Southeast

Huna Totem Corporation shareholders adopted open enrollment last week at the village corporation’s annual meeting. That means that lineal descendants of original shareholders can now enroll and receive their own shares in the corporation. 

The vote wasn’t close — 71% of voters approved opening enrollment to descendants.

“It’s a recognition that we’ve got a future generation of leaders that are ready to come in and put their fingerprints on the future of not only the company, but of our culture and our heritage,” said Huna Totem CEO Russell Dick. 

He said the board discussed opening enrollment for decades. 

“They just said, ‘Look, this is time to get this done.’ It’s been 50 years of ANCSA, and it’s time for us to recognize the future generation.”

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA, passed in 1971, creating the Alaska Native corporation system. It limited shareholders to those born before it became law — for Huna Totem, that was roughly 1,650 people. 

Until now, those original shareholders could gift shares to their family members or leave them to their descendants in their will. But often, their shares would be divided among multiple children, leaving younger generations with unequal shares to their parents and grandparents, Dick said.

“And for us to be able to come out and say, ‘you are a regular shareholder of this company, here’s what that means: you are the next generation of leaders for Huna Totem Corporation, the community of Hoonah,’ I think it’s a huge, huge thing,” he said.

Each descendant who enrolls will receive 100 shares, the same number as the original shareholders. Huna Totem did a study to see how many people qualify, and it estimated that 1,540 descendants of original Huna Totem shareholders are eligible.

Sealaska  — Southeast Alaska’s regional Alaska Native corporation — opened enrollment to descendants in 2007, and removed its blood quantum requirement that limited the enrollment of people with mixed heritage in 2022. Huna Totem may be the first village corporation in Southeast Alaska to open enrollment. 

Several corporations throughout Alaska have made similar moves in recent years. 

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.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced plans to rescind the Roadless Rule yesterday, aligning with President Donald Trump’s executive order earlier this year to end a ban on constructing roads in undeveloped areas of the Tongass National Forest in order to stimulate more logging in the region.

The Roadless Rule has flip-flopped multiple times since it was established to protect undeveloped lands in 2001. It was rolled back during Trump’s first term before being reinstated by former President Joe Biden. 

Mike Jones is the Tribal President for the Organized Village of Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island, an area of the Tongass that has been logged heavily. 

“It’s the largest temperate rainforest in the world … it’s the northern lung of the planet,” Jones said of the Tongass.

He said new roads and additional logging would degrade the landscape and harm salmon streams that people rely on. 

Rolling back the Roadless Rule in Alaska hasn’t been popular in the past. When the U.S. Forest Service considered exempting the state from the federal Roadless Rule back in 2019, more than 144,000 people submitted public comments and most were opposed to opening up the Tongass to new roads. 

U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan both welcomed the rollback. 

“Repeal will not lead to environmental harm, but it will help open needed opportunities for renewable energy, forestry, mining, tourism, and more in areas that are almost completely under federal control,” Murkowski said in a statement today.

Kate Glover is an attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that has challenged past rescissions of the Roadless Rule on behalf of tribes, conservation nonprofits and tourism and fishing groups. 

“It’s disappointing to see the administration doing something that’s so clearly contrary to what the public is asking for and is contrary to the public interest,” Glover said. 

More than 9.2 million acres of the Tongass are inventoried as roadless areas under the rule. Nearly 330,000 acres of the 16.7 million-acre forest are considered suitable for logging, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s latest 2016 management plan. That plan is currently going through a revision. 

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment. Viking Lumber and Alcan Timber, the largest logging companies operating in the Tongass, also did not respond.

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.”

The special election to determine whether or not to form the Xunaa Borough will be paused until further notice. That’s after a superior court judge granted a stay of a state commission’s approval of the proposed borough in Southeast Alaska.

The state’s local boundary commission originally approved the City of Hoonah’s request to form a borough late last year. The city has tried multiple times over the last three decades to form a borough, but this is the first time it would have gone to voters. 

The proposal involves the City of Hoonah dissolving its city government to add more than 10,000 square miles of nearby unincorporated land and water — including Glacier Bay, Chichagof Island, and more — to form one regional government.

Ballots were supposed to be sent to registered voters by next week for the July 15 election. Residents within the proposed boundary would have voted on creating Alaska’s 20th borough.

But, in April, the communities of Tenakee Springs, Pelican, Gustavus and Elfin Cove filed an appeal of the commission’s decision and a motion to stay. That’s what Judge Larry Woolford granted on Friday. 

Pelican Mayor Patricia Phillips said her community opposed the creation of the borough because it would isolate the communities like hers that aren’t included in the proposed boundaries.

“We are boxed in. If this borough petition goes through, it would block us off from one another and reduce the amount of opportunities, and we want our opinions heard,” she said. “So if that means going to the Superior Court for our voices to be heard, then that’s what it takes.”

Hoonah’s City Administrator, Dennis Gray Jr., did not respond to a request for comment about the recent stay motion. But in an interview in late May, he said forming a borough would give residents more say in the future development of the region — and he was undeterred by the appeal. 

“I think our case is correct and they’re wrong with their appeal, so we’re gonna be fine,” he said.  

The judge’s order on Friday halts the local boundary commission from taking any more steps while the appeal is pending. It is unclear how long the appeal process will take. A spokesperson for the state division of elections said no ballots were sent to voters prior to the motion. 

A shipping container full of empty industrial-sized fish food bags fell off a barge heading from Baranof Island to the landfill in Petersburg. Dozens of the plastic bags have washed up near Juneau over the past week.

They came from the Hidden Falls Hatchery, owned by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association. 

Adam Olson, the operations manager at the aquaculture association, says high winds likely caused a container to go overboard near the southern tip of Admiralty Island in May. In a press release, the aquaculture association said that the barge company it contracted to transport the trash, Lituya Freight Runners, did not contact them or make any efforts to recover the bags.

Instead, another vessel traveling through Chatham Strait notified hatchery staff about the incident on May 20. Olson says he did not report it to any authorities. A representative at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation couldn’t specify an official process for reporting such an incident in Alaska. 

Hatchery staff attempted to clean up the spill.

“We flew the area to see what was there, and we sent staff from the facility out in skiffs to collect refuse out of the water,” Olson said. 

Olson says hatchery staff retrieved more than a thousand bags over six days, but there could be thousands left in the water. 

The bags are white and the size of large dog food bags. Most of them are from an aquaculture brand called Bio-Oregon and others are from a brand called EWOS. 

Juneau resident Wayne Carnes discovered the litter about 90 miles north of the spill site while he was on a boat trip from Gustavus to Juneau last week. He retrieved 54 bags that had washed up at Funter Bay and were floating in the water nearby. 

“We don’t want our fish eating these things, because that’s what happens to it eventually it ends up as microplastics, and we’ve got enough of that in the water already,” Carnes said.

The aquaculture association encourages those who have seen the litter to tell the Southeast Alaska Commercial Fishermen Marine Debris Clean Up program at seakmarinedebris@gmail.com.