Shelley, 27, was born in China and moved with her family to the United States.
She was working at Saturday’s Farmer’s Market, serving up homemade custards and Pavlovas, which were selling well.
As a favor to me when I went to speak with friends, she manned my table soliciting signatures on a petition to save camping at Portage Cove Wayside.
Portage Cove has served as a campground here since the 1960s but we must petition because State of Alaska politicians would rather abandon the state’s obligations like this beautiful park rather than ask Alaskans to pitch in a dime to keep Alaska a great place.
Shelley, who speaks Mandarin and English, solicited about a dozen signatures in 10 minutes. She was focused and efficient, presumably the same traits that helped her land a job as a program manager for Tesla in San Francisco.
She worked for Tesla three years. Her job required her to put in odd hours, speaking on the phone to clients all over the world. The work schedule at Tesla is such that women who become pregnant are compelled, for health reasons, to quit their jobs, she said.
“Corporate crushed my soul,” Shelley said, although it seemed her soul was still shining brightly Saturday. She had summer work lined up here and in Interior Alaska, part of a planned working adventure that would continue through South America.
She was hoping to learn some Spanish before heading south.
I asked Shelley what she thought of Haines. She said, “It’s beautiful. It’s like living in Yosemite.”
That’s Yosemite National Park, famous for ancient redwoods, plunging waterfalls, and a narrow valley surrounded by awe-inspiring peaks.
Visitors to Yosemite pay $24 to $36 for a campsite, after they’ve paid $20 for walking into the park or $35 for driving in. And they can’t get enough. Visitation to Yosemite and to our other national parks is at an all-time high.
If it were still open for camping, the overnight fee at Portage Cove likely would be the same as at Chilkat State Park, $20. The state could charge more. Campers at Portage Cove overlook the continent’s longest and deepest fjord, as majestic a setting as can be found this side of Scandinavia.
Bill Zack spent his first night in Haines at the cove campground, awaking to a bald eagle soaring overhead and a humpback whale splashing in the bay. Zack vowed to live in Haines one day. He returned years later, serving 23 years as the state’s park ranger, responsible for camping at Portage Cove, Chilkat, Chilkoot Lake and Mosquito Lake.
And he did such an upstanding job he was invited to dinner at the Alaska Governor’s Mansion.
Zack’s story isn’t a fluke. Bruce Gilbert, Fred Shields, and other Haines notables spent their first nights in Haines at Portage Cove. It’s a wondrous place, a remarkable place in the world to spend a night.
But that wasn’t Shelley’s point. Shelley was saying that people like us who reside in Haines get the approximate privilege of living inside a national park, inside the boundaries of a national treasure. By regulation, visitors can stay at a national park only 30 days at a time, but we get Haines year-round. People like Shelley view our properties as in-holdings.
One day not far in the future, we will be judged by what we did with this place, how well we managed it and what we did to it. Our judges will hold us to a standard not based on our perspective but on the views of the people in the world like Shelley.