I guess it had to come to this, what with books and learning out the window, the rule of law on the trash heap, and a Visigoth in the White House. Our little ones, already struggling as “kids,” have been downgraded to “kiddos.” I first heard this reference a few years ago at a Haines School Board meeting, where a…
The coolest thing about Haines is not glacier-capped peaks, wilderness kayaking or the hip atmosphere at the Fireweed Restaurant. It’s a full retail sector owned entirely by residents. That’s right. Not a chain store in sight, not even a Starbucks. Skagway can’t make such a boast, nor can Juneau, Sitka or Ketchikan. Starbucks has its teeth in Skagway, and on…
If you still have your 2017 AP&T phone book, the yellow one with the picture of the bear cub munching a hunk of salmon on the cover, hang on to it. The new phone book is a mess, and next year’s may not be better. (Also, new books weren’t mailed to customers this year. You must pick yours up at…
I just finished a book of Will Rogers newspaper columns and was impressed with the range of Will’s literary lasso. Not to be confused with “King of the Cowboys” Roy Rogers of Trigger and Dale Evans fame, Rogers became a national hero in the early 1900s. He was an Oklahoma cowhand who performed rope tricks in stage shows, then went…
Registration continues this Saturday, April 7, for little league baseball in Haines. Sign your child up. Little league builds character, and the worse player you are, the more character you build. When it comes to little league, it’s all good, and I don’t say that lightly. “It’s all good” is an expression I can’t stand. In the annals of little…
The Chilkat Indian Village of Klukwan rankled some people in Haines in November when it joined a lawsuit against the federal Bureau of Land Management, saying the agency should consider effects of a mine’s development now, not later. Constantine Metal Resources, the Canadian firm that’s exploring an ore deposit near the Canada border, has said it’s still a distance from…
We need to rally to save the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program, or some version of it, here in the Chilkat Valley. The Bigs are just the most recent victim of state budget cuts and the Alaska Legislature’s inability to maintain what makes Alaska great, but let’s save that for another day. Due to funding cuts, the Anchorage-based organization is laying…
While composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson did a radical thing. In defining what rights men possessed by virtue of birth, he added “pursuit of happiness” along with “life” and “liberty.” Previous to the Declaration, Englishmen believed they were naturally entitled to “life, liberty and property.” Jefferson’s editing represented a tectonic shift in the world’s view of a person’s…
Alaskans emerge from winter on their hands and knees. The dark, cold, wind, rain and snow beat down on us until, by spring, we squeeze out from under them and can start to walk upright again. In varying degrees, winter freaks us out. Under its weight, we say and do crazy things we would never say or do in July.…
“How many people do you want at this event? We could bring lots of friends. We have ski races in the Yukon, but nothing like this.” These words, spoken to a local volunteer by a Canadian competitor in Saturday’s Kat to Koot Alpine Adventure Race, should be music to the ears of Haines tourism officials. For decades they’ve bandied…