Outdoors

Trails are places for people to relax, exercise and have fun outdoors. Now their advocates in Alaska are increasingly promoting another aspect of trails: their contributions to the economy.

“When you talk about outdoor recreation. People are, like, ‘That’s just the fun stuff we do every day,’” Lee Hart, executive director of the Alaska Outdoor Alliance, told the audience on Thursday at the annual Alaska Trails Conference held in Anchorage. “But, no, we are a plank of an economic development strategy. And we are part of it. And we deserve to be taken more seriously.”

The economic argument is articulated in the state’s latest outdoor recreation plan, said Ricky Gease, director of the Alaska Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation.

At the trails conference on Thursday, Gease gave a sneak preview of the Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan, also known as SCORP, which he said will be released publicly in about a month after the National Park Service completes its review of it.

The SCORP is a document issued every five years to help guide grants that are distributed from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The fund, established by Congress in 1964, uses revenues from offshore oil and gas development to support projects in places ranging from remote national parks and wildlife refuges to neighborhood playgrounds. Every state must produce its own five-year SCORP to qualify for grants from the fund.

The last SCORP released by the state put a focus on youth needs. This time, the 2023-2027 plan includes some explicit economic goals: making outdoor recreation a “cornerstone” of the state economy, expanding the outdoor recreation workforce and using outdoor recreation to attract and retain residents and businesses. The latter goal addresses Alaska’s demographic situation. The state has had 10 straight years of net outmigration, and since 2013 its working-age population has declined at a higher rate than all but two other states.

The new plan holds hard data to show that investments in outdoor recreation have economic payoffs, Gease said in an interview on Friday.

“We intentionally tried to move away from anecdotal information,” he said.

Trails and the outdoor recreation they support comprise a bright spot in Alaska’s otherwise clouded economic picture, he said.

“If you look at our overall economic performance over the last decade, it has kind of flatlined. But one of the things that has shown growth is the outdoor recreation sector,” he said. “Investing in things that have done well, people need to think about it.”

The ability to use hard data in the SCORP is thanks in part to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which in 2018 began tracking the outdoor recreation sector’s contribution to the nation’s and to individual states’ economies, Gease said. The latest BEA report shows that the sector in 2021 accounted for 3.6% of Alaska’s gross domestic product, one of the highest percentages in the nation.

Emphasizing economic aspects of trails can help attract funding from new sources, Gease and others said at the three-day conference. That makes organizations with economic-development missions – like the federal Denali Commission – suitable sources for needed money to match Land and Water Conservation Fund grants.

It is an argument that resonates with state lawmakers, too, Gease said. The Legislature has made important investments in state parks, he said, such as the replacement of “iron ranger” fee-collection canisters with a system enabling electronic payments, freeing up state employees from the time-consuming task of collecting and counting crumpled bills and loose coins. This year, he said, the division is seeking funding to build more public use cabins, and next year plans to ask for funding to upgrade existing cabins. A big funding priority is to improve parking lots, which often overflow, he said.

But the needs are great, he told attendees at the trail conference. The state parks division has an $85 million deferred maintenance backlog, a total that has grown over the years, he said.

Alaska Long Trail economic vision

Also making an economic pitch to state lawmakers are advocates of the Alaska Long Trail.

The long-term project would ultimately connect existing state and municipal parks, the Chugach National Forest and other land units that already have trails into an unbroken 500-mile corridor running from the Resurrection Bay shoreline in Seward to Fairbanks.

The concept has gotten a positive reception in the Legislature so far, advocates said at the conference. Last year lawmakers approved $14.7 million in spending on Alaska Long Trail-related projects, though vetoes by Gov. Mike Dunleavy reduced the approved spending to $4.2 million.

Requests for this session total nearly $9.5 million and comprise 14 projects, including some that were vetoed last year.

Much of the ongoing work and work planned in the near future focuses on relatively short connections between existing trails.

One desired connection on the wish list presented to legislators would link the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail with the Ship Creek Trail in downtown Anchorage.

The project envisions an intersection at the city’s small boat launch, with the area to be developed in a way that honors Indigenous culture, said Beth Nordlund, executive director of the Anchorage Park Foundation. That would include Indigenous language signage, among other features, Nordlund told conference attendees. The Anchorage Park Foundation hopes to combine multiple sources of money, including foundation grants, to make the project a reality. The site already has a statue and other displays honoring Olga Nikolai Ezi, a Dena’ina woman prominent in local history.

Generally, there is local support for these types of trail projects, said Nordlund, who pointed to voters’ approval of park bonds in the recent Anchorage municipal election. “Anchorage definitely loves its trails and we keep voting for our local bonds,” she said.

Beyond state and local funding, Alaska Long Trail advocates have turned to the federal government for support.

Trail-related investments and improvements along the corridor already secured about $11 million in congressional appropriations over the past two years, and there are requests for another $7.55 million in funding for the coming fiscal year, said Mariyam Medovaya, project coordinator with the Alaska Trails Initiative, the nonprofit that is guiding the planning for the Alaska Long Trail.

One of the items already funded through the omnibus spending bill passed in December is a $1 million Bureau of Land Management feasibility study of whether the Alaska Long Trail could qualify as one of the designated National Scenic Trails. That work is expected to take two or three years, Medovaya said.

There are only 11 trails currently on the list, she said.

“It would be wonderful if the Alaska Long Trial joined those ranks,” she said. “It opens the doors to more federal funding. This is a big plus.”

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

Juneau’s Eaglecrest Ski Area lost an estimated $50,000 in revenue during the winter season because of unfilled staff positions. That’s according to Eaglecrest General Manager Dave Scanlan.

“This was probably our most difficult year yet for recruitment,” Scanlan told the Juneau Assembly Finance Committee on Wednesday.

He said Eaglecrest lacked key staff this season, including ski instructors, cashiers and lift operators. They also started the season without a supervisor for the rental and repair shop.

“We literally were starting the season with one person to run the rental shop and nobody to mount or repair skis,” Scanlan said.

Eventually, they hired five people to work the job for three hours a week each. Scanlan said the lack of affordable housing and the high cost of living seemed to be the main barriers for all workers.

Eaglecrest offered some incentives for employees this season. They gave $2 per hour bonuses to those who worked between Nov. 21 and Jan. 29. They also offered one free meal a week for employees who worked at least two days per week.

Now, Scanlan said, he’s looking to the international workforce. He said Eaglecrest is considering using the H2B visa program to hire workers. He’s also exploring a partnership with an Australian ski area to see whether they could share seasonal ski workers.

“You’ve got to think outside of the box,” Scanlan said. “Who likes Alaska? The Aussies like Alaska.”

Scanlan proposed raising prices by 10% next year, which would generate about $121,000 more in revenue than this year. He said Eaglecrest charges less than similarly sized ski areas in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Eaglecrest is requesting additional funding from the Juneau Assembly to help cover rising costs. It includes $16,300 for new dependent care assistance and deferred compensation programs, part of a city-wide effort to recruit and retain employees.

The Assembly will consider the total request of $125,500 as part of its budget cycle over the next several weeks.

The U.S. Forest Service is asking the public to get involved in creating a 10-year forest management plan for the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.

The federal agency will be holding in-person workshops, virtual webinars and community gatherings through June.

The project is called the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, Forest Management — SASS-FM, for short.

Paul Robbins Jr. is a spokesperson for the Forest Service. He talked with CoastAlaska’s Angela Denning about the public engagement effort. He says the federal agency is working from the ground up.

Listen:

Here is a link to the project’s comment box.

Paul Robbins Jr.: In the past, the way the Forest Service worked, right, is we would come out with a 10-plan. And we would be open to public comment. But it would be public comment on a 10-year plan that the Forest Service created. In this case, there is no plan. We’re asking, instead of commenting on a plan we made, that the public help us make the plan. The overall goal is for us to work with our tribes, partners and communities to put together the full range of forest management activities, and complete them in a way that meets the greatest diversity of public needs. That would be the goal of SASS-FM. And we’re excited to get started. And we hope as many people as possible, come out and talk to us and take part in this process.

Angela Denning: What would you ideally like to see with this public engagement process?

Paul Robbins Jr.: Well, we have a couple of different things that we’re trying to get out of it, right. So we want all the organizations that I mentioned to tell us what they want to see from forest management on the Tongass. What are the outcomes that they want to see for themselves and their communities and, and their organizations. And then we also have a separate ask in there of identifying specific projects and locations where we can work collaboratively to get things done. SASS-FM, Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy Forest Management, that’s a big term, right? That is all about integration, integrated work, multiple resource activities down to one effort to reach ecological, economic and cultural benefit. So we want them to talk about what the overall outcomes they want to see. We also want to know specifically where and what they want us to do as far as forest management. And we also are taking comments and put on our what we call our assessment tool, which is a list of drafted criteria of what would move a project potentially to the top of our priority list for that 10-year plan.

Angela Denning: Can you give me some examples of projects that might be included in this?

Paul Robbins Jr.: Well, under forest management, you’re talking everything from thinning, which is, you know, harvesting of trees and a stand for the overall health of the ecosystem and the health of the trees that are supposed to be there to watershed restoration, wildlife habitat enhancement, road building, there’s so many factors that go into what we do for forest management on the Tongass because we’re a multiple use forest. On the second ask, we’re actually asking for specific projects. What work do you want us to do? And where? And how can we do it to where we’re getting multiple resource activities done at once, and the most beneficial way possible?

Angela Denning: So you’re taking public input in these kind of live public meetings, but also people can contribute just by themselves online?

Paul Robbins Jr.: You know, the public meetings, like the first 10 minutes or so is going to be us giving a presentation on what this effort is because not everybody, you know, will see the press release or the stories or we’re hearing so we definitely got to break it down. And then the majority of the meeting is just us answering questions and helping them work through this story map tool for submission, where we’re trying to keep it all focused in it’s very easy to use an effective tool to take in all this information.

Angela Denning: Okay, how long do you think this process is going to last? Like, how far out are you scheduling?

Paul Robbins Jr.: Right now, we’re looking to do this all the way through the end of June and could go longer than that because I mentioned the tribal consultations, which are a legal requirement and we’re going keep doing this until all of those are done. But we’re hoping around June 30 is when we can be wrapping up most of this.

A Haines falconer has acquired and trained the bird of his dreams – a gyrfalcon. The large falcons have traditionally been flown by royalty, but recent breeding programs have made them more accessible to the common falconer.

Mario Benassi has had a lifelong passion for birds of prey.

“I remember the very first time I thought of being a falconer,” Benassi said. “I saw a guy — I never saw the guy, but I saw his hawk tied on a perch in the backyard. I would go sneak and look, and I wasn’t even supposed to go down the alley. I was 4 years old.”

From that moment, Benassi became obsessed. As soon as he could read, he ordered books from the library about falconry.  At age 11 he started an apprenticeship with a master falconer.

“By the time I was 13 I got my first bird, and I got a redtail hawk. And, oh my God, what an amazing adventure that was, and how much fun I had with that bird,” Benassi said. “I began to catch game with it right away. Then it was really hard because I was in school, and it would be a beautiful day in the fall, and I’d be looking out the window thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what I am I doing in this school. I have a hawk waiting at home for me.’”

At other times, the bird benefited Benassi’s studies.

“I always managed to get an A on any science project because I would bring my hawk to school and give a talk about it,” he said.

As an adult, Benassi continues to bring birds into schools. He leads a program at the Haines school called Chilkat Forest Investigators, where he teaches a few students about falconry and the natural world.

This year he visits with a special bird named Mirum. She’s a gyrfalcon. Gyrfalcons breed in the Arctic. They are the largest falcons and can weigh close to three pounds, with a wingspan of around 4 feet. Benassi says that in medieval Europe, only kings were allowed to hunt with them.

Benassi consulted with his students to name her. They chose Mirum, Queen of Hearts. The hearts refer to the patterns her feathers form on her chest. Mirum means surprise in Latin. This refers to the surprise Benassi had at being able to care for such a unique bird. Mirum had been in captivity for a few years when she came to him.

“The first year that she was trapped, she was successful as a trained falconry bird,” Benassi said. “And then the guy for some reason his circumstances didn’t allow him to keep her. And he transferred her to a captive breeding program. And she was in the captive breeding program for almost four years. She didn’t like any of the males that were presented to her.”

Because she wasn’t contributing to the breeding program, her owners sought someone else to care for her. When Benassi heard this, he went to Anchorage to pick her up. He and Mirum drove back together earlier this winter. Mirum wore a hood during the trip. Benassi says it is important to cover a falcon’s eyes during transport — otherwise, they might see something that startles them and could injure themselves in the car.

Mirum now has a new house, called a mews. It’s about the size of a small wood shed, with bars on the windows and a perch. It has to be small enough to prevent her from picking up speed when flying so she doesn’t injure herself. Benassi is now training her to fly and hunt with him.

He goes out with her and lets her fly away. But she is tied to a leash. The leash is light and won’t allow her to fly more than 300 feet away from him.

Benassi has to learn to know his birds before he can hunt with them. He starts by weighing them multiple times.

“A bird, this is how their life is, they eat until they are not hungry anymore, and then they rest and preen and do whatever they are going to do while they are satiated,” he said. “And then when they are hungry again, their weight falls into the hunting weight. And so as a falconer, this is what you are looking for, is you are looking for that hunting weight. Then it wants to go out and catch game. Obviously, if the hawk is not in that weight class, then when you release it, it may just as well go out and take a bath and sit and sun itself as hunt.”

The hunt is teamwork for human and bird.

“You take the bird to the hunting ground, and so with a goshawk I release it, and then I walk for miles and miles and miles through the woods,” Benassi said. “And then the hawk just stays in the trees above my head. Any game that I flush, the hawk will give chase, it usually occurs within a couple hundred yards of me, and often I actually get to see the hawk make the catch. The whole pursuit occurs right in front of your face. And that’s really why you practice falconry, is because you have this alliance with the bird, and then you also have to have a ringside seat at this most athletic display of amazing flying ability. A goshawk threading itself through the thickest bushes and trees at 80 miles an hour is just something to witness.”

Benassi says hunting with a falcon is completely different.

“Falcons do not like the forest, and they don’t venture out into the trees — it’s just not their domain,” he said. “And so you need open ground to fly a falcon. Of course, a falcon is going to go up a couple thousand feet if it’s trained well, and wait. And then you push, and hopefully flush a duck or a goose. The falcon will come down in a spiraling stoop and hit the goose or duck and break its back or its wing, and then it falls to the ground and the falcon comes and lands on it.”

Benassi hopes to hunt with Mirum for a few years and then release her. He says maybe she will return to Nome, where she was born, and find a mate to her liking.

An ambitious project to create a 500-mile network of connected Alaska trails would move a few steps closer to reality if state lawmakers approve funding for selected pieces of it, advocates say.

The Alaska Long Trail project envisions a trail system running from the Gulf of Alaska coastline in Seward to the boreal forest in the Interior part of the state. There are already established trails in the corridor, notably in the Chugach National Forest, Chugach State Park and Denali State Park; the challenge is getting those sections to connect into a vast system similar to the Appalachian Trail on the East Coast and the Pacific Crest Trail on the West Coast.

The nonprofit group Alaska Trails, the organization promoting the Alaska Long Trail project, is seeking about $9.5 million in legislative appropriations in the coming year’s budget for 14 projects from the Anchorage area to Fairbanks.

“We are hopeful that we are able to fund projects up and down the length of the trail,” Haley Johnston, trails initiative manager for the organization, told lawmakers on Monday during a noon “lunch and learn” presentation at the Capitol.

State lawmakers last year approved about $14.7 million in funding for 15 projects, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes whittled the ultimate funding down to $4.2 million for seven projects. The surviving projects were concentrated in Anchorage, while the list of vetoed projects included those in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Fairbanks.

The state is not the only source of money for the trail projects, each of which stand on their own as worthwhile investments, Johnston said. Other sources include the federal government and private foundations, she said. For example, a project that survived Dunleavy’s veto pen, a bridge to replace a hand tram crossing a steep ravine on the Winner Creek trail system in Girdwood, is being paid for by a combination of about $1 million from the state and $550,000 from the Girdwood Valley Service Area within the municipality of Anchorage, Johnston said. The hand tram has been closed since 2019, when there were two serious accidents, one of them fatal. Getting a new crossing at the site is important to Alyeska Resort and other tourism operators in the area, Johnston said. “It’ll reopen a loop which had been closed for a while,” she said.

Federal funding for Alaska Long Trail projects has been important, too, Johnston said. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been able to secure over $11 million for trails over two fiscal years, plus another $5.5 million in the omnibus bill that passed in December, she said.Of the projects vetoed last year, some wound up with other sources of funding, and some have been resubmitted to the Legislature as requests this year, Haley said.

The organization is “super-grateful for all the funding we received last year,” she said.

She pitched the connected trail system as an economic opportunity that is embraced by the tourism industry and by local communities along the route. The Appalachian Trail, for example, attracts 3 million hikers a year who travel along portions of it, she said.

The trail project has other economic benefits, she said. “Sometimes investing in the things that’s, like, keeping young, talented people here in our state, investing in things that get folks to move here that counter that outmigration problem is really cool to see,” she said.

State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, is among the fans of the Alaska Long Trail.

“We all know how spectacular Alaska is. This is another opportunity for us to share Alaska’s incredible beauty and our wilderness with the rest of the world,” he said in his introduction to Johnston’s presentation. “It would bring people from all over the world and give them an opportunity to see our great state.”

It is “realistic” to expect the part of the trail from Seward to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to be completed within about 10 years, Johnston said. The rest will take longer, she said.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

The 2023 Iditarod kicks off Saturday with a ceremonial start in Anchorage followed by an official race start in Willow.

From there, 33 mushers and dozens of sled dogs will make the 1,000-mile dash to Nome.

It’s the smallest group of teams in the Iditarod’s history, but it’s a pretty competitive one.

Here’s what to know about this year’s race:

When will the Iditarod start?

The race begins with a parade-like ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday, March 4.

Mushers and their sled dogs will gather downtown early that morning to get ready.

Starting at 10 a.m., they’ll take off one-by-one every couple minutes from Fourth Avenue, near D Street. They’ll head down city streets, onto the trails and end at the Campbell Airstrip.

Here are places to watch from. People gather all along the trail for the event, but some hotspots include downtown, the hill on Cordova Street and the Trailgate party in the Eastchester Park area.

Next up: the official race start on Sunday.

After the ceremonial start, mushers and their dog teams truck to Willow for the official start at 2 p.m. on Willow Lake. They’ll again leave at two-minute intervals, and head to Nome.

The Iditarod says folks wanting to watch the start should look for signs on the Parks Highway in Wasilla and at Houston High School that will have information on available parking.

What’s the trail route this year?

The trail will go from Willow to Nome along what the Iditarod calls its “southern route.” Teams have not taken that route since 2019.

The first part of the southern route is the same as the northern one. Then, once teams get to Ophir, it cuts south through the Beaver Mountains to the ghost town of Iditarod. From there, there’s a lot of river running through Shageluk, Grayling and Anvik before linking up with the main trail in Kaltag.

The southern route is slightly longer and is thought to be more challenging with mountains and lots of mushing on the exposed Yukon River.

How are the trail conditions? 

Generally, very good, according to race director Mark Nordman.

Snow has hammered much of Southcentral, including the first chunk of the trail up to Rainy Pass Lodge.

From there, teams must tackle the notorious Dalzell Gorge — a twisty trail marked by a series of steep downhills and some very tight turns. Nordman said the gorge is in good condition.

But then things get tough: He said the route from Rohn to Nikolai has among the worst moguls in race history.

“Imagine a washboard except every ridge in the washboard is 4-feet high,” said Nordman, “So it’s just this up and down, up and down.”

From there, the trail is in good condition until the ghost town of Ophir, said Nordman. He said the snow level is still lower than he’d like from Ophir to Shageluk, though some snowfall is in the forecast.

Once mushers hit the coast, there may be some rerouting.

Traditionally, teams go across the sea ice on Norton Sound and Golovin Bay, but winter storms have pushed some of that ice out. He said it’s unclear if mushers will travel over the ice or take an overland route around it.

Who’s competing in this year’s race?

There are 33 teams signed up including most of last year’s top 10 mushers. That includes reigning champ Brent Sass and 2019 winner Pete Kaiser, plus Jessie Holmes, Dan Kaduce, Richie Diehl, Ryan Redington and Aaron Peck.

RELATED: All eyes on Brent Sass in highly competitive Iditarod field

There’s also nine rookie mushers hoping to cross the Nome finish line for their first time, including a Denali climber, a former Anchorage garbage truck driver and a father-son duo.

RELATED: Meet 5 Iditarod rookies

Noticeably absent: There are no Seaveys in the race for the first time in more than a dozen years. Five-time champion Dallas Seavey said he’s sitting out to spend time with his family and his dad, three-time champ Mitch Seavey, said he’s taking a year off to let his body recover. But they both have dog teams in the competition: Kelly Maixner is running dogs from Dallas, and Christian Turner is running Mitch’s team.

Here’s the full list of teams.

Why are there so few mushers racing this year?

The Associated Press crunched some numbers and found the average number of mushers starting the Iditarod over the last 50 years was 63. The highest? 96 in 2008.

So 33 teams is not only the smallest field ever, but it’s just about half the average size.

The Iditarod community has cited a variety of reasons for the low turnout.

A couple of them:

• There are quite a few longtime Iditarod mushers who have stepped away from mushing in recent years, and there isn’t a big group of teams to replace them. Aside from the Seaveys, Aaron Burmeister and former champ Joar Leifseth Ulsom say they’re taking a break to be with family. Four-time winners Jeff King and Martin Buser, plus fan-favorite Aliy Zirkle also aren’t racing. Race icon Lance Mackey died last year.

• There’s also the cost. Many mushers say inflation has hit them hard with dog food prices doubling in the last couple years, plus many missed out on tourism income during COVID-19. Some estimate that running the Iditarod takes at least a $20,000 investment, and prize money has been stagnant for years as the Iditarod loses big-name sponsors.

How many dogs are on a team?

Mushers can start with up to 14 dogs and as few as 12. They must have at least five dogs pulling the sled across the finish line in Nome.

Where do the dogs go that don’t make it to the finish line?

Mushers can leave dogs with veterinarians at race checkpoints along the trail. Mushers must provide them with four pounds of food and coats, according to race rules.

There’s a variety of reasons a musher may send a dog home, including illness and injury or because the dog can’t keep up. Also, near the end of the race, mushers will often slim down their teams to just their fastest dogs.

The dogs left behind get flown back to Anchorage or Nome depending on their location.

Are there any COVID-19 protocols this year?

COVID precautions are basically gone this year, with the vaccine requirement removed and no regular testing out on trail. All the checkpoints that were closed down before will be open this year. Race director Mark Nordman said that there will be an epidemiologist out on the trail in case there are COVID infections.

When can we expect a winner?

Historically, the race winner has arrived in Nome in as little as eight days, so that would mean a finish late Monday night, March 13, or early Tuesday morning, March 14.

How do I follow along? 

Bookmark alaskapublic.org/Iditarod!

Alaska Public Media reporters Lex Treinen and Ben Matheson are headed out on the trail this year. We’ll have stories and photos from them on alaskapublic.org and on 91.1 FM.

Plus, keep an eye out for the latest episodes of our Iditapod podcast, now in its seventh season. You can listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

On top of that, we have the Iditarod newsletter! Subscribe here. During the race, we’ll send you a daily round-up of the latest Iditarod stories, podcast episodes and even dog profiles straight to your inbox.

Other local news outlets will also be following the race, and there’s coverage provided by the Iditarod itself on iditarod.com.

Have a question we missed? Email Tegan Hanlon and Casey Grove at thanlon@alaskapublic.org and cgrove@alaskapublic.org.