The people who pushed the Haines Borough to save Mosquito Lake School are now looking very, very bright.
With only five students enrolled, the Klukwan School is in jeopardy. Like what happened at Mosquito Lake, with fewer than 10 students, the village school is now facing the loss of state funding needed to keep it open.
If that happens, the Haines Borough might well re-open Mosquito Lake, even if it must in the short-term bus students from Haines, attract a new family or two to the upper valley or take other measures to boost enrollment to 10.
It’s interesting that the five students currently attending the village school aren’t from the village. After Mosquito Lake School closed, several families transferred their students to the village rather than have them ride a bus two hours every day.
Whether it’s located in the village or at 27 Mile, a school operating in the upper valley is in the best interest of the Chilkat Indian Village and the borough. And there’s good reason to believe there will again be more than five students wanting to attend school there.
Among municipalities in Southeast, Haines has the biggest private land base available for new homes and businesses.
That’s one of the reasons that the local, residential real estate is red hot right now. People, including young people, are looking at Haines as an affordable alternative to places like Sitka and Juneau, where prices are astronomical and the selection is small.
Much of our undeveloped, private land is located in the upper valley, where the weather also tends to be less horrendous than in town. There’s also a chance that a mine will open at the Palmer site near 40 Mile and miners will want homes nearby.
Backcountry skiing and snowmachining also are exploding in popularity, already attracting young people here for an uncrowded backcountry experience. The upper highway, including Chilkat Pass just over the border, offer some of the best spots for those activities.
Though Haines and Alaska populations are slumping, due in part to our dysfunctional state government that is scaring away investment, short-changing public employee pay and creating other problems, there’s no reason to believe that will continue forever or that this place is emptying out.
There are few places in the world like the Chilkat Valley, and the rest of the world knows that. Also, given a choice, most parents would rather not bus their first-grader 60 miles a day on an icy highway.
The schools at Klukwan and Mosquito Lake were built due largely to two factors: 1) The baby-boom (and the resulting mini boom of baby-boomer having babies themselves) flooded the town with children, and 2) the state had piles of money to build infrastructure, including schools.
The amount of babies and public money have both dipped for now, but there’s no reason to believe that downturn is permanent. New young people show up in Haines all the time. And the state government, by necessity, will come to prudent management once the drunkenness and hangover of the oil years fully pass.
There will be a need for a school in the upper valley, and the Haines Borough, which has a tax base, may be better positioned than the village to provide it. Borough officials would be wise to watch closely the fate of the Klukwan School, while considering the future of the upper valley and the potential it holds for the rest of the community.