KHNS - Haines

An international big mountain ski and snowboard competition that brought an economic boost to Haines for three winters is not returning to Alaska in 2018.

Freeride World Tour organizers say the expense of putting on a competition in the remote Haines backcountry is the main reason they are not coming back this winter.

Commentators marveled as skiers and snowboarders carved descents through the deep snow of the Haines mountains in March of 2017.

The Freeride World Tour includes a series of stops, where athletes build up points based on the skill and creativity of their runs.

Most of the Freeride’s competition venues are near ski resorts, in places like Verbier, Switzerland and Fieberbrunn, Austria.

That made the Haines stop unusual.

There is no ski resort here – people either hike, snowmachine, or take helicopters into the backcountry.

“The things that make Haines so challenging are also the things that make it so special, so wonderful,” said Tom Winter, a spokesman with the ski and snowboard competition.

Winter said the wildness and remoteness of Haines makes it appealing. Some athletes call it a ski “mecca.” But those same factors make it very expensive.

In Haines, the Freeride used helicopters to fly all the athletes, event personnel, and equipment to the mountaintop venue. That was the biggest expense.

“I think you’re looking at a million-plus (dollars) for the Haines stop,” Winter said. “It’s quite expensive. And that’s mostly based on the logistics side and that’s based on the fact that you can’t just pack your gear in a Sno-Cat and bump it up the mountain.”

People in Haines already knew the chances of the Freeride returning in 2018 were slim.

The event lost its title sponsor – Swatch. Without that financing, organizers said coming back to Alaska would be difficult.

The decision was made official Sept. 12, when the Freeride announced its schedule for the 2018 competition.

The Haines and Chamonix, France, stops were replaced by brand new venues in Hakuba, Japan, and Golden, British Columbia.

“We’ll miss them,” said Deborah Davis, the store manager at Haines’ Mountain Market Café.

The market was a popular gathering spot for the Freeride athletes. Skiers and snowboarders ordered lots of coffee and smoothies, Davis said.

“They’re familiar faces, we look forward to seeing them and they spend a lot of time here on their down days,” Davis said.

Haines’ new tourism director, Carolann Wooten, was welcoming visitors at the cruise ship dock on the day the Freeride announced its 2018 schedule.

In the summer, Haines sees a steady stream of tourists from cruise ships. But in the winter, business is much slower.

Big events like the Freeride make a difference.

“Freeride brought in people who were staying in our hotels, eating at our establishments and shopping in our stores,” Wooten said. “We would like them to come back.”

Winter said the , with the Freeride coming back to Haines is a possibility. After all, it was dubbed “The Dream Stop” by organizers.

“It’s not gonna happen this year but that’s OK, change happens,” Winter said. “If things line up, I definitely think that we’ll be back there and I hope so because Haines is special and people will always remember Haines as a special place.”

Even though the competition dropped Haines from its calendar, and the financial chances of it returning are uncertain, Wooten said it likely raised Haines’ profile as a winter recreation destination, which means Haines could still get an economic boost from the Freeride, even if it’s not an official stop on the tour.

Adult king salmon are returning to the Chilkat River at historically low numbers.

The population has been decreasing over the past 10 years. In 2016, the Chilkat saw the lowest escapement estimate in about 25 years.

Preliminary counts for 2017 show the downward trend is not letting up and fishing restrictions are likely to continue next year.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preliminary abundance estimate for large chinook in the Chilkat River is 1,231 fish, about double what biologists were expecting.

They only predicted the return of about 600 mature kings.

“It’s not good by any means but it’s a little bit of a positive sign from where we were approaching the season,” said Brian Elliot, a chinook stock assessment biologist with Fish and Game in Haines.

That number is still far below the minimum escapement goal. And, it’s fewer fish than 2016.

“It’s about 150 fish lower than last year,” Elliot said. “The final escapement estimate last year was 1,380 fish. We’re still in that downward trend but we’re hoping to get away from that, you know, in upcoming years.”

Fish and Game gets this information from a mark-recapture project they do in June, July and August.

“Mark-recapture is pretty simple,” Elliot said. “We capture and tag fish in the lower Chilkat River between 7 and 9 mile.”

That’s the start of their adult spawning migration.

“We have a known tag population then that’s in the river, going up to their spawning grounds,” Elliot said.

Next, biologists go up to the spawning grounds.

“We go to those spawning areas, we inspect fish for the marks we apply in the lower river, that gives us a mark percentage of the entire population,” Elliot said. “That’s a ratio which we use to estimate the drainage-wide population.”

What happened this year, that made the run stronger than Elliot originally thought it would be?

“We had a positive sign from a particular age class and that’s brood year 2012,” Elliot said. “Those are the offspring of the spawning population in the year 2012. They showed us almost nothing last year, we had 195 total run from that age class. And this year the total run from that age class was 1,150 fish as 5-year-olds.”

That could mean good things for upcoming years, too.

Fish and Game took a number of conservation steps this year. Commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries in the Upper Lynn Canal all faced restrictions aimed at limiting the catch of Chilkat kings.

For the first time in recent history, the commercial and sport harvest of chinook was shut down throughout Southeast.

“I mean it definitely helped,” Elliot said. “It didn’t reduce harvest to zero but for this year’s run we had about a 10 percent harvest rate, which is pretty low. So I think overall the management actions did help pass more fish through to the spawning gravels.”

Elliot said they are likely to implement similar restrictions next year. Though, it’s still too early to say for sure.

“It’s a conservation burden for every user of this resource,” Elliot said. “Obviously the department is going to try to be as responsible as we can to help this stock rebuild. But I would assume there’s going to be some similar actions in the upcoming year at least.”

The abundance estimate is preliminary for now. Elliot doesn’t expect the final number to be very different from the current tally.

Though there is some good news this year, Elliot says Chilkat kings are not “out of the woods” yet.

Correction: A previous version of this story included a photo of the Klehini River. The photo for this story has been updated.

An investigation into an August commuter flight accident takes a close look at the aircraft’s fuel sources. A Haines-based pilot made an emergency water landing in the Juneau area in August. He, along with four passengers, swam safely to shore.

Early in the morning on Aug. 14, an Alaska Seaplanes flight left the Haines Airport and stopped in Skagway to pick up passengers before heading to Juneau.

But the pilot made an emergency water landing about 3 miles from the Juneau Airport.

Haines resident Luck Dunbar was on the plane. He spoke to KHNS the day of the accident.

“You’re sitting there thinking ‘This is it. This is it. Here we go,’” Dunbar recounted.

All four passengers and the pilot swam to shore on Coghlan Island uninjured.

Haines resident Josh Poirier was the pilot.

According to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, Poirier said he measured the fuel tank levels before taking off.

He estimated 26 gallons in the right tank and 11 in the left. He used the right fuel tank during the flight.

Noreen Price, who is leading the NTSB’s investigation into the accident, said that should have been enough fuel to complete the trip.

But as he was approaching the Juneau International Airport, Poirier told the NTSB the engine fuel flow reduced to almost zero and lost all power.

Poirier said he switched to the left fuel tank but engine power was not restored.

He ditched the plane in the water near Coghlan Island and was able to keep the plane upright as he and the passengers exited the aircraft and swam to shore.

In an email, Alaska Seaplanes general manager Carl Ramseth said  “I can’t say enough about the pilot Josh Poirier, whose actions contributed to the positive outcome the morning of Aug. 14.”

The aircraft sunk into the ocean, but was later recovered.

Price said the ability to recover the aircraft is significant for the investigation.

“When there is an accident we like to go to the scene of the accident so we can see what the wreckage looks like at the scene itself and examine it very closely,” Price said. “While we couldn’t go down to the bottom of the ocean to look at the plane, the ability to pull it up allows us to at least look at the flight controls, the fuel systems, the air systems, the engine itself.”

An inspection of the plane was conducted under the supervision of the NTSB by a Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector, Cessna and Continental air safety investigators, and a representative from Alaska Seaplanes.

According to the report, 2 gallons of fuel were recovered from the right tank and 11 from the left. An owner’s manual on the plane said once the fuel level gets down to 2 gallons, it’s unusable.

Price said there’s still a lot of uncertainty about the cause of the accident.

“We don’t know if there was anything mechanical wrong with the plane,” Price said. “In my preliminary report, I mentioned there was wrinkling with the fuel bladders. That is an abnormal condition for an airplane. We don’t know what caused the wrinkling in the fuel bladders, it may have contributed to the accident. At this time we really don’t know.”

Price said the NTSB is not yet finished with the preliminary phase of the investigation. A factual report and a probable cause should be completed within one to two years.

Seaplanes will continue to work with the NTSB while it determines the cause of the accident, Ramseth said.

The Skagway Borough Assembly formally voiced its support for Police Chief Ray Leggett at a meeting last week.

Leggett lost his Alaska police officer certification earlier this year after a lengthy legal battle with the state.

Now, Skagway officials are affirming their support for Leggett to stay on the job. But they’re also updating the police chief job description and personnel policy.

Leggett came under scrutiny of the Alaska Police Standards Council after he conducted a lie detector test on his disabled son, who was the suspect of an investigation in Haines.

The council revoked Leggett’s certification on the grounds that he lacks good moral character.

The decision went against an administrative law judge’s recommendation.

The judge said the council did not prove that Leggett lacks good moral character, just that he displayed bad judgment in a difficult situation.

Leggett has remained on the job during the police standards council’s investigation and following the loss of his certification. Alaska law exempts “chief administrative officers” of police departments from the certification requirement.

Leggett met in private with the borough Assembly at two meetings.

After the most recent meeting last week, Tim Cochran made a motion which was unanimously approved by the Assembly.

“The Assembly would like a motion to support Ray Leggett as chief of police in full capacity going forward, in line with the administrative judge’s ruling and evidentiary judge’s ruling against the Alaska Police Standards commission’s complaint,” Cochran said. “And to have the manager review the job description and personnel policy for the police chief.”

In an email, Borough Manager Scott Hahn said the Assembly wants to update the job description to clarify that state certification is not required for the Skagway chief.

The job description currently says the chief must be eligible for certification.

Hahn said the review of the personnel policy is to clarify that police employees should avoid any involvement in a police matter if it has to do with the employee’s family member.

That’s what got Leggett in trouble in the first place – offering to assist in the Haines Police’s investigation of his son.

The manager’s recommended changes to the policy and job description will go to the assembly before being finalized.

For the second time in less than two years, a Skagway Assembly candidate is under scrutiny by Alaska’s campaign finance watchdog.

Former Assembly member Dan Henry recently returned home after serving a prison sentence on federal tax charges.

He is running for an open Assembly seat. But his bid may be complicated by a citizen complaint now in the hands of the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

The complaint comes from Skagway resident Lynne Cameron, who said Henry appears to have violated the law on his campaign disclosure form for this election.

There’s a section on the disclosure paperwork that asks candidates to list any loans, loan guarantees or debts over $1,000. Henry checked the “none” box on his form.

Cameron said when she saw that, it didn’t make sense.

Last year, Henry was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars in a federal tax case. If he received enough income or gifts to pay that off, that money was not included on the disclosure.

How did the fine come about?

In 2016, Henry pleaded guilty to willful failure to timely file federal income taxes. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and ordered to pay more than $600,000 in restitution to the IRS.

The evidence in the federal case included some of Henry’s candidate disclosure forms, in which he listed no income over $1,000.

After those disclosures came to light, Skagway resident Roger Griffin filed a complaint with APOC.

APOC investigated and ordered Henry to pay $22,000 for his inadequate disclosures.

So, Henry was fined a lot of money in 2016. But on his 2017 candidate disclosure, he listed no debt over $1,000.

“He had betrayed the trust of the public, in my opinion,” Cameron said. “He lied before on those financial disclosure forms. And now, according to my homework, he was lying again.”

Cameron filed a complaint against Henry with APOC. She requested APOC hold an expedited hearing on the matter, since Henry is up for election Oct. 3.

On Thursday, APOC held a hearing on whether to accept Cameron’s request for an accelerated process.

“I made the decision to request that consideration be expedited for the reason of the upcoming election, and an outcome which could materially affect the future of Skagway and its residents for a long time to come,” Cameron told the commission. “I have grave doubts regarding his veracity, ethical conduct in the past and due to his lack of any expressed realization of wrongdoing in his personal finances.”

Henry also was on the line. He said not listing his debt to the IRS was an oversight. When it came to his attention, he amended his disclosure form to include it.

However, he did not include his debt to APOC because he said he is currently appealing that decision.

Henry responded to the argument that his incomplete disclosures cause public harm. He noted that his case was covered by local and statewide media.

“I believe we have on the line Emily Files, and of course on KHNS News, in KTUU and in the Skagway News it was well-publicized what my personal challenges were involving the IRS,” Henry said during the APOC hearing. “So it’s not as though anyone in Skagway, that may include everyone in the state of Alaska, was (not) aware of that information.”

Henry also defended his record on the Assembly.

At the time of his plea deal and conviction, Henry was serving on the assembly and was chair of the finance committee.

“You can directly link to Dan Henry while in office an increase somewhere between 8 (million) and 10 million dollars in reserves,” he said.

Henry asked the commission to let Skagway citizens decide the merit of Cameron’s complaint when they vote Oct. 3.

Henry is the only Assembly candidate whose name will actually appear on the ballot. He was the only one to file by deadline.

Since then, two write-in candidates have declared their interest in the Assembly.

The commission decided to grant Cameron’s request for an expedited hearing. It will take place Sept. 13.

APOC Director Heather Hebdon said the staff won’t necessarily have time for a full investigation, but they’ll analyze the information included in the complaint.

After the Sept. 13 hearing, the commission has 10 days to issue a final order. That means it might not be until the week before the election that APOC decides whether the charges against Henry warrant action.

Skagway’s Chilkoot Trail is closed because of a flood warning on the Taiya River.

The trail is part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. It starts in Dyea  and a significant portion of the trail runs along the Taiya River.

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the area extending into early Saturday morning.

Park chief of interpretation Ben Hayes said the trail will be closed until at least Friday morning when the river’s water levels are reassessed.

According to the weather service, 1 to 1.5 inches of rain fell overnight Wednesday in Skagway. An additional 1 to 2 inches is expected through Friday night.

Hayes said the river has not fallen below the flood stage of 16.5 feet. He also said it’s not safe to hike in the deep, swift flowing water along the river.

Today was the last day of the season hikers needed a permit to make the trek up the Chilkoot Trail. But Hayes said until the river is deemed safe, signage and barriers will keep the trail closed.

One local tour company offers a Chilkoot Trail hike and float down the river. Those tours will not be allowed until it’s re-opened.

Hayes says park staff has checked in with one group currently hiking the trail.