Juneau

Next week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold a closed-door, three-day meeting in Juneau to discuss long-term solution options for glacial outburst floods in the Mendenhall Valley. Federal agencies, local officials and researchers will participate. 

During the meeting, the group will discuss the pros and cons of five options to prevent homes from flooding in the coming years. Those options are:

• a dam at the outlet of Mendenhall Lake 
• a permanent levee 
• a lake tap or tunnel through the mountains to drain Suicide Basin 
• a bypass channel through the Mendenhall River floodplain
• relocating impacted residents from the Valley

The Army Corps will host the multi-day meeting, called a ‘charette’, at The Huddle in the Mendenhall Mall Dec. 9 through 11. 

Army Corps Spokesperson John Budnik wrote in an email to KTOO that the meeting will be closed to the public to “ensure open dialogue, idea and information sharing is achieved and uninhibited amongst the experts and stakeholders that will be there.”

Press briefings will be held at The Huddle after each day, and the Army Corps plans to publish a report summarizing the meeting for the public in January. 

The Army Corps solicited public input on potential solutions during a month-long public comment period that closed last week and received 34 comments. 

Two options received more attention in those comments than the others. The first is a lake tap or tunnel meant to drain Suicide Basin before it can fill to the point of bursting. The second is a dam or levee at the outlet of Mendenhall Lake. A few commenters favored a bypass channel through the floodplain. 

Some commented on the benefits and drawbacks of each solution, without necessarily favoring one. Others said they didn’t have enough information from the Army Corps about what each option would entail to weigh in. 

Many said that finding a solution is urgent for the hundreds of Valley residents who face annual flooding. The current levee, made of HESCO barriers, is temporary and protected homes from catastrophe by a slim margin during the most recent flood in August. 

The agency aims to recommend a long-term flood solution and design it by the end of May 2026. Budnik anticipates the public will have another opportunity to provide comments on the prospective solution in June 2026. 

The City and Borough of Juneau is seeking ideas from Juneau residents about how to spend the fees paid by cruise ship passengers this coming year. More than $20 million is expected to be available for tourism-related projects. 

Juneau residents and businesses can now submit proposals to the city through Dec. 31. The last round of funding paid for things like free public Wi-Fi downtown and increased bus service to the Mendenhall Valley.

Alix Pierce, the city’s visitor industry director, said community suggestions play a critical role in what gets funded and what doesn’t. 

“We do get a lot of good ideas for what residents are feeling the need for in the community,” she said. “And, not spending general fund on our waterfront infrastructure and our visitor services does free up budget elsewhere in the city to do other things.” 

Every cruise season, the city collects a $5 fee from each passenger who comes into town from a ship. The fees can fund tourism projects that benefit visitors and locals in Juneau. In the past, these fees have funded upgrades to downtown public restrooms and improvements at Marine Park.

The city expects to collect about $22 million in fees this year. But the money collected can’t go toward paying for just anything. A lawsuit the cruise industry filed and settled with the city in 2019 clarifies the limits on how and where the city can use the funds, and some projects require approval by the cruise ship industry. 

Pierce said that people often don’t understand those parameters and that leads to a lot of proposals being rejected. 

“It’s unfortunately not money that’s just available to fill the hole in the city budget,” she said. “We are restricted in how we use those funds.”

Usually, the projects are downtown near the waterfront area, where the impacts of tourism are felt the most. But other parts of town can still secure funding for projects, like near the Mendenhall Glacier, as long as tourism reaches that area and the project would benefit tourism. 

Residents can submit their suggestions for projects in a few different ways. The city has a web form where people can submit proposals. It outlines what types of projects would fit the criteria. The Assembly will ultimately decide which projects to fund during the spring budget cycle.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that the lawsuit settled between the City and Borough of Juneau and the cruise ship industry in 2019 lays out constitutional limits on how passenger fees can be spent. 

Eaglecrest Ski Area is slated to open for its 50th season this Saturday. And there’s a lot to talk about ahead of the season – like lift conditions, the status of the gondola and the actual likelihood of opening on time. 

KTOO sat down with Craig Cimmons, the general manager of the city-owned ski area, to talk about all of it.

Listen:

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Mike Lane: So it’s starting to look like a winter wonderland up there?

Craig Cimmons: Oh yeah, we blew a bunch of snow, and then it snowed several inches. It was really magical in the parking lot filled with skiers and snowboarders. So it’s been great.

Mike Lane: Eaglecrest has previously announced that the Black Bear lift is permanently closed. Is there any update as far as what’s happening with the infrastructure at Eaglecrest? 

Craig Cimmons: There’s a ton to talk about. So unfortunately, Black Bear is closed. People keep asking if we’re going to fix it. It’s not worth fixing. It’s a very old lift. They got their money’s worth for it. It’s in a very old design that the industry has moved away from. So it’s smarter to put that time and energy into the other lifts right now, the other three lifts. Porcupine, Ptarmigan and Hooter are in incredibly good shape and ready to go. So the infrastructure— the staff who have been there for a while — say it’s been the best shape it’s been in years.

Mike Lane: What’s the life expectancy of the other three lifts? And how often are those maintained?

Craig Cimmons: They’re constantly maintained. It never really ends. There are so many moving parts on them. You’re just constantly greasing things and replacing things and checking on things. The life expectancy of those three lifts? They are at the end of their life, for sure. But they’re in good shape, so we will get plenty more years out of them, but we need to really start talking about a replacement plan for Ptarmigan, the main lift.

Mike Lane: Can skiers still access the runs that Black Bear was servicing?

Craig Cimmons: Yeah, for sure. You have to hike up. You have to walk up a bit from the top of Ptarmigan up to Black Bear. But 100% of the train terrain is still accessible. It’s just not via the lift.

Mike Lane: This January marks 50 years since Eaglecrest has been in operation. So, what — if anything — is planned for the milestone?

Craig Cimmons: We are so excited about 50 years — 50 years is a big deal. So, Jan. 16 is the anniversary, the 50th anniversary. Right now we’re playing on a couple of things. We’re gonna do night skiing that night. That’s a Friday night, so we’ll have lights on the Porcupine terrain. We did a couple of night events last year, and they were a huge success. So we’re really excited to do those again. We’ll get music going and make it a whole party and a scene and invite everyone to come up.

We’re also going to do all-day lift tickets. They are only $7, because that’s the price Eaglecrest lift tickets were when they opened 50 years ago. So, $7 lift tickets that day. Big party that night. And then we are also planning something for that Saturday as well. Everyone should just pay attention to our socials and everything. And we’re gonna make this year as much of a party as we can, because it’s 50 years. And then we’re going to kick off the next 50 years.

Mike Lane: Now, can we talk about the gondola? Can you give us any updates on its timeline and how that’s being paid for?

Craig Cimmons: The timeline is the same it has been: it’s got it open by the summer of 2028. Everything’s still moving forward. We still have the initial investment from Goldbelt (Incorporated). It has become clear that we will need more money to install it. 

The world has changed since Eaglecrest bought that. How much more money we’ll need, and where that money comes from? We don’t know yet. Once the general contractor is hired, they’re going to give us a price on what it will cost to finish the build, and then we’re going to know how much short we are from the initial $10 million. And then we’ll figure out where we get that money from. So that’s still to be determined.

Mike Lane: Craig, is there anything you’d like to add to this before we wrap up?

Craigh Cimmons: Yeah. I was thinking about that a lot. I’ve been here just over a year, and it’s incredible. The difference a year makes. From a year ago to now, the infrastructure is in better shape, we’re staffed better. The retention rate is incredible. We have tons of employees coming back, so we’re so much better set up for this winter. We’re really excited about this winter for all of those reasons. We’re just more prepared, we’re more of a team than we were a year ago. A lot of us were new last year, including myself, and it’s our 50th, so it’s all really coming together. So yeah, I’m just really overly excited about how set up we are for this winter, it’s going to be a really good one.

With major cruise tourism developments on the horizon in the capital city, the City and Borough of Juneau is resurrecting a task force to look at whether its current approach to managing tourism is working.  

At a Juneau Assembly committee meeting Monday night, members approved the relaunch of the Visitor Industry Task Force and its members. Mayor Beth Weldon said the task force will be crucial in informing the direction the city takes to guide any future growth. 

“There is some issues that need to be addressed, and our tourism director relies heavily on these recommendations on how to move forward with her job,” she said. 

Juneau saw another record-breaking cruise ship tourism season this past summer, with more than 1.7 million passengers coming off ships and into town. 

The task force launches as Goldbelt Incorporated is planning a new $500 million cruise ship port on the backside of Douglas Island. And, that plan coincides with another dock development by Huna Totem Corp., an Alaska Native village corporation based in Hoonah. The Assembly approved the corporation’s plan to build a new cruise ship dock in downtown Juneau this spring. 

Weldon said she wants the task force to make big picture recommendations, like a 10-year tourism plan for Juneau. She also wants them to tackle more specific issues like addressing crowding and congestion in Auke Bay, regulating the whale watching industry and reducing ship emissions.  

Juneau Assembly member Ella Adkison will chair the committee, along with eight members that Weldon handpicked. They are Kirby Day, Kirsa Hughes-Skandijs, Sarah Lowell, Matt Catterson, Meilani Schijvens, Adrienne Scott, Shem Sooter and Jeremy Timothy.

Some members are returning from the previous task force, which originally sunsetted in 2020. Weldon said they represent a wide range of perspectives on tourism’s future. 

“I would say this community is no longer deadly against — as a community as a whole — deadly against tourism,” she said. “Nor are we a community that’s opening our gates wide for tourism.”

The task force has until the end of June to submit its recommendations to the Assembly. The first ship of the 2026 cruise season is slated to arrive in late April. 

This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.

Svitlana Bell moved to Juneau from Ukraine after a few years of seasonal work to marry her husband and send more money back to her family. 

Bell cleans houses during the day, but in the evenings, she spends hours quilting. Her quilts are intricate and full of color, with soft, curved lines. She sells her quilts — which are based on works by Ukrainian artist Lyubov Panchenko  — to raise money for supplies for her brother Serhii Matviichuk who’s fighting on the front lines in Ukraine. 

Bell will be showing her quilts at Changing Tides this Friday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. during Gallery Walk.

Listen:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Svitlana Bell: 

I do these numbers for myself to make a plan – what is first piece to another, and how connection. It’s like “eat elephant in small pieces,” you know? Make all together and that is it. It’s just like a Lego, yes.

I’m Svitlana Bell. This design, (by) Lyubov Panchenko, Ukrainian artist and she wasn’t so famous, because in Soviet Union you cannot be different. It was a different time. But she made a lot of beautiful pieces, and right now they are in museum in Kyiv. 

She died in 2022 in Bucha when it was occupied by Russians and she was starving because she cannot leave house. It was very difficult time.  

And when I find here these designs, I contact with that museum, I ask, “Can I try?” because I’m just learning to do quilt – I do only three years. I clean houses, I see a lot of blankets or stuff, and think, “I should try it!”

And Lyubov Panchenko’s design, I asked permission. They approved it and said, “Please try it, do it.” And so I was so happy. So I’m very excited. I hope someday when war finish there, and I will bring some of the best pieces to that museum. 

You know, I have to rush, because I know if I sell, I can send money. If you have somebody who you love, you will do anything.

And, of course, how I can help brother here. He is in — like all Ukraine — in difficult time now, and he do what he has to do. But you always in risk.

I can show you some pictures they make. Here they look very tired. And you see they just came back from front line for couple days to rest.

Drones, mines, shootings that can just with one shot, can destroy all car and everybody in (it). Yeah, it’s very scary. Sometimes, like, we don’t breathe. 

And waiting when he will be back and he say, “I’m safe now.” Because, yeah, war is war.

I think every immigrant – even before war from another countries – made such a huge decision – especially a woman who has kids – this, they are so brave. You need be so brave to be immigrant.

It’s America. It’s a lot of cultures here. It’s make this America beautiful and big and strong.

Listen to this story:

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Centennial Hall in downtown Juneau was bustling with people browsing for holiday gifts fashioned by around 175 vendors. 

Juneau Public Market ramped up the holiday shopping season with hundreds of people buying handmade art, jewelry, clothes and other goods. Vendors from near and far said it’s one of the most meaningful markets of the year for them. 

One ceramicist has been selling her kitchen wares at Juneau Public Market for more than 40 years. Betty Bell lives in Milton, Washington. She travels for the market and to see her daughter and grandkids, who live in Juneau. She said this annual visit is meaningful for her family. 

“It’s allowed me to get to know my grandchildren,” Bell said. 

Bell said market sales pay for her plane ticket every year. Now that she’s 91 years old, she sells her pottery almost exclusively at this market, but it used to make up about a quarter of her annual sales when she was throwing more clay. 

“Juneau has embraced me and supported me over the years, and I’ve kind of become your local, out-of-town potter,” she said. 

That sense of community connection is what brings many artisans back year after year. Vendors pay between $250 and $1,200 for a booth space, and many say they rake in a large portion of their annual sales from this market alone. 

Carley Thayer is an Aleut jewelry maker. Her business, Bering Sea Designs, features sharp lines, soft fur and colors of the ocean — inspired by the coastal cliffs of Unalaska, where she spent her early years.

“I make sea otter fur and metal jewelry,” she said. “So I’ve got earrings and bracelets and necklaces, some big pieces, like this body piece here that was on the Alaska Fashion Week runway.”

She said that selling her jewelry at Juneau Public Market makes up about half of her annual sales. But it’s about more than just the money for her.

“Growing up here, you know everybody, so it’s like a family reunion,” Thayer said. “It’s fantastic. We love Public Market.”

A woman wearing a pair of her earrings she’d purchased from Thayer in the past briefly stopped by the booth. 

“It’s really incredible to see your art walking around,” Thayer said after greeting her.

It was Bailey Mccallson’s first time as a vendor at the market with his business, Tuskworthy Premiums LLC. He’s a Yupik artist who traveled from Fairbanks to sell his earrings and sculptures made of carved walrus ivory. He said selling art through markets and online is important, “especially for Native people in communities where job security is hard.”

Mccallson has been a full-time artist for six years. Beyond the income, he said it’s allowed him and other Native artists to maintain their way of life. 

“They can stay in their homes rather than moving into the cities and be there for the elders so that apa doesn’t lose his grandchildren who pull the nets for him while they’re fishing and just to keep those cultural values strong and held together,” he said. 

Camille Jones owns Treetop Tees, a shop in downtown Juneau with shirts featuring locally-inspired designs. One of her favorites right now is an Eaglecrest chairlift, packed with cartoon animals representing each lift.

“Porcupine, black bear, hooter and ptarmigan — especially with black bear closing — I was like, we need to commemorate all four ski lifts,” she said. 

She said the market is important for business, particularly in the winter when tourists aren’t strolling into her storefront. 

“This is our biggest weekend of the year,” Jones said. 

Juneau resident Peter Metcalfe started hosting Juneau Public Market in 1983. He said vendors make somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 on average over the three-day weekend. He said Black Friday this year was one for the books. 

“A couple of my longtime vendors said they did more in two hours than they’d done in all three days of previous events,” Metcalfe said. 

He said most makers are based in Alaska, and a little more than half are Juneau locals. 

“I can’t put a figure on how important this is for Juneau’s cottage industries, but I know many people who participate — it means a lot to their annual incomes, and it keeps them in the game,” he said. 

Artisans said it’s a warm and welcoming space that brings the art community together during the holiday season.  

Metcalfe said he generates revenue from the $10 per person entrance tickets, while most of the vendor fees pay what it costs to put on the event, including rental space and staffing.

Metcalfe is 74 years old. After he had a heart attack while running on Brotherhood Bridge Trail in 2021, he says people have been asking him about the market’s future.

“I do have a succession plan, and they introduce themselves as the heir and the spare,” he said with a chuckle. 

They’re his nephews. 

“So this will continue on within the Metcalfe family,” he said. 

Shoppers can continue gathering gifts locally at Juneau’s Gallery Walk this Friday.