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The U.S. Forest Service on February 24 green-lit an expansion of operations at Coeur Alaska’s Kensington Mine. It amends the mine’s 2005 plan of operations which it says would be necessary to extend the life of the Juneau area gold mine for a minimum of 10 years.

“The phased approach for the Kensington project allows for continuous site operations in a safe, environmentally sound, technically feasible, and economically viable manner, while complying with regulatory requirements,” Tongass National Forest Supervisor Earl Stewart said in a written statement.“ I appreciate the time and open, candid discussions offered by those who submitted concerns during the objection period, and I encourage each of them to continue to engage as the Kensington project is implemented.”

The plan calls for — among other things — raising the main tailings dam by 36 feet and more than doubling the mine’s waste storage capacity in what were once two freshwater lakes about 45 miles north of downtown Juneau.

The Forest Service also allows the gold mine to increase its daily rate of production from 2,000 to 3,000 tons per day as part of its regulatory review. 

Kensington’s general manager Mark Kiessling called the Forest Service’s decision an important milestone.

“It’s the culmination of quite a bit of time for us, starting in 2015, (we’re) real excited about it,” he said Friday. “And looking forward to moving on to that next stage.”

He says the expansion could allow the gold mine to operate into 2033 if the economics pencil out. 

“But we still have work to do to identify reserves and resources that allow us to continue to operate into the future,” Kiessling said.

NOAA Fisheries raises concern

If there are proven reserves to run the mine for another 10 years, federal fisheries scientists urged the mining company to filter more of its liquid mine waste rather than store it long-term in ponds. 

It also raised concerns of the long-term risk of a 124-foot tailings dam failing that could pollute the marine environment.

“If the tailings dam were to fail, half of 8.5 million tons of mine tailings in the tailings pond would enter Berners Bay,” NOAA Fisheries hydrologist Sean Eagan said, reading from an agency statement summarizing some of the potential risks it had highlighted during the regulatory review.

“Crabs, ground fish and forage fish would be exposed to those tailings which would have elevated levels of metal and other toxins,” Eagan said. “We do not know the amount of time it would take for the ocean bottom to return to pre-spill productivity levels.” 

The Forest Service’s administrators said it didn’t make sense to alter the mine’s disposal plan and discounted increased risks from an expanded tailing treatment facility. In all, it accepted three of NOAA Fisheries eight recommendations, the federal fisheries agency said.

“Changing the tailings disposal now would require refining a new technique which could lead to accidents or mistakes that cause environmental harm,” Stewart wrote in his 32-page draft decision. “Current operations are protective of the aquatic environment as well as other resources and I do not foresee that changing by authorizing the mine to continue operating another 10 years into the future.”

Kiessling says Coeur Alaska stands by that analysis. 

“I think it’s pretty clear on their standing of it,” Kiessling said, “but we do not believe there’s an enhanced risk (in expanding the tailings treatment facility).”

Kensington Mine began producing gold in 2010. It employs about 350 people, making it one of the largest private sector employers in Southeast Alaska.

A new oversight board tasked with revitalizing Alaska’s state-run ferry system met for the first time last Friday (2-11-22). Members of the nine-person Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board heard about new opportunity from the promise of hundreds of millions in federal funds expected to flow into the system. But there will be some difficult decisions ahead on how best to invest the money.

Shirley Marquardt, a former executive director of the marine highway, was selected to chair the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board. The board was created by unanimous consent of the Alaska Legislature last year.

The former Unalaska mayor remarked that the combination of federal funding and united support for the ferry system was an opportunity to finally modernize the fleet, which largely relies on ships built in the 1960s and ’70s and are decades past their service lives and frequently break down.

“But we keep putting in millions and millions and millions,” she said. “And in the time we’re doing that we’re leaving passengers sitting at the dock.”

The new board replaces the now-defunct Marine Transportation Advisory Board which had little practical authority. That looks less likely to be the case with the new group which includes appointees from both the House and Senate as well as the governor.

Board member Keith Hillard, a captain of the Matanuska ferry, was nominated by the three ferry unions. He complained of poor maintenance planning and a lack of coordination from shoreside management for keeping his ship in the yard for 17 weeks rather than the scheduled eight. 

“The chief engineer and I had no idea what was planned, what work was planned what was scoped going into the yard,” he said.

He says repairs are routinely delayed due to cost-cutting. That leads to deferred maintenance until it snowballs. The Matanuska’s problems stemmed from rotted steel that he says had been identified by engineers as early as 2016 but the work wasn’t authorized by management.

“Coast Guard saw it this year and said, ‘What’s this? Why didn’t you fix this? Can’t let it go like this anymore,'” he recalled. “So, we’re getting into the yard and then making the plan, versus having a plan before coming into shipyard.”

Vacancy rates remain high

Another challenge facing the ferry system is a crew shortage. More than 70% of entry-level stewards jobs are vacant.

Marine Highway general manager John Falvey told the board that the entire maritime industry is struggling with crew.

“We are working very hard to try to hire more vessel, vessel staff back, we’ve we’ve lost quite a few from COVID, things like that,” Falvey said. “We’ve got a pretty aggressive marketing campaign in place, we’re working very, very closely with the Department of Labor.”

Unlicensed crew members don’t have guaranteed work hours. And so when ships are laid up for cost-cutting or go into overhaul, Keith Hillard, the ferry captain, says they are left high and dry.

“They pretty much get a forced four-month layoff and unfortunately a lot of them find year-round jobs during that time and don’t come back,” Hillard said.

It’s possible that a shortage of trained crew could delay sailings when demand increases later this year.

“Staffing goals for the summer season will not be met at current recruitment rates. If staffing goals are not met by March 1, Columbia will not be available for operations on May 1,” the agency wrote in a memo to the board.

Governance reform models

Reforming the organizational structure of the marine highway is also something the oversight board may tackle. Previous proposals have been floated to create a public corporation or a ferry authority with more autonomy from the executive branch. It would also allow long-range funding rather than going to the legislature each year 

John Falvey, the marine highway’s top operations official for nearly 18 years, admitted these are all conversations worth having.

“I mean, we have processes, but are they the best way to be doing it?” he said. “And we’ve been doing it a certain way for a long time. But maybe we’ve got to retool, and try to do things differently – and I know that.”

Tough questions on how to invest federal windfall

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has proposed using $135 million in federal money to fund the ferry system in the coming year. That would effectively reduce the state’s contribution to zero. 

That idea is already receiving pushback. Southeast Conference, a regional civic and industry organization that advocates for economic development, passed a resolution earlier this month calling on the Dunleavy administration to primarily invest the federal funds into long-term needs of the ferry system.

Executive Director Robert Venables made that pitch to the operations board.

“We know that some of those funds should be and need to be used for operations,” Venables said. “But at the same time want to find that balance between just consuming those funds, and use those funds for long term investments.”

Ferry operations board members expressed interest in meeting frequently for shorter meetings. And it could hold its next session later this month.

Eight decades after the fact, the federal government plans to spend $2.2 million to clean up a contaminated former army site on Kruzof Island near Sitka. It isn’t going to happen overnight. The Army Corps is still designing the effort. Actual work and removal of the PCB-contaminated soils isn’t expected until 2024.

But to understand how and why Fort Babcock came to be requires a 20th Century history lesson on the rise of Imperial Japan as a Pacific power. And few people in Sitka know as much about the area’s military history as high school teacher Matt Hunter. 

As an amateur historian, he curates a website on Sitka Harbor’s WWII-era military sites. He says when Imperial Japan invaded its neighbors in the 1930s, the United States realized it had few Pacific defenses outside of Hawaii and the Panama Canal zone.

“But Alaska, sort of the third vertex of a strategic triangle, was completely undefended,” he said.

Kruzof Island a critical part of Sitka Sound’s tripartite defensive battery

Fort Babcock was designed to be a keystone in the defense of Sitka Harbor, which during World War II, hosted a significant military presence to counter the threat from Imperial Japan. 

But today its legacy today is little more than abandoned buildings and contaminated soil near the shores of Sitka Sound.

Naval air stations were established on Kodiak Island, Dutch Harbor and Sitka. Defense of those naval bases fell to the U.S. Army which installed a battery of six-inch guns capable of striking an enemy ship from 12 miles away.

But as the tide of the war shifted, the threat from Imperial Japan receded, and by 1944 the military canceled the defense project. 

“And then as soon as they finished, they abandoned them and locked the doors and left,” Hunter said.

Today the site is heavily overgrown. But among the ruins there’s still evidence of the incredible effort by thousands of men.

“There’s even some notes on some of the work benches, and they’re written by the men who are in the construction battalion,” he said.

A nonagenarian veteran returns in 2010

One member of that battalion came back for a visit more than a decade ago. 

“I’m just like (Gen. Douglas) MacArthur wading ashore,” 93-year-old Bob Vollmer laughingly told KCAW during a visit to Kruzof Island in 2010. “MacArthur said, ‘I shall return!’”

“I didn’t like that guy, though,” he added.

KCAW’s Ed Ronco shadowed Vollmer and filed a story for the Alaska Public Radio Network about the Indiana man who’d spent most of 1943 helping build Fort Babcock.

Vollmer passed away earlier this month at the age of 104. But in an interview with KCAW some 11 years back, he expressed surprise by how much nature had taken over what had been a bustling observation post during the war. 

“I’m real happy to know, like places like this, they are still environmentally sound,” he said as he took in the thick foliage that had reclaimed the former fort site.

But Fort Babcock is not as pristine as it may have appeared to Vollmer in 2010. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is tasked with cleaning up the hundreds of potentially contaminated former military sites in Alaska, discovered serious contamination several years later. 

Beth Astley is the Army Corps’ project manager overseeing cleanup of the site. She says investigators knew about the old oil tanks. But in 2012 and 2013 they dug deeper. 

“That’s when we discovered that there was PCB contamination at the former power plant,” she told CoastAlaska in a recent interview.

In a 259-page decision document filed last August, the Army Corps announced plans to remove about 559 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated soil and place them in what Astley calls “super sacks.” 

“Which are large sacks that are specially made to hold contaminated soil. And then those bags would then be put on to a barge and then they would be taken to a port and then to the landfill (in the Lower 48),” she said.

PCBs are highly toxic and carcinogenic; they can bioaccumulate in humans.

“They don’t seem to go away very quickly,” Astley said. “They can persist for a really long time.”

Sitka tribal officials assess cleanup plan

Sitka Tribe of Alaska has been pushing for the cleanup of Shoals Point. People hunt, fish and gather traditional foods on Kruzof Island, just a 10-mile skiff ride across the sound from Sitka. 

“The Tribe is pleased that … the Army Corps is going forward with cleaning up the site, because it’s long overdue,” said Helen Dangel, a biologist who works for the Sitka tribe.

She works as a natural resources specialist and says the Army Corps’ priority seems to be the most hazardous waste at the former Fort Babcock site.

“But that doesn’t mean that all of the contaminants will be cleaned up,” Dangel told CoastAlaska. “In the document, there’s a lot of talk about cleanup levels, and if there’s a complete pathway to humans, through air through, through drinking water, through skin contact, or through eating. And so if they determine that there’s not a complete pathway, then some of the contaminants aren’t getting cleaned up.”

The Army Corps says it plans to remediate the area to residential standards. And no additional environmental monitoring would be required. 

Matt Hunter, the math and physics teacher at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, says Shoals Point is a fantastic place to visit. Especially for anyone interested in Alaska’s early 20th century history when Sitka was a hive of military activity on what’s now an uninhabited island.

“It’s not like a park or something that’s had interpretation and doors locked, everything’s wide open,” Hunter said. “And it’s also a very unique place. Being on this volcanic island with all the surf coming in, and the open ocean is absolutely beautiful.”

The Department of Transportation recently signed contracts with at least two vendors to run catamarans to Southeast villages. But officials in coastal communities aren’t sure the passenger-only vessels will be able to meet residents’ immediate needs.

In Gustavus, City Manager Tom Williams says the community doesn’t have a ferry scheduled until the third week in March and has been requesting a state ferry in coming weeks.

“We’ve had a really difficult winter, lots of snow, heavy snow loads on roofs, buildings that have collapsed,” Williams said on Wednesday.

He says right now residents rely on the marine highway’s ferries to shuttle their vehicles back and forth from Juneau for lumber and other essentials for repairs.

“Without the ferry they’re not going to be able to do that,” he said.

Not to mention, one of the town’s grocers no longer runs a landing craft to and from Juneau’s Costco and a lot of foodstuffs are being flown in on expensive air freight, he added.

Gustavus officials have been part of a chorus of officials asking for the Alaska Marine Highway System to activate the idle Tazlina ferry.

DOT contracts with Goldbelt, Inc. and Allen Marine Tours for passenger ferries

But the Department of Transportation says the $60 million ferry won’t be ready until early next month. In the meantime, it’s signed a number of contracts with private vendors through March.

On Wednesday, transportation officials confirmed that Juneau’s for-profit Native corporation Goldbelt, Inc. will be paid about $5,400 for a round trip circuit between Juneau, Hoonah and Gustavus. Williams says his city wasn’t notified.

“That’s news to me,” he said of the contracted ferries. “I appreciate the effort. But I don’t know that that’s going to be workable for us.”

He says he’s concerned that a passenger-only service would have limited ability to bring in freight like building supplies and groceries that Gustavus residents will need to get through the winter.

DOT spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy says private vendors were not the agency’s first choice. But that the ferry LeConte has to enter the Ketchikan shipyard for its annual overhaul to be ready for the busier summer months.

“We would prefer to sail with our vessels and with our crews,” she said. “That’s our first and foremost, that’s how we prefer to do it.”

Recently, the agency said some of the Tazlina’s certificates had lapsed delaying its ability to sail. Now it says it’s having trouble finding enough mariners for the 14-person crew. 

“We actually don’t have people sitting around at all,” McCarthy said. “In fact, everyone who wants to work is working right now.”

Ferry unions say $60m Tazlina should’ve been floated sooner

That’s brought skepticism from union representatives who point out that most of the fleet is tied up or being overhauled.

Shannon Adamson heads the local branch of Masters, Mates & Pilots which represents the marine highway’s deck officers. 

“If AMHS says that they don’t have enough crew to operate the Tazlina, then their crew shortage is much more severe than they’ve led anyone else to believe,” she said Wednesday.

The three ferry unions recently signed an agreement to allow private ferries to call into Haines and Skagway at least until the end of January while the state readies the Tazlina. In a rare joint statement, the three unions blasted AMHS management for not having the Tazlina ready to take up the slack sooner.

“Repeatedly we have been told the Tazlina is the ready reserve ship, so why was she not prepared to take up this emergency service?“ wrote Ben Goldrich of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association in a Jan. 9 statement. “We believe these vessels should be better prepared in the future.”

Adamson told CoastAlaska in a phone interview the ferry’s winter gaps are the product of poor planning at the top.

“The fact that contracting out is something that has become more and more common — in the three unions’ opinion — it generally can be traced back to deferred maintenance and poor management decisions,” she said.

DOT reveals details of contracts

CoastAlaska had requested details of the tenders signed or being finalized for supplemental service.

On Jan. 11, DOT finalized a contract with Goldbelt for a scheduled circuit between Juneau, Hoonah and Gustavus for $5,390 per trip. It will also sail between Juneau, Tenakee Springs and Angoon for $6,860 per trip.

Earlier this month DOT finalized a contract with Sitka-based Allen Marine Tours to run a passenger vessel between Juneau, Hoonah and Pelican for $7,999 per trip.

In a statement, the agency says it’s finalizing contracts for on-call passenger service with the same two vendors as well.

Goldbelt would be paid $6,305 for a round trip between Juneau, Haines and Skagway. Allen Marine would be paid $9,999 for a round trip between Juneau and Sitka. A third circuit calling in Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg would cost the state $11,499.

Missing from the announcement was any tender for a freight-capable vendor. DOT had put out an invitation for bids for vehicle and freight service and at least one firm already running a supply vessel between Juneau and Hoonah has indicated its interest.

Pelican ferry rep says winter service unexpected

The chartered passenger service has been designed with apparently little coordination with destination communities. Norm Carson sits on tiny Pelican’s chamber of commerce and serves on the state’s newly formed marine highway operations board.

He’s long been the point-man for the small village’s ferry service. He says Pelican officials agreed to forego ferry service in January and February altogether to save the state money.

“Rather than bring a $27,000 ferry out there ferry run,” Carson told CoastAlaska. “We said, ‘We’ll go without and save the AMHS some money.'” 

The Tazlina isn’t an option for that village because its design is incompatible with Pelican’s dock.

Carson says passenger service in the winter would be welcome as an affordable alternative to air travel. But he says the real needs for Pelican are a vehicle-capable ferry in March and then regular service in the summertime when the fish processor is running and for people to move vehicles and freight.

“It would help to a point,” Carson said of the private catamarans this winter. “But it’s not going to be the answer in the long run.”

Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, has been pushing for the Tazlina ferry’s return to timely service for weeks now. He says the private contracts appear to be fair market value prices. But his panhandle constituents say they need the ability to move people and freight.

“I’s not one or the other,” Kiehl said Wednesday. “And so they’re the we really have to get the Tazlina or some other vessel that can move a vehicle full of freight, as well as a bunch of school kids or a family to medical appointments.”

Marine Highway officials say they anticipate the Tazlina ferry should be in action by the first week in February. But as of Thursday afternoon, none of the sailings — whether by private catamaran or state ferry — have appeared on the state’s reservations system.

A regional effort to support Indigenous-led conservation and economic development in Southeast Alaska says it’s closing in on an initial $20 million fundraising goal. 

Seacoast Trust, an initiative put together with $17 million seed money from Sealaska Corporation and The Nature Conservancy announced Monday it’s received an additional $2 million from two philanthropic organizations.

The million-dollar donations come from the Anchorage-based Rasmuson Foundation and Los Angeles-based Edgerton Foundation.

“We are thrilled to be part of such a well-crafted approach to stewardship and economic development in Southeast Alaska,” Rasmuson President and CEO Diane Kaplan said in a statement. “Strong, local leaders and broad support are key. We are especially delighted to have Edgerton Foundation as a ground-floor partner.”

The Southeast Sustainable Partnership, a decade-old effort that runs projects in towns and villages across Southeast Alaska, will coordinate the Seacoast Trust projects. 

Financial oversight of the Seacoast Trust comes from Spruce Root, a Juneau-based nonprofit with ties to Sealaska. 

Sealaska announced it’s earlier this year that it’s transitioning away from large-scale logging. The Seacoast Trust is one of the initiatives it says it hopes to expand economic opportunities in Southeast Alaska’s communities that had.

The trust has said in its statements that the long-term goal is to create a $100 million fund that could provide about $5 million annually for economic development in communities across Southeast Alaska.

The state of Alaska is looking to the private sector to offer ferry service between Juneau and four Southeast villages facing months-long gaps this winter from January to March.

An invitation to bid was posted Monday (11-29-2021) on a state website seeking operators for vessels at least 75-feet long capable of carrying 125 passengers or multiple vehicles for some Southeast routes. It doesn’t mention a range of cost but invites bidders to make their own proposals.

The state Department of Transportation says it’s responding to concerns that a two-month gap in ferry service could bring additional hardships.

“Originally we didn’t have any fill in service plan during that time, but we have received requests from communities,” DOT’s regional spokesman Sam Dapcevich told CoastAlaska. “And we are looking for a way to meet that demand.”

Hoonah Mayor Gerry Byers says when ferry service goes away the cost of essentials goes up in his village of about 800 people on Chichagof Island.

“Everyone has had a hard time during the pandemic,” he said. “Now, with all the prices going up, coming into winter is going to make it harder for residents to be able to live in their home communities.”

That was the fear when Governor Mike Dunleavy’s administration announced gaping holes in the winter ferry schedule.

One reason is that at the end of the year, the LeConte, a 47-year-old workhorse that serves Southeast villages, is going into dry-dock for a scheduled two-month overhaul that will keep it offline until at least March.

DOT’s bidding documents ask for operators to provide regular and on-call service to connect Juneau with the communities of Hoonah, Angoon, Gustavus and Pelican during that period and perhaps beyond.

This wouldn’t be the first time DOT has called up private operators to fill-in for state ferries. It signed contracts with vessel operators Goldbelt and Allen Marine for some routes, though that never fully materialized due to the pandemic. And local officials in upper Lynn Canal chartered a catamaran last year to service Haines and Skagway but that was accomplished with local funds.

But Dapcevich says this request is designed to also include at least one vessel capable of carrying vehicles and on relatively short notice for the foreseeable future. 

“We would have some a contract in place with different vendors, and we could call them up and say, ‘Hey – are you available?'” he said.

Goldbelt, Inc. doesn’t have any vessels capable of carrying vehicles. But Juneau’s urban Native corporation’s chief executive says its catamarans could offer passenger-only service.

“Goldbelt does plan to put a bid in,” Goldbelt CEO McHugh Pierre told CoastAlaska. “I’m really excited for Department of Transportation, and Alaska Marine Highway to be able to finally make this step to allow for routine, dependable transportation that is sized appropriately for each community.”

Allen Marine Tours which operates a fleet of catamarans for whale watching and other excursions is also evaluating the prospect of bidding, the Sitka-based vessel operator’s Zakary Kirkpatrick wrote in an email.

State ferry workers skeptical

The plan to rely more on private operators is, unsurprisingly, getting a cool reception from the unions representing marine highway crew members.

“I would think that these (maintenance) issues can be anticipated,” said Ben Goldrich, a Juneau-based leader of Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association. His union represents about 75 licensed marine engineers who work on the state’s ferries.

“And we’d like a better understanding of why the state’s not using resources that they currently have tied to the dock,” he added

One asset is the Tazlina, a $60 million Alaska Class Ferry built in Ketchikan. It briefly entered service in 2019 but has spent most of its service life tied up due to a number issues, principally its limited range due to its configuration as a day boat.

Dapcevich listed off a few reasons the Tazlina won’t be activated while the LeConte is out.

“Because we didn’t plan for it,” Dapcevich said. “We are unable to crew it up quickly enough to meet the time-frame for January service.”

Another reason, marine highway officials say, is that the idled vessel doesn’t have all its certifications. And getting a short-term certificate, they say, could be cumbersome to the third-party auditor that issues its certificate.

But Goldrich, the union boss, also says he’s skeptical whether DOT will be able to find a vessels that meets its needs.

“I’m not sure that those vessels exist or are available,” Goldrich said. “Seems like the state ought to be using their newer resources in this case.”

In the rural coastal villages, local leaders say they’re glad that the state is supplementing the winter schedule.

“It’s better than nothing,” Byers, the Hoonah mayor, said. He says the backdrop for all of this is the federal infrastructure package’s promise of $1 billion for a new five-year essential ferry service program.

“My big things is, the state got all this federal money for ferries and I think we should try to utilize it to the best advantage to help the communities survive,” Byers said.

Alaska Class Ferry to get $15 million upgrade

In related news, there’s some progress in upgrading the Tazlina’s sister ship Hubbard with crew quarters that would extend that Alaska Class Ferry’s range and make it more suitable as a fill-in for the half-century old ferries that normally ply the panhandle. 

DOT confirmed that Vigor Alaska is the low bidder at just over $15 million to do the work early next year. The contract has not been finalized, though representatives for the company that operates the Ketchikan shipyard say they are “cautiously optimistic” they’ll get the tender.

The bids for private ferry operators are due on December 15 with the goal to finalize the contract on December 28.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misreported that the Department of Transportation had chartered catamarans for service in upper Lynn Canal. That was a local initiative.

Yak-Tat Kwaan, Inc. has been criticized by some tribal and city leaders, who believe that the corporation’s clear cuts threaten salmon streams and cultural sites. Yak-Tat Kwaan denies this.

The village corporation was created in the 1970s by the landmark Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act — or ANCSA — and granted more than 20,000 acres to benefit shareholders with ties to the traditional Yakutat village. Its annual meeting was planned for this Saturday. 

But in an unsigned November 12 letter to the corporation’s few hundred shareholders, management says the election could be tainted by what it called “unfair attacks being leveled against” the corporation.

“The false accusations being leveled against the corporation have reached beyond the shareholders of the corporation, the community, and even the State of Alaska by way of social media,” the letter reads. “All shareholders deserve to have a free and fair election, which is not tainted by patently false claims about the decisions of the Board of Directors and the financial health of the company.”

Critical posts on social media were being reviewed by the village corporation’s attorneys, the letter added. In Alaska, ANCSA shareholder speech is regulated by state financial examiners that critics say can effectively chill free speech.

The CEO of Yak Timber, the logging subsidiary of the corporation, declined to comment.

The shareholder meeting has been pushed back until January 8, 2022. Its last annual meeting was January 30, 2021. State law requires an ANCSA corporation to hold a shareholder meeting and re-elect its board of directors at least once a year.

The community of Kake was on lockdown Tuesday morning following reports of an active shooter who began firing a weapon in the early hours of the morning. Now authorities confirm that a suspect — 48-yearold Keith Nelson of Kake — has been arrested and flown off the island.

“The troopers landed he was taken into custody up there so he’s out of here,” Organized Village of Kake’s tribal president Joel Jackson said. “It started with a break-in at our grade school and then there was some gunfire up in our housing project.”

Alaska State Troopers confirmed earlier this morning that authorities were en route to the village of 500 people on Kupreanof Island to reports of shots fired. And that Nelson was taken into custody without incident.

“At this time we are not aware of any injuries and based on initial information we do not believe the individual was threatening any individual person,” Department of Public Safety spokesperson Austin McDaniel said earlier this morning.

Alaska State Troopers statement

Community hunkered down for hours

Katie Rogers is a teacher’s aide at the Kake school. She says she lives too far away to have heard gunfire but she understands most of the town has closed its doors with people sheltering in place most of the morning.

“The grocery store’s shut down, the school is shut down and the clinic is shut down and everybody’s been told to stay home and lock their doors,” she said earlier. 

A tense situation resolved peacefully

But Jackson says the all clear has been issued and people are venturing outdoors again.

“Nobody was hurt, everybody stayed indoors while this thing played out,” he said.

Kake has no permanent police presence in the community.

“It’d be nice if we had law enforcement in our small village,” Jackson said. He says village public safety officers are on a rotation that leaves the village with no law enforcement for two weeks at a time.

“We’ve got nothing. Basically we answer calls because people don’t know who to call,” he added.

This story has been updated with details from Alaska State Troopers.

Yakutat is a remote Gulf of Alaska village about halfway between Juneau and Cordova. Its economy has long been tied to fishing, tourism and for the first time since the 1980s, commercial logging. That’s thanks to its Indigenous-owned Native corporation getting back into the timber game which it cuts and exports to foreign shores. 

But recently that’s concerned elected officials in both the city and tribal governments, who have called for a halt to cuts in areas they say are ecologically sensitive and culturally sacred to Yakutat’s inhabitants.

Yakutat Mayor Cindy Bremner used to be president and CEO of Yak-Tat Kwaan, Inc. and serve on its board of directors of the village corporation. Since 2015, she’s only been active as a shareholder. 

But a couple years back she said she had a hunch and decided to look up local timber plans on a state website. It was there that she first learned of the village corporation’s ambitious logging plans in Yakutat. 

“And then the very next day, they had their barge of equipment coming in,” she told CoastAlaska. “I just had a bad gut feeling one day and I was pretty sad to see that they had applied for that.”

Yak Timber, Inc. est. 2018

Yak-Tat Kwaan’s last public filings with state financial regulators date from 2017. Back then it said it had no plans to log any of its 23,040 acres, or 36 square miles, granted in the 1970s under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. 

But the following year the corporation created a new subsidiary: Yak Timber, which got to work quickly. A note to shareholders last summer said that in two years it made $1.8 million in logging and selling cabins and tiny homes. 

“It is understandable that some do not like logging,” Yak-Tat Kwaan CEO Shari Jensen wrote in a June 25 letter to shareholders that was partly in response to timber critics. 

“Instead of using energy to sabotage Yak Timber, it would be nice to see it being used to help make Yak-Tat Kwaan a viable and a long-term sustainable company for years to come,” she wrote.

Earlier that month, the corporation released an un-audited report that says the corporation earned some $3.8 million from timber in 2019, with a net profit across the board just shy of $800,000 that year.

But that economic boost has been contentious, Bremner said.

“The shareholders, I feel, are kind of torn about the logging going on here,” she said.

Yak Timber needed financing to get heavy equipment for its crews. Since 2019, it’s borrowed at least $7 million, according to documents and statements to shareholders who were told the debt’s necessary to carry the corporation until more timber is sold. The village corporation’s fish plant and timber rights on some of its land have been used as collateral. 

The mayor says she’s concerned that Yakutat’s forestland is being sold too quickly to finance the corporation’s ventures.

“They’ve leveraged the resources on our land to be able to do this,” Bremner said. “And I don’t think that is something that they should be able to do that.”

ANCSA directs Indigenous enterprises to drive profits for shareholders

Talk to another Bremner and there’s a very different view.

“You’ve got to hear the rest of the story,” said village corporation executive Don Bremner, who is related to the mayor.

“Yes, we’re related; everyone in Yakutat’s related,” he quips. (The community has fewer than 600 people and has lost people in the last census).

Don Bremner is president of both the village corporation and its timber subsidiary. The long-term health of the company is good and the debt isn’t a concern, he said.

“We’re a valid business, making real serious business decisions, not based on perception, opinion, without research,” he told CoastAlaska. He declined to get into specifics, saying that’s an internal matter for Yak-Tat Kwaan’s shareholders. And because the village corporation has less than 500 of them, it’s not required to file its annual reports with state financial regulators.

But Bremner still dismisses concerns about logging Yakutat’s lands too quickly. 

“It’s not a large volume, but the people that have concerns are the folks that will always have those concerns,” he said.

His other message is don’t hate the player; hate the game: Congress created for-profit corporations to enrich Native shareholders. And that’s exactly what Yak-Tat Kwaan is doing, he said.

“We’re a profit-making business and ANCSA directed that we keep making money off of our assets, become self determined,” he said “If they want to go try change ANCSA, have at it. It’s just not going to happen. Because you’ve got 12 very rich regional corporations making a lot of money off ANCSA. So that’s what we’re doing, is running corporations, profitably.”

Tribes, state historic office raises concerns over Humpback Bay clear cuts

Yakutat’s city government opposed this year’s logging around Ophir Creek, which includes pink salmon habitat. 

But that hasn’t caused the board of directors to shift course. A state fisheries biologist reported that some of the logging was too close to streams, and follow-up visits are planned for November.

But the real fight brewing is over logging planned on a 426-acre tract around Humpback Creek about 10 miles to the northeast of the village. 

As the name suggests, it’s also known for its pink salmon. And its indigenous name comes from both the Eyak and Tlingit languages, which residents say speaks to Yakutat’s history as a crossroads of Native cultures.

“Humpy Creek itself you know, has a lot of significance in our oral history,” said Judith Dax̱ootsú Ramos, who is originally from Yakutat and now teaches immersive languages at University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. “People were kind of taken aback when they saw the plans for the harvesting in that area and nobody knew that they were going to be harvesting in that area.”

Ramos said the corporation is making its commercial timber plans without consulting elders or anyone with traditional knowledge.

The debate over logging for cash versus conserving cultural resources is a common friction that arises from ANCSA’s legacy over the past half-century.

Tribal governments urge village corporation to rethink logging plans

State agencies work with for-profit Native corporations to realize the commercial value of natural resources. That’s despite sustained opposition from tribal governments. 

Both Yakutat’s tribal council and the regional Central Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska have passed resolutions in opposition to the Humpback Creek timber harvests around Humpback Creek. 

The state’s Office of History & Archaeology also recently penned a letter to the village corporation warning that its clear cuts could threaten historic sites. It said there are irreplaceable heritage resources in and near the project area.

But good-paying jobs in Yakutat are scarce in the community, which is losing population. So the promise of timber jobs and cash dividends does resonate, said Cindy Bremner, the mayor.

“Has it been good for the local economy and putting people to work and contributing to payroll taxes?” she asked. “Yes. Do I like that? Yes, I do. I don’t like the way they’re doing it.”

She added: “They could have come up with a 20-year sustainable plan that wouldn’t have required clear cutting. And more people could have gotten on board with something like that.”

Yak-Tat Kwaan to face shareholders in November meeting

There’s a great reckoning coming in Yaktuat. Successive shareholder meetings have been canceled this year. The corporation said that’s due to COVID-19 precautions and other scheduling problems.

“It’s not some kind of world secret that there’s a pandemic going on,” Don Bremner said.

But others suspect the corporation is delaying because of rising anger over the clear cuts near town and an anti-logging website has sprung up calling itself “Defend Yakutat.”

Cindy Bremner said shareholders plan to try and hold the village corporation accountable when board directors are up for reelection. She said there’s a clear disconnect between Yakutat residents, village corporation shareholders and those calling the shots.

“Most of those board of directors don’t even live here anymore, and don’t have to see the devastation of clear cut logging every day like we do,” she said.

The November 20 meeting could be a referendum on Yakutat’s satisfaction with the last few years of commercial logging. But it will only be open to its few hundred shareholders, many of whom make their homes elsewhere.

Hunters in Juneau are pushing back on proposals that could restrict their deer hunting rights in parts of Southeast Alaska. The Southeast Alaska Subsistence Regional Advisory Council says its proposals are responding to food security concerns from villages. 

Pelican deer hunter Terry Wirta testified this month to the regional subsistence council from the tiny hamlet on Chichagof Island. He says it’s been difficult for guys like him to fill his freezer. 

“I don’t know, things seem to have slowed down around here, and all I hear nowadays is a lot a lot of hunters want to be coming here.” he told the council on October 6. “I think the residents in Pelican should have the priority on hunting around here, I’ll tell you that much.”

He was supporting a proposal to restrict hunters from urban areas that hunt along Lisianski Inlet. It was one of a handful that would restrict deer hunting in areas popular with state-licensed hunters from bigger towns.

The strongest measure would be an outright closure of the southern portion of Admiralty Island to urban hunters. That’d be to give more opportunity to subsistence hunters living in nearby Angoon. 

That’s where council member Albert Howard lives. He says hunters coming from Juneau have access to cheaper fuel to run their skiffs. And if they need affordable meat, there are supermarkets like Fred Meyer and Costco.

“If an Angoon resident fails at hunting, heh, I don’t know how else to say it. But they’re S-O-L,” he said last week. “And we’re people that don’t like to depend on anybody, and I don’t want to go ask anybody for help.”

These rules would apply to federal lands. Much of Southeast Alaska is in Tongass National Forest. And federal law gives priority to subsistence hunting for those living outside of the urban areas of Juneau and Ketchikan. Everywhere else in Southeast from tiny Pelican to larger Sitka and Petersburg are considered rural. 

State and federal wildlife agencies opposed added restrictions on non-rural hunters. That’s because data shows the deer population appears healthy. 

The federal Office of Subsistence Management also argued that many hunters originally from Southeast villages move to larger towns like Juneau or Anchorage. They’d be restricted when they come home to hunt with friends and family.

Juneau-based hunters organize outcry against exclusion

Written opposition to the measures was overwhelming with more than 50 letters coming in against.

Territorial Sportsmen, a Juneau-based hunting and fishing organization, has lobbied hard against the proposals and encouraged its membership to chime in.

Ryan Beason is an accountant and commercial fisherman living in Juneau and the group’s president.

“We want to promote the rights to all hunters and Southeast and not limit each other,” he told CoastAlaska in an interview. “I think what these proposals are doing is creating conflict between user groups.”

The proposed restrictions on non-rural deer hunters were recommended by the council in amended form. They included urban hunters being allowed to hunt for bucks only with a reduced bag limit on areas of Chichagof Island near Hoonah and Pelican.

State tidelands would be exempt meaning state-licensed hunters could still cruise the shorelines in their skiffs.

“The mean high tide-line is all state land,” Beason said. “So beach hunting would still be allowed.”

Regional Advisory Council Chair Don Hernandez who lives on the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island, told CoastAlaska the council has been hearing from villagers concerned about rising costs of fuel and aging rural populations. 

“There’s worry about the ability of people in these villages to get the food that they require add at a cost that they can afford,” he said.

He says he understands the wildlife agencies’ opposition. After all, on paper the deer herds are relatively healthy. But he says the regional advisory councils were set up to consider more than population surveys and the number of animals taken.

“The agencies, they rely on data. And the council, we listen to people,” he said. “You might call that traditional ecological knowledge. But it’s basically the stories of what people are telling us about what the actual conditions are. So we weigh that more heavily, I think, than the agencies do.”

Details still to come on RAC’s proposals

Final details of the recommendations approved earlier this month remain unclear even to council members and observers but will be published in coming weeks after the minutes of the multi-day meeting are finalized.

That’s because the federal Office of Subsistence Management says the precise language won’t be available until a court reporter prepares a transcript of the meeting and minutes.

But, those recommendations are not final. They’ll be forwarded to the Federal Subsistence Board which in mid-April will consider  whether to incorporate these in the federal hunting regulations as early as next year. 

If they are adopted, it could limit deer hunting opportunities over large swathes of Southeast Alaska that had long been popular with sport hunters from larger towns.