If any more COVID money drops into this town unexpected, or some worldwide cataclysm causes a surge in the oil prices or even if neither of those happens, the Haines Borough should consider painting the place.
It would be an easy way to improve our look.
In Southeast Alaska, our dominant color is gray. Gray comes at us for days or weeks at a time, in winter and in summer, in long strings of clouds and sunless days, reflected again on our waters. Literally the color of death, gray is cold, lifeless and unrelenting. There’s no reason that our public or private building should match it.
In places with a little more history, northern places like Scandinavia as well as other locales, people have recognized the value of warm colors. Against barren or gray natural landscapes, homes and storefronts of alternating hues blazing like a spilled box of crayons have caught on.
Those scenes have been immortalized in scenic jigsaw puzzles and screen-saver photos for good reason.
The human animal is attracted to and stimulated by color. If you don’t believe that, you probably go home and watch a black-and-white TV.
Debra Schnabel deserves credit for smashing the color barrier in Haines with the new, blue and orange façade on the west side of Main Street’s Gateway Building. Town leaders and building owners should take notice and follow suit.
Let’s be honest: Many if not most downtown buildings could have been lifted from the Soviet Union circa 1940. Not only are they challenged architecturally, they sometimes clash. That’s understandable. Most of downtown was built before there was much money here. First-generation buildings everywhere in the world are makeshift and crude.
But as long as we’re stuck with odds and ends, why not dress them up with a scheme of colors? Our buildings needn’t be white or gray or even the agreeably pale brown theme that the borough adopted for its buildings starting about 15 years ago, which was at least an attempt at uniformity.
Buildings can be colorful. There’s no law against it, particularly in freedom-loving Alaska.
Of course, getting the colors right would require planning, patience and cooperation, a big ask in this part of the world, because there’s a slight chance of making our downtown worse.
To see color gone wrong, Google Anchorage’s “Sunshine Mall,” a disaster in mustard on Fourth Avenue. Dumping nothing but bright yellow on a space-age-shaped behemoth with round windows created an architectural alien beamed down from the planet Ugly.
So doing this right could take some time. But it’s also doable. Paint is relatively cheap, and it can be painted over.
We should also bump up our game by filling in blank expanses with more public murals. Haines is arguably as rich as it will ever be in mural painters, if you include the number of artists who lent skills to giant paintings at the eagle foundation building and around Main Street.
Years ago Merrick Bochart painted the pattern board of an epic mural that could be described as the Haines Creation Myth, a stormy seascape featuring a fishing boat, a nascent town under construction and a John Deere excavator.
Her letter-box shaped artwork, blown up, would fit wonderfully against the retaining wall at the Haines bank, a piece of construction so ugly that even a Chamber of Commerce official once cursed it as “Grant’s Tomb.”
A thoughtful look around town reveals many other canvasses ripe for new colors and designs.
Our town is full of artists who’ve proved themselves capable of creating beauty. We could put them to work for our mutual benefit. Next time money rains from the sky, let’s invest in paint.