Community

Anyone driving along Douglas Highway this summer has likely noticed heavy equipment by the side of the road at Lawson Creek Bridge. 

It’s part of stage three of the Alaska Department of Transportation’s Douglas Highway project. Most of the project has involved sidewalk improvements and road resurfacing up to this point, but what’s happening at Lawson Creek is different. 

DOT spokesman Sam Dapcevich said the bridge is undergoing a process called metalization. 

“They spray this liquid on there, but it’s not a paint,” he said. “It actually causes a chemical reaction that coats the steel of the bridge in a zinc-like coating, and it greatly extends the life of the bridge steel.”

Lawson Creek Bridge was originally built in 1935 and widened in the mid-70s. 

Dapcevich said the bridge has eight steel beams underneath it that are each 300 feet long. The work crew is doing 100-foot increments at a time, blasting away the old paint and then coating the beams with zinc. 

“Basically, it’s like a sacrificial layer. It will corrode instead of the bridge corroding,” Dapcevich said. 

The work shouldn’t affect traffic on the highway at all, but Dapcevich said they’ve gotten some complaints about noise when work runs late. The crew is permitted to work as late as 10 p.m., but he said they’re trying to keep it to daytime hours. They’ve also moved a generator that caused some noise complaints. 

The work is expected to last until the end of September. 

Details about the project can be found at douglashwy.com.

Correction: This story previously misstated the number of steel beams beneath Lawson Creek Bridge. 

On Tuesday night, Resurrection Lutheran Church held a vigil for Steven Kissack, who was shot and killed by law enforcement downtown on Monday. Kissack was unhoused, and he and his fluffy dog Juno were familiar faces to those who live and work in the neighborhood. 

The pews filled immediately with community members reflecting on what happened and wondering how to move forward. One at a time, people approached the altar to sit on a couch and share what they were carrying in the wake of Kissack’s death. 

One woman placed a stuffed husky toy on the table next to the mic. It’s a symbol for Juno.

Barbara Charles said she would bring food for Kissack, who would often offer the first bit to his dog. To Charles, the gesture was a mark of Kissack’s character. A lot of people mentioned something similar about his love for Juno. 

“Knowing how kind Steve was, it hurts. It hurts bad,” Charles said.

She called upon the city to find a place for people without stable housing to go that is safe and private. 

“You’re always kicking them out with no place to go,” she said. 

And Kissack’s death changed how she views this city. 

“Sorry to say I grew up here from day one. I’m 79,” she said. “I’m sorry — I’m ashamed. I’m really ashamed to say I’m from Juneau these past two days.”

Rowena Brockway struggled with homelessness in the past. She told the audience that at every turn when she tried to seek help, conventional policing failed her.

“They need behavioral health response teams. They need to stop killing people and aiming for their torso,” she said. 

Dozens of people witnessed the incident, which took place around 1 p.m. on one of Juneau’s busiest streets. Many more watched the cell phone videos circulating online. There are a few of them, from different angles.

In the videos, officers demand Kissack drop the object he’s holding — police say it was a knife — and deploy non-lethal projectiles. And then he suddenly turns to run, and multiple officers open fire.  

Like many of the speakers, Brockway said she doesn’t understand why the responding officers didn’t use alternative tactics, instead of shooting. 

“They could have restrained him, cuffed him, and taken him to the appropriate services. Not jail,” she said. “Where’s the so-called training they get? It’s supposed to be ‘protect and serve,’ not ‘comply or die.’” 

Police say an officer first approached Kissack about an alleged assault that took place the day before. When he didn’t cooperate, the officer called in backup. 

Nicole Church sat with her mother at the front of the room. She said her sister currently doesn’t have a place to live, and she  herself also experienced homelessness as a child. 

“I’ve come to learn that there are a lot of stereotypes about the houseless community. Dangerous stereotypes. Very dangerous stereotypes,” Church said. “One being that the houseless community are dangerous people. And statistically speaking, there is empirical evidence that we are more dangerous to the houseless community than they are to us.”

Kissack was a member of the community in Juneau, Church said, and his killing has left the town reeling. 

“I think a lot of us are here too, because what happened yesterday was murder. It happened on video. We all got to see it. So there was a collective trauma that we are experiencing,” she said. 

Pastor Karen Perkins has known Kissack for five years. He would regularly come to the food pantry at the church. 

“And then I would see him on the street a lot of times, if we have things left over from the food pantry. I knew he was a person who shared,” Perkins said. “And it was pretty easy to know where to find him so we could bring him stuff and know that he would get it distributed.”

She said Kissack would humanize the unhoused community in Juneau, by being consistently kind, friendly, and memorable. And his dog also helped. Many people were concerned about Juno’s fate after his death. She’s at Juneau Animal Rescue, where staff say she’s being well cared for as they contact Kissack’s family. 

Perkins said she didn’t expect that he would be the victim of violence, but she isn’t surprised that something like this happened. 

“Steven would have been the last person in the world that I ever would have imagined that it would be,” she said. “But something was bound to happen, because people don’t have a lot of choices — any choices sometimes.”

Two friends helped Evangeline Jeannie Lee up to the podium. She said she almost didn’t come, but she wanted to sing for Kissack. He always looked out for her — for anyone who was living outside. 

“He’s been a good friend to us for a long time and I just couldn’t believe it, that God’s taking care of him now. So I want to sing How Great Thou Art.”

The officers involved in Kissack’s death are on administrative leave. The Alaska Bureau of Investigations will determine whether the use of lethal force in Kissack’s death was necessary.

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

Every year on July 4th, drums awaken the streets of downtown Juneau. This iconic sound is Juneau Ati-Atihan, a musical marching group that brings the Filipino festival of the same name from Aklan to Juneau. 

One of the lead drummers, Hans Javier, has participated in the Independence Day parade since he was a kid. Twenty years later, Juneau Ati-Atihan is his way of giving a shoutout to his culture, while spending quality time with his family. 

Listen:

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Hans Javier: First name Hans, last name, Javier. What we are doing today is, we are drumming for the parade representing specifically my Filipino culture from Aklan, Aklanon, and we are drumming for Ati-Atihan. 

Ati-Atihan is a festival, it’s generally like a week long. It honors the infant Jesus. It’s our saint, it’s Santo Niño. So primarily, the festival is celebrated for religious purposes. And you know, we do this back home in the Philippines on an annual basis. So, you know, doing it on Independence Day is a great way to represent our culture.

I watched my uncles and older cousins do this, and I always wanted to enter not knowing that, you know, they were open to me learning. And then one day, I believe it was, uncle Ed asked me if I wanted to join. And I think I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time, and ever since I’ve been doing it.

I am one of many leads. I’ve played all drums, from bass to snare. I was primarily a snare lead. We bought a new quad, so I switched over to the quad. Most importantly, my role as a quad is to make sure people stay in tempo. But my primary role overall is to make sure everything’s organized – drummers are present, organized formation, and yeah.

Hans Javier to the drummers: Ready! Start banging!

I feel like we bring flavor, and not to kind of downplay the rest of the parade, but you know, I feel like every time we pass through a certain area, you know, everybody gets up from the curb. Instead of waiting for candies, you know, they’ll get up and dance with us. We welcome people to jump in where they’re at and come dance with us. 

Funny story, last year we had, I guess my drummers were banging so hard we broke like, four drums last year. 

Yeah, when we pass a certain area, specifically like Marine Park and the Filipino Community, people tend to play louder and faster, and that’s where people generally break their drums.

I’m very close with my family, I’m very close with my cousins. And as we get older, it’s a lot harder to see them. But everybody, you know, around this time of year really makes time out to participate. And a lot of these cousins I don’t see until – and keep in mind, we live in Juneau, small town, right? – but a lot of these cousins I don’t see until, like, a month out of July 4th. 

So it’s a great time for us to kind of reconnect and, you know, be a family. I really love that part about it.

Alaskans celebrate the Fourth of July in a myriad of ways, whether it’s log-rolling competitions, launching cars off of cliffs, or jumping high in the air in the blanket toss.

In Juneau, we have our fireworks on the third, an old tradition that let miners sleep off their hangovers. But KTOO listener Mary McEwen wrote in to ask about a different July 4 tradition — one her father told stories about.

“It’s kind of been a piece of family lore that, you know, ‘Oh you know I once won a race down Gold Creek on a piece of Styrofoam,’” she said. 

It’s true. Some brave Juneauites used to celebrate Independence Day by racing down Gold Creek on improvised rafts — something akin to the Red Green Regatta, on speed. 

For this Curious Juneau, we talked to some of the people who did it — like Jim Williams.

“There were probably 15 or 20 idiots that attempted it,” he said.

Williams said that when he did the race in the 1960s, dozens of people came to watch the racers from the banks of the creek in downtown Juneau. 

Gold Creek runs in a paved channel, and the water flows fast over the concrete. The race started in Cope Park and wound through downtown, so the racers sped past the Federal Building and Foodland before getting dumped into Gastineau Channel.

People went down the creek one at a time, riding everything from proper inflatable rafts to wooden doors. Williams rode an air mattress.

It didn’t go well.

“I just remember going over something and immediately popped my raft, so I was dead last in the race,” he said. “I had to walk all the way down Gold Creek because the only way to get out of there was to get down by Foodland.”   

Williams competed with his friend Gary Rosenberger, a high school sophomore at the time. Rosenberger said he laid on his air mattress like a surfboard and paddled with his arms. 

“I had to hold on to it going over the falls, and then it was smooth sailing from then,” he said.

Old newspaper stories said the fastest time in 1967 was nearly two-and-a-half minutes. The next year, the currents must have been stronger — the winner came in at a minute and a half.

Gary Rosenberger said he may have won the race once if he hadn’t gotten out of the water too soon.

“But I didn’t know there was an end — where the end was,” he said. “So everybody was yelling at me, but I didn’t know what they were yelling because it had to be six or seven people all yelling the same thing.” 

And Mary McEwen’s dad? Duane McEwen said he won the race on a raft built from Styrofoam with a wooden frame. 

“I think I made a paddle out of a broom handle and a piece of wood — it was strictly homemade,” he said. 

But then he left his raft outside all year, and the foam was heavy and waterlogged by the next July.

“The second year I came in last place,” McEwen said. “I dragged bottom all the way down there.” 

It’s not clear just how enduring this tradition was — the race did not get a lot of news coverage. Williams said it seems like it only happened once or twice more.

“I think they decided there was some liability there. Which, I don’t know why they would have ever thought that,” he said. 

But another listener wrote to say he remembered the race continuing well into the 1980s. And a 1967 story in the Alaska Daily Empire calls that year’s running the “75th annual sluice race down Gold Creek” — though Curious Juneau could not find anything to back that up.

Rosenberger said it would be more dangerous now. Since the 1960s, some large rocks have been placed at the end of the creek.

“You wouldn’t — I don’t think — drown or anything,” he said. “But you’d probably be embarrassed if everybody was watching you.”

Correction: This story has been edited to include new information about what years the race took place.

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

The members of Lovely Colours may live in Seattle, but three of the four grew up playing music together in Juneau. That’s including their substitute drummer, who first remembers performing with the band at his 16th birthday party. 

They came to town this weekend to celebrate the release of their first album, Dancing with a Ghost, with a sold-out show at the Crystal Saloon. 

And they say playing in Juneau always feels like coming home, even for their bandmate who didn’t grow up here.

Listen:

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

James Rosales: In the two times the band has been here, Patrick has been to Pelmeni’s like 17 times. So he’s pretty much from Juneau at this point.

I’m Cole Paramore.

I’m Devin Damitio.

James Rosales. 

Patrick May.

Yvonne Krumrey: And who are you together? 

All: Lovely Colours.

James Rosales: Yeah, we are here in Juneau celebrating our new album called Dancing with a Ghost. We just released it, and we’re here to celebrate it in our hometown — well, the three of us — and we’re ready to rock. 

Patrick May: I think it was more fun. Like, the crowd is more stoked to see us, and it’s just there’s so much energy in the room, last time we were here.

Cole Paramore: Facts. In Seattle, sometimes people can be kind of jaded. There’s so much music happening all the time, and I don’t know. Sometimes, you know, you throw a rock and you hit a musician, just on the street.  

Patrick May: It’s like, we have a high-energy rock side, and we have kind of a softer alternative side, and trying to blend that. We’re still kind of trying to blend those two together into one sound, I think. And you hear both of those on this album, but if you go further back in our discography, you hear maybe four sounds while we’re still figuring it out.

Devin Damitio: This album feels more realized than before, and you can kind of hear elements of all the past songs in the album, but it just feels a little bit more refined.  Like, yeah, we’re still kind of chipping away at it. I think it’s going to be a never-ending thing.

Patrick May: For example, Bumfuzzle, I think, is one that you really hear those two sides kind of starting to blend together. 

James Rosales: We’ll be playing it front to back at our show at Crystal Saloon, as well. So that’s another kind of special thing about this show, we normally wouldn’t do that, but like Devin was saying we worked on this for two plus years, and so we want to celebrate it, and we just want to play it live front to back.

Devin Damitio: Yeah, this album is, definitely, like, the best representation of us and where we’re at now. So I’m excited that it’s out, and I’m excited to be playing it in Juneau. 

Jo Dahl has been getting her hair done at the Little Mermaid Beauty Salon in Douglas since 1985. For the past 14 years, that’s meant weekly visits.

For decades, the salon has been a staple for people on and off the island to get their hair cut, curled or colored since it opened in 1963. 

“I always got really good service and she knew how to handle my curly hair, which isn’t so curly anymore,” Dahl said. 

But, on Saturday, Dahl was there for the last time. Following her appointment, the salon closed for good. 

Surrounded by mermaid decor, including figurines and posters, Dahl sat in her chair wearing a black cape with slightly damp hair. Jo Paddock-Betts grabbed a few strands of it at a time to put into rollers. 

Paddock-Betts has owned the salon for 41 years, taking over from the previous owner in 1983. Over the years, the location has bounced around a few times, but it never strayed from Douglas. Now, it’s attached to an auto body shop, across the street from the Methodist church. 

“It’s a small enough community, and there’s plenty of parking,” she said. “Back in the days when I first had this salon, the auto body shop here was owned by a guy named Woodsy. And we used to advertise together — we’d do ‘Woodsy’s perm and lube.’ People would get their oil change while they were getting a perm.” 

With only a handful of places to get your hair cut by a professional, Paddock-Betts said she’s had clients come from way out the road just for a trim. 

But, after four decades, she said ready for something new. She’d been trying to retire for a few years now and was hoping to hand over the business to someone else. But, nobody was biting, and she just decided it was time to close its doors. 

“I had to come to the point where it was okay for me to say ‘It’s okay. Douglas will be here when you’re gone,’” she said. “When an institution like this has been here since 1963, that’s 61 years of a business that has thrived.”

Paddock-Betts said it’s a bittersweet moment — she’s grown quite a number of friendships with her clients, like Dahl. She said that’s what she’ll miss the most, and she’s grateful to everyone who supported her. 

“It’s been a challenge to let go of not only the love for Douglas and Juneau for all the people who come here, but for the community it’s a loss,” she said. “It’s a huge loss — but I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Paddock-Betts and her husband plan to stay in Douglas, but spend their retirement traveling. 

Now that the business is closing, Dahl said she’s not quite sure where she’s going to go to get her hair done instead. But, she does have some ideas. 

“Where am I gonna go to get my hair done? Her kitchen. She’s gonna do my hair for me,” she said, laughing.