This is the final part of a three-part series. Part One | Part Two

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Clint Bean is the mayor of Pelican. (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

Clint Bean is the mayor of Pelican. (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

Ice.

Pelican was always known for having clean, quality ice — the kind fishermen need to keep their catch in good condition until the boat can get back to shore. But when the cold storage here closed, that went away.

It could come back, soon. The city received an $800,000 federal grant to buy two new ice machines. Whether those ice machines get installed depends on the success of negotiations to buy the cold storage property from its owners. Mayor Clint Bean says if that happens, he hopes the ice machines at least will be the start of some new industry in Pelican.

“With the ice factor, we will have a bigger draw to the fishermen, and with more fishermen coming in we’ll have more use of all the local facilities, businesses, restaurants, etc., and that will create more economy for Pelican itself,” Bean says.

And, he says, there are other things to help that happen. The city’s broken water flume is under repair — that means jobs here for those repairing it — and once it’s up and running, Pelican will return to hydro power.

For going on two years, the city has generated electricity from diesel, which has pushed rates up to more than 50 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s hardly a record among small Alaska communities, but steep compared to Sitka’s 9 cents, or Juneau’s 12 cents.

“I won’t give you a number, but it’s safe to say the hydro will lower the rates,” Bean says.

The city is also working to buy the fuel dock and the cold storage now owned by Kake Tribal Corporation. Some $300,000 for the fuel dock purchase was included in this year’s capital budget.

(Note: Since the production of this story, funding for the dock purchase was vetoed by the governor. Pelican’s hydro repairs, however, will receive state support.)

Those things, Bean says, could help attract more people to this city.

But Bean is also hoping to retain the ones who are here, especially young residents. That includes his son. Christopher Bean just completed his junior year of high school. He’s sitting at a table inside the Lisianski Inlet Café, waiting for a mushroom cheeseburger. He moved up here two years ago from metro Seattle and says after he graduates from high school, he wants to go to college some place warm.

He wants to come back here, at least in the summertime. To stay a long time, he’d like the town to have more families and to expand a bit.

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about the old days and how there used to be a lot of people here, when the cold storage was going and everything was working out,” Christopher Bean says. “And now everything sort of hit bottom.”

By “old days,” he says he means the 1990s. In 1990, Pelican’s official population was 222. In the 2010 census, it was 88.

While Christopher is the son of Pelican’s current mayor, Frederick Phillips is the son of the city’s most recent past mayor, Patty Phillips. Frederick Phillips is 25 – a bit older than Christopher, and he remembers the “old days” in the 1990s. He says town looked a lot different back then.

“I remember as a kid, about 5 to 6 years old, the boardwalk would just be plum full of people,” Frederick Phillips says. “About 10 o’clock, or 10:30 break time, all the cold storage workers would come out.”

He misses having all those people in town, but he also says he still likes living in Pelican. While the future of Pelican rests in part on people like him, it also depends on new people coming in. People like Mike Chapman.

“I had a construction company down south, and just wanted to do something different,” he says. “I’d been here a few times visiting, and couldn’t think of a better place to live.”

He calls himself semi-retired. Came up here to do some commercial fishing – hand trolling and now power trolling. He’s also on the city council. “It’s a great community to live in,” Chapman says. “People here all care a lot about each other, and it’s obvious with all the problems we’ve had the last 10 years, with the opening and closing of the cold storage, the community has survived, and keeps moving along.”

Back at City Hall, Mayor Bean hopes it will continue moving along. The public dollars he’s hoping to score, including the state capital grant, will hopefully pave the way for more private investment from business along the boardwalk. In the meantime, he says he hopes his residents keep their eye on the big picture.

“You’re always looking at the big picture,” Clint Bean says. ”Everybody’s faced with day-to-day issues, and they have to deal with those. The way to prevent being surprised a bunch is to plan for your future, and I think Pelican’s on the road to economic recovery and a good future.”

This story is part three in a three-part series.