A recent think-tank survey found 42 percent of Haines business leaders “pessimistic,” according to Rain Coast Data, a think-tank based in Juneau.
If those numbers are accurate, they’re not particularly surprising given that commercial fishing — a big economic driver in Haines — is suffering a severe downturn in prices to fishermen. A crisis occurs in the fishery about every 20 years, due either to perilously low prices or returns. We’ll weather this storm as well, but stagnation in world prices for wild salmon, over time, bedevils the future of the industry as currently configured.
A knottier problem for our economy is the State of Alaska’s bankrupting of our ferry system, schools and state parks, three government sectors that undergird our town’s economy.
A study on the economic impacts of the ferry system about 10 years ago found more than 50 state ferry workers lived in Haines. That’s a big chunk of marine highway salaries landing in local post office boxes and being spent in local stores.
But now Alaska Governor Michael Dunleavy’s attack on the ferry system (in his first year in office Dunleavy penciled in a zero for a ferry budget) is bearing its bitter fruit. Besides not planning for new ships, Dunleavy can’t seem to keep the state’s current ferry fleet afloat or staffed.
For decades, Lynn Canal was the busiest link in the ferry system, delivering crowds of RVs and independent travelers to our shores. No more. Under Dunleavy’s management, the ferry has somehow become both maddeningly unreliable and prohibitively expensive. Giant signing bonuses must be offered to find anyone to work on the boats.
Dunleavy’s backward policies include a similar attack on public school districts, including our own. His cowardly approach to school funding – lauding homeschool schemes while withholding funding until districts must cut deeply and resort to hiring teachers from third-world nations — has decimated our teaching staff.
At one time, the stability and quality of Haines Schools served as a major drawing card for young families seeking to put down roots in a safe, stable community. Skilled and trusted longtime teachers provided a sense of continuity and security to parents concerned about their children’s education. That’s mostly gone now.
Dunleavy and his band of radical Republicans seem determined to destroy some of Alaska’s most cherished public institutions, including our magnificent state parks. Previous to the stratospheric rise of the cruise industry in the early 1990s (and the subsequent decline of state tourism marketing efforts), Haines boasted four RV parks and as many state parks, all bustling with business arriving aboard our robust ferry system.
Folks traveling by RV and ferry were independent visitors, the most valuable sector of the travel industry, people who arrive with thick wallets and time to spend. Haines state parks are now decrepit (Mosquito Lake), closed (Portage Cove), barely accessible (Chilkat State Park) or embarrassingly understaffed (Chilkoot Lake Campground and River Corridor).
Despite our challenges, I’m optimistic. I’m optimistic for reasons that bureaucrats at distant think tanks don’t begin to understand.
Seven Haines residents sell real estate. Property values are climbing. New people are moving here all the time or hope to. The town’s robust and locally owned retail sector includes three grocery stores, two lumberyards, motels, hotels, a bookstore, a hot tub factory, a ski factory, a brewery, a distillery, a cidery, two marijuana dispensaries, a newspaper and stores selling everything from bikes and skis to apparel and cut flowers.
Efforts by local government and businesses to improve our town are bolstered by 50 or more nonprofit organizations that assist our elderly, recycle our waste, improve our watershed, care for our pets, put out fires, provide youth activities, build trails and cabins, promote arts, broadcast news and current events, mentor children, preserve Native culture, shelter people from abuse, stage plays and dramas, explain our town’s history, house our senior citizens, and more.
Further, Haines boasts the largest privately-owned land mass in Southeast Alaska and one of the region’s best climates.
Then there are the intangibles. I’ve spoken to four 20-somethings arriving here in recent months who said they came because they were told Haines was a “real community.” I’m not sure what “real community” means but a friend of mine who travels to other Alaska small towns says it’s about our busy community calendar.
“There’s a lot going on here,” she told me, things like the Saturday market and plays at the Chilkat Center and First Fridays and efforts like our annual beach cleanup and Hospice Garage Sale.
It’s all reflective of an active and engaged citizenry that works and plays together because they like the town and their friends here and they want to build on that. That’s what makes a “real community” and it’s not true of every place on the map.
Yukoner Rosy Tutton, in town during the recent international bike relay, told me she would marry any Haines adult – man or woman – for the chance to live here. Rosy is young and full of energy. She’d be a credit to our town.
Arriving in Haines from Anchorage 38 years ago, it was immediately apparent to me that Haines was not a town of boom-and-busters, carpet-baggers and hangers-on like you find in some other Alaska places.
Instead, it was full of “stickers,” hard-working old-timers who’d planted their stake in the Chilkat Valley long ago, plus ambitious young people planting their own stakes. Haines is bullish on Haines. People are here because they want to be here and they’re willing to roll up their sleeves to make themselves and our town better.
That’s why Haines will succeed gloriously, and why I’m optimistic.