in the spring. He is not currently employed by Chilkat Guides and wasn’t on this trip. But he has run the same section of river several times. He said this trip has become somewhat of an annual occurrence.

“For the last several years, it’s happened every year around this time when that part of the river is running high, because it’s really exciting,” Lyman said. “Of course, it’s also when it’s most dangerous.”

Lyman said the trip is typically a three-hour run between the Alaska-British Columbia Border and Dalton Post and that it has class three and four rapids.

A Haines nonprofit has been working for years to build a large facility capable of churning out compost for farmers and gardeners. The facility itself is complete. But the plan has stalled for months amid a heated debate over a neighboring driveway that’s owned by the borough – and part of the local cemetery.

The non-profit, known as the Takshanuk Watershed Council, wants to use the driveway to access its new composting facility. Opponents say that’s inappropriate.

“We have stated over and over that the Cemetery does not have any land to give away,” Roc and Diann Ahrens, who have served as volunteer caretakers of the cemetery property for more than three decades, wrote in a public comment letter.

The issue came to a head late last week when the Haines planning commission considered the watershed council’s easement request. The conservation organization wants to use about .09 acres of cemetery land to transport material and turn around heavy equipment. The group would also build a bear-proof fence.

The bulk of the cemetery property, known as the Jones Point Cemetery, is across the street. And the request notes that the driveway site has been used as a driveway by neighboring landowners in the past. More recently it was strewn with abandoned boats, cars and tires.

“What we’re asking for here tonight is permission to build about 150 feet of fence to enclose about 40 feet of existing driveway,” Derek Poinsette, the watershed council’s executive director, said during the meeting.

Without the easement, he said, the organization might need to scale back its composting plans. Building a new driveway is possible, he added, but wouldn’t be easy.

“To just expand that into new terrain, with new fill and cutting trees down and all that, is expensive,” Poinsette said in an interview. “We don’t have that money, and I don’t know that we’ll be able to get money to do something like that.”

The application cleared the planning commission after hours of public comment dominated by opponents who were adamant that the watershed council should not be allowed to use cemetery land.

“I’m not opposed to composting at all. I’m opposed to you taking part of the Jones Point property. That’s inappropriate, you have another place you can put your access,” said Haines resident Randa Szymanski.

Critics also said the watershed council should have designed the facility to fit on its own property. Others thought the facility would just be bad for the cemetery — that it would generate noise and traffic and could attract bears.

During a phone interview, Ahrens said his main concern is that, due to Haines’ aging population, the cemetery should keep control over all of its land.

“The aged population that still lives here, [that’s] the reason that we’re starting to be concerned about running out of space,” he said.

He added that they’ve proposed building a columbarium on the driveway site, though in a June 11 memo, Haines interim Borough Manager Alekka Fullerton noted that the cost of a columbarium is not currently in the budget.

The watershed council, for its part, has pushed back against the suggestion that they should have built the facility elsewhere – and that they can just build a new driveway.

The organization owns about 50 acres in the area. Much of that is used for public trails and conservation work. The compost facility itself borders a wetland and a creek on two sides, which would complicate building a new access point.

Building the facility cost around $250,000 in grant funding. In an email, Poinsette said creating a new access point could cost that much or more.

During the meeting, Poinsette said the group explored buying or leasing the land in 2022. It was later determined that wasn’t possible due to the nature of the federal deed associated with the property, which says the land should not be sold or used for other purposes.

The borough later recommended pursuing a temporary easement. In 2024, an official with the Bureau of Land Management said in an email to the borough that the agency would not take issue with an easement allowing the use of the area as a driveway.

Poinsette said not having access to the driveway could lead to worse impacts for the cemetery.

“We might end up having to park equipment out on Takshanuk’s stretch of the road there, which is across from the cemetery,” he said. “That could be a greater impact, I would think, on the cemetery than if we were allowed to get off the road and back behind the screen of trees.”

Five planning commissioners voted in favor of the motion, with only Jerry Lapp voting against. Poinsette is a commissioner but did not vote due to his role with the watershed council. The full assembly is set to consider whether to approve or reject the request on July 8.

More than 900 cyclists are set to participate this weekend in an annual 150-mile cross-border race that starts in Canada and ends in Haines. But this year’s competition could look a little different amid ongoing political tensions between the neighboring countries.

The Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay has been happening for decades — and it has a particular legacy.

“It’s all about the goodwill between Americans and Canadians,” said Richard Clement, the relay race board’s vice president.

Clement said the race is capped at 1,200 people, and that most years, it sells out in about two weeks. This time around, that didn’t happen. Roughly 930 people registered.

“We suspect it was Canadians who just didn’t want to come to the US,” he said. “But you know, there’s other factors too, like the exchange rate. It’s unbelievably bad for Canadians to come down and change to American dollars these days.”

Still, the vast majority of this year’s registered participants — around 85% — are Canadian, according to race organizers.

The race has been around since 1993 and has only been cancelled a few times — once for snow, and three times during the Covid-19 pandemic. Teams and solo cyclists start in Haines Junction, about an hour drive north of the Canadian border, and ride on the highway from there to Haines.

Clement says race organizers also heard from a small number of Canadian teams — about a dozen — who did register and plan to race. But they’re choosing not to finish because they don’t want to cross the border into the U.S.

It’s the latest example of the increasingly fraught relationship between Canada and the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s global trade war and repeated comments about making the neighboring country the 51st state. In response, some Canadians have boycotted visiting or spending money in Alaska border towns.

In response to teams that won’t cross the border, race organizers posted a new policy posted to the race website on June 13. It says cyclists must travel southbound only, and that those who do not plan to cross the border into Alaska must withdraw from the race no later than Checkpoint 6.

At that point, or sooner, cyclists must get into their team vehicles and drive home rather than ride back toward Haines Junction.

“For safety considerations, we tried to explain to them, don’t turn around and try to ride your bike home. Because we cover people going to Haines. We don’t cover people going the other way.”

The policy adds that teams who withdraw early will be marked as DNF — or “Did Not Finish.”

On a small island near Gustavus, a wolf pack has decimated the local deer population – and started feeding on sea otters instead.

The shift underscored coastal wolves’ adaptability. But then one died.

“We found her in a hole, under a tree,” Gretchen Roffler, a wildlife research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “She had lost about a third of her body weight. She was emaciated.”

The researchers sent the carcass to a wildlife veterinarian, who did a series of tests on the animal’s liver, muscle, brain and kidneys. The results ruled out diseases and factors ranging from canine distemper to algal toxins. What they did find were elevated levels of mercury.

“They were many orders of magnitude higher than other wolf liver tissues that had been analyzed in other parts of the world,” Roffler said during an interview this week in Haines.

The finding kicked off a sweeping research project that examined different wolf packs’ reliance on marine prey for food, and how that diet might affect their mercury levels – and long-term health.

In a study published late last month in the journal Science of the Total Environment, researchers concluded that two wolf populations near Gustavus are increasingly relying on marine prey – specifically sea otters – for food. And that in some cases, like the wolf who died, the shift is resulting in potentially toxic mercury exposure.

“The ability of wolves to switch their diets from terrestrial prey to marine prey, just shows how resilient they can be. But we now know that their reliance on marine prey can also lead to the risk of toxicity,” Roffler said.

The researchers looked at a handful of areas including Pleasant Island — the island where wolves are now largely eating sea otters instead of deer. They also looked at an area of the Gustavus mainland, where wolves mostly eat terrestrial animals – namely, moose – but have started adding more marine animals to their diet.

Using hair and muscle tissue samples archived over the last 20 years, they concluded that marine-heavy diets can have dangerous consequences. That was especially the case when compared to samples taken from wolves in two other areas – Douglas Island near Juneau, and the Interior – where wolf diets are predominantly terrestrial.

Roffler said some mercury is not uncommon in predators with marine diets, like fox and polar bears.

“The thing that was unusual in our study was the severe mercury concentrations in these wolf tissues,” she said.

The study has implications for wolves and other predators beyond the Gustavus area – particularly as sea otters proliferate along Alaska’s coasts.

See otters were hunted to local extinction during the fur trade in the 1800s. But then, in the 1960s, the state reintroduced them to the region. In the time since, the marine mammal has recolonized some areas, including around Glacier Bay National Park.

“We can assume that as sea otters continue to recolonize parts of their former range and grow in numbers, that wolves and other terrestrial predators will start using them as prey,” Roffler said.

But why is mercury present in marine environments – and animals – in the first place?

Report co-author Ben Barst, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary who studies ecotoxicology, said mercury ends up in the ocean after humans release it through activities like coal combustion and gold mining.

“It can be a vapor in the atmosphere, can travel for long distances, and then eventually it’s deposited even very far away from its original emission sources. It’s deposited in rain and snow and other types of precipitation,” Barst said.

In Southeast, there’s another potential source: Glacier runoff. It holds mercury, and is increasing with climate change.

No matter the source, once mercury enters an aquatic environment, microbes convert it into a new form that easily makes its way into living organisms. Think: mussels, clams and sea urchins.

“You get all this mix of minerals in there. And of course, it’s going to go in the ocean and of course, the sediment. The clams and everything else, crabs, bury themselves in it,” said Chilkat Valley local and marine mammal hunter Tim Ackerman. “The sea otter are going to dig those up and consume them.”

By the time an otter becomes wolf prey, it can deliver a big dose to the apex predator.

“We see this in other instances with fish. You know, small fish are getting eaten by larger fish, which are getting eaten by the biggest fish, and they tend to have the highest mercury concentrations,” Barst said.

The researchers initially assumed that high concentrations of mercury in wolves could be unique to the Gustavus and Pleasant Island area, Barst said. More research is needed to determine whether that’s the case; there’s uncertainty about the contribution of glaciers and how wolf diets might fluctuate over time.

But Barst said it’s possible the trend could play out elsewhere as sea otters proliferate – and predators increasingly tap into marine food webs.

“We’re trying to get a handle on, are the concentrations of mercury that we’re seeing in Pleasant Island wolves, are those the highest that we’re going to see?” Barst said.