Rosemarie Alexander

Four Juneau ski racers have qualified to compete in the Arctic Winter Games next month, based on their results at the Alaska State Alpine Skiing Championships that just ended.

The races were held last week at Alyeska Ski Resort in Girdwood. The Alyeska Cup is the first of two state qualifying races for the United States Ski Association’s Junior Olympics for the Western Region. Juneau’s Eaglecrest Ski Area will host the second contest later this month.

The Alyeska Cup is also a qualifier for the Arctic Winter Games. Shane Kelly, Cody Weldon, Adrienne Audet and Naomi Moritz will compete at the Whitehorse games in March. Juneau Ski Club Head Coach Dan Ord says they had to make their decision now.

“It’s kind of one of those things where some athletes are holding out wanting to go to Western Region; (if they) don’t qualify and don’t get a spot to go is the worst case scenario,” Ord said. “So our athletes are quite quick to jump on the Arctic Winter Games.”

Ord says Juneau racers who have participated in previous Arctic games have done well and had a geat experience.

Ord calls the Alyeska Cup a great race series for Juneau skiers. He says they battled some tough competition from the Alyeska Ski Club, which boasts four nationally ranked skiers. The annual championship races draw 11 to 19-year olds from Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.

It also was a week of heavy snowfall. Ord says the Super G races for some age groups were cancelled, and throughout the week races had to be postponed and rescheduled due to weather.

Ord says other Juneau’s top skiers include J-3 Gaby Hebert, J-2 Joe Greenough, and J-1 skiers Peter Peel and Matthew VanDorr.

The Eaglecrest Cup – another qualifying race for Western Region Junior Olympics – is February 18th through 20th.

The Basin Road Bridge will be closed to all pedestrian traffic through mid-April.

Silver Bow Construction is rebuilding the old trestle bridge and has been allowing walkers and bicyclists access during the noon hour. The bridge has been closed to vehicle traffic since October 1st. Beginning Thursday (Feb. 9) until April 15, it will be closed from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“The workers need that extra hour of work time with the short daylight of time that we have,” says Project Manager Larry Gamez.

The Perseverance Trail system will be accessible from the end of Evergreen Avenue via the flume trail.

Gamez says structural concrete work on the bridge is done, columns have been repaired and replaced, galvanized steel brackets and angle irons are in, and a lot of old wood has been pulled out and replaced. He says whatever work is not complete by April 15th will be finished next fall after the summer tourist season is over. Basin Road is access to the Last Chance Mining Museum and popular hiking trails.

The original Basin Road Trestle was built in 1936 while the AJ Mine was in operation. It has been rebuilt a number of times since.

A portrait of the late Senator Ted Stevens – unveiled Friday evening — will hang on the second floor of the Alaska State Capitol between the House and Senate chambers.

Stevens’ widow, Catherine, stood next to an easel draped in red velvet, as the painting was revealed to an overflow crowd in the Alaska State Museum.

Gov. Sean Parnell started the countdown: “1-2-3,” then the drape came down.

Catherine Stevens said her late husband looked like he was “keeping a sharp eye out. He has something to say. And I think, you know, Ted always had his pocket square and his Senate pin, so I think you captured his spirit very well.”

Before the unveiling, Parnell, House and Senate leaders, artist Dean Larson, and Catherine Stevens spoke about Stevens’ ardent love for the state and his 40 years representing Alaska in the U.S. Senate. Stevens was first elected to political office representing Anchorage in the Alaska State House from 1965 through 1968.

“The Stevens’ family wants to thank you for bringing him home to the state,” Catherine Stevens said.

The artist is the son of the late Rep. Ron Larson of Palmer and was an intern in Steven’s U.S. Senate office. Larson said he used multiple photos of Stevens to create the protrait, which is set in the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Room. Stevens served many years as a member of the appropriations committee. Catherine Stevens said it was his favorite room in the U.S. Capitol.

Larson also studied under Alaska artist Fred Machetanz (Mah-kah-tan), who painted the portrait of Alaska’s first U.S. senator, Ernest Gruening. The Gruening portrait hangs on the second floor of the state capitol.

Winds were fierce throughout Southeast Alaska this morning. The National Weather Service says Sitka, Juneau and Yakutat had the highest gusts.

In downtown Juneau this morning, gusts reached 73 miles per hour atop the federal building, and 44 mph at the airport. Alaska Airlines cancelled morning flights.

National Weather Service forecaster Rick Fritsch says winds in Hoonah reached 56 miles an hour, Elfin Cove, 53 mph, and Sitka winds were clocked at 86 miles per hour.

“But the winner, which occurred this morning between 6 and about 8, was the Eaglecrest Ski Area, here in Juneau: 133 mile-an-hour gusts this morning,” Fritsch says. “And those sustained winds were really quite healthy as well, 80 knots which equates to 92 miles per hour. No doubt the chair lifts were swinging something fierce,”.

Eaglecrest General Manager Matt Lillard says he heard this morning about the extreme winds from groomers.

“The cat drivers said it was shaking the cats as they were grooming up on the upper mountain,” Lillard says.

He says there was no damage, but signs, bamboo poles and rope lines were down. The lower mountain lifts operated this morning and by 11 a.m. winds subsided enough that the Ptarmigan chair lift to the upper mountain started running.

Despite high wind gusts at sea level, Alaska Electrical Light and Power reports no major outages.

About 4:45 a.m., though, the wind took down a large tree in the 17-mile area of Glacier Highway, hitting a power line. AEL&P says the tree hit a power line, suspending it between two other trees and causing electrical failures in three homes. Capital City Fire responded to the home of KTOO General Manager Bill Legere, where crews found smoke and what Deputy fire Marshal Sven Pearson calls a “red glowing electrical junction box that supplied power to the furnace.”

“Investigation team reported light smoke conditions inside the home that traced a circuit from the electrical panel that appeared to have been heavily charred,” Pearson says. “The homeowners stated that having working smoke detectors had aided in alerting them of the fire and to be able to safely evacuate the structure.”

Legere would go further:

“We’ve been very careful about having smoke alarms that work and fire extinguishers and a household emergency plan, and that smoke alarm undoubtedly saved our lives,” he says.

Pearson says there were multiple reports of electrical issues from nearby home owners after the tree hit the power line.

A portrait of the late Sen. Ted Stevens to hang in the Alaska State Capitol will be unveiled today (Friday).

Juneau Rep. Cathy Munoz says the idea came from Juneau resident and long-time legislative staffer John Manly. Munoz helped put all the pieces together, including funding approval by the Legislative Council, working with Stevens’ family to select an image for the portrait, and selecting an artist.

She says it took only eight months from idea to portrait, which has been painted by Alaskan artist Dean Larson, son of the late Rep. Ron Larson of Palmer.

Unlike other state expenditures, art work does not have to go through the competitive bid process, but can be selected by those commissioning the work, according to Munoz. she says Larson’s name kept coming up.

“In fact he was, at one time, on the staff of Sen. Stevens and had a very high regard for the senator,” Munoz says. “So it was a wonderful choice.”

She says all of the pieces came together when the Stevens’ family and Legislative Council chair, Sen. Linda Menard, suggested Larson. “It was like all of the indicators were pointing to him as the artist.”

Larson was raised in Alaska and was a student of famous Alaska artist Fred Machetanz.

Larson and Stevens’ wife Catherine will speak during the unveiling this evening, scheduled from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Alaska State Museum.

The portrait will eventually hang on the second floor of the state capitol, between the House and Senate chambers. A small plaque commemorating Stevens now hangs near the eventual location of his portrait.

Stevens served Alaska in the U. S. Senate for 40 years, and was in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1965 through 1968.

He died in a plane crash in Southwest Alaska in 2010.

A major national retailer opens a store in Juneau today.

OfficeMax is the second chain store to open in a month at the Nugget Mall, next to Petco.

Its manager is Juneau’s Chuck Collins.

A few years ago Collins got out of the retail office supply business. A few months ago, he got a call from OfficeMax.

He’d been in the business since the early 1980s and seemed to be enjoying the break. But there was no hesitation when the national firm asked if he’d like to manage the Juneau store.

“When the opportunity arose I was excited about it because I could go back to do it, plus I didn’t have to be on the hook for purchasing all the inventory,” he says.

Collins is the kind of guy who will visit office supply stores while on vacation. And he’s always liked OfficeMax.

The company opened its first Alaska store in Anchorage in 1994. There are now two in Anchorage, one in Fairbanks, and at 17,000 square feet, Juneau will be the smallest.

“This is the first of its kind store that OfficeMax has opened,” Collins says. “It’s a new lay out. It’s a little bit more streamlined. It’s more tech oriented.”

The publicly traded company has more than 1,000 retail stores in the U.S. and Mexico as well as an international contract segment.

Its roots go deep in the forest products industry, organizing in 1931 as Boise Cascade Corporation. It sold the timberland, forest products and paper holdings in 2004. Corporate headquarters are in Naperville, Ill., just outside Chicago.

And since the store has been under construction, “a lot of people from Chicago have been coming up here commenting on how beautiful Juneau is,” Collins says.

He’s been to OfficeMax boot camp; at the Anchorage stores for training; and the company brought managers from Anchorage, Honolulu and headquarters to help launch the Juneau store.

It employs about 25 full and part-time staff members at better than minimum wage, and Collins can truthfully say they are all from Juneau. The company transferred an assistant manager from an Anchorage store to Juneau, but he was previously from the capital city.

“OfficeMax may not be what people will call a local business, but it’s going to be pretty local looking when you come in there,” Collins says. “They’re going to say, ‘Hey, I know that guy. He’s lived in Juneau his whole life.’ ”

The company is one of three major office supply stores that had looked at the Juneau market over the last three years, according to retail consultant David Irwin.

Two years ago, Office Depot was close to opening a store here, then backed off.

Irwin says Staples and OfficeMax were sizing up Juneau at same time, with Staples considering stores in Juneau, Fairbanks and Anchorage.

“They had probably three or four stores teed up and they decided not to go,” Irwin says. “And when they decided not to go all of a sudden OfficeMax came in, literally the next day.”

Office stores have mostly been closing in Juneau in recent years. In August, Capital Office Supply shut its retail store.

The 65-year-old company decided to concentrate on interior design and furniture for professional offices. At the time, owner Ted Quinn said office supplies are cumbersome and a lot of work for not a lot of revenue, especially in these days when supplies are easily purchased at big box stores and over the Internet.

Consultant Irwin, located in Bellevue, Wash., was in the office supply industry for many years. He now works on behalf of Alaska properties, such as Nugget Mall, and retail outlets.

He calls the small capital city – population about 32,000 – “border line” for an office supply store.

“It used to be that the office supply store looked for businesses, small businesses. And then when everybody started getting a computer for their home, or a fax machine, all of a sudden it created this home-grown business,” Irwin says. “And you have a lot of those in Juneau.”

OfficeMax spokeswoman Nicole Miller says the company already had business contract customers in Southeast Alaska, and Juneau was the next logical market. She says the Anchorage and Fairbanks stores do a lot of rural business.

When you enter the Juneau store, the first thing you see is the tech area, with all sorts of electronic gadgets. Look left for basic office goods, toward the back for office furniture, right for just about everything you can imagine in office supplies.

Collins leads the tour:

“We have choices and choices even have choices. We have traditional manila folders, you need third-cut file folders, we got ’em. If you need third-cut file folders with zebra stripes on them, we have ’em,”

I’m surprised to see toilet paper and coffee supplies.

“Businesses need it, too, and we want to supply everything they need,” Miller says.

Collins points to the aisle sporting single-cup coffee makers. “In fact in that aisle you’re talking about we not only have Kleenexes and toilet paper along with wastebaskets and trash bags, there’s even snacks in case they get hungry while they were working at the office.”

Collins already knows the Juneau office supply market well, especially the logistics of getting products here. Now that the store is open, he says he’ll be looking for feedback from Juneau consumers, because every market is a little bit different.

“Back in the early ’90s when I was (also) selling lots of office supplies in Sitka, we used to sell a lot of fish clips. They were actually paper fasteners but everybody in Sitka thought they were fish clips because they put them on the nose of the herring for bait,” he says. “And if we have to get fish slips in here, we can do that.”

Today’s OfficeMax “soft opening,” as he calls it, will help work out the bugs for the grand opening on February 19th.