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Ketchikan: Joint ceremony to unveil permanent exhibit in honor of Elizabeth Peratrovich - The U.S. Forest Service will dedicate the 210-seat theater within the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center located in Ketchikan in honor of civil rights pioneer Elizabeth Peratrovich during a joint ceremony with the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) and Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS), on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017.

Civil Rights Pioneer Elizabeth Peratrovich

Tongass National Forest Deputy Forest Supervisor Jason Anderson will be joined by ANB Grand Camp President Sasha Soboleff, ANS Grand Camp President Cecelia Tavoliero, Ketchikan Gateway Borough Mayor David Landis, and Betsy Peratrovich, granddaughter of Elizabeth Peratrovich, to speak during the ceremony. Actress Diane Benson, For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska, will also perform Ms. Peratrovich’s famous speech to the territorial Senate in 1945.

The dedication ceremony will be followed by an Elizabeth Peratrovich Day celebration, led by ANB and ANS, Camps 14 and 15.

Of the Tlingit nation, Elizabeth Peratrovich, née Wanamaker, was a prominent Alaska Native leader and civil rights activist who worked to gain equality for Alaska Natives in the early 1940’s and is credited with the passage of the Alaska Territory’s Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first anti-discrimination law in the United States.

Thursday's dedication is the result of more than a decade of collaboration between the Forest Service and the ANB and ANS, Camps 14 and 15, to help the communities of Ketchikan and Saxman come together and celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day. In addition to renaming the theater, a permanent exhibit will be unveiled which details the history of Elizabeth Peratrovich, and her work with the ANB and ANS to gain civil rights for all in Alaska.

The Anti-Discrimination Act was at first defeated by the territorial legislature in 1943. However, as leaders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Alaska Native Sisterhood, Elizabeth Peratrovich along with her husband Roy, lobbied the territory's legislators and represented their organizations in their testimony. On Feburary 16, 1945, Elizabeth Peratrovich was the last to testify before Alaska's territorial Senate voted on the bill, and her impassioned testimony was considered decisive.

In 1988 the Alaska Legislature established February 16th as "Elizabeth Peratrovich Day" to commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the Anti-Discrimination Act. Every year Alaskans celebrate the day and remember Peratrovich's efforts to achieve equality and justice for all Alaskans of every race, creed and ethnic background. - More...
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017

Sheila Kleinschmidt (left) and First Bank board member Agnes Moran (third from left) presented the Ketchikan Community Foundation advisory board with the first of four annual $15,000 checks to help fund a new operating endowment for the Foundation.
Photo courtesy Ketchikan Community Foundation

Ketchikan: Several Irons in the Fire for Ketchikan Community Foundation - The new year got off to a roaring start for the Ketchikan Community Foundation, with the announcement of the potential for $185,000 in matching funds over a four-year period from the Rasmuson Foundation, as well as a $60,000 pledge over four years from First Bank for an operating endowment that will also be matched.

“We couldn’t be more excited and encouraged by these gifts that will continue to help build our Ketchikan endowment into a secure, long-lasting entity that will benefit local non-profit organizations for generations into the future,” said Christa Bruce-Kotrc, KCF advisory board chair.

“Now all we need to do is meet the match challenge, but we have every confidence in the people and businesses of Ketchikan to rise to the occasion, as they so often do!”

Bruce-Kotrc also announced the 2017 application period – Feb. 15 to March 31, 2017 – during which time local non-profits can apply for this year’s round of grant funds.

KCF expects to distribute a minimum of $20,000 this year. The Foundation last year granted about $11,000 total to four organizations – Ketchikan Volunteer Hospice, Ketchikan Theatre Ballet, Special Olympics, and Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council. The Foundation expects the annual distribution amount to rise each year as the value of the endowment fund grows. - More...
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017

Fish Factor: Crafting a framework for statewide mariculture industry expansion By LAINE WELCH - Shellfish, sea cucumbers, geoduck clams, seaweeds and biofuels are crops envisioned by a group of Alaskans who are crafting a framework for a statewide mariculture industry expansion.

An 11-member task force created last February by Governor Walker has wasted no time advancing its mission to put a comprehensive report on Walker’s desk by next March. The group, which has been meeting regularly, also has attracted wide interest from Alaskans who want to serve on advisory committees as the plan takes shape.

The advisory committees include research and development, the environment, regulatory issues, investment and infrastructure, workforce development, and public education and marketing.

“I get several calls a week from interested parties who want to participate,” said Barbara Blake, the Governor’s point person on the task force. “People are charged up for this. It’s a new concept that allows our communities to engage in a way that allows them to maintain their residence in our rural coastal regions. Everyone participating is really committed to developing something that will be beneficial for the entire state.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski also has gotten onboard with the hiring of Charlotte Regula-White, a marine biologist who will be the Senator’s mariculture point person. - More...
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017

Southeast Alaska: Bronze Posts Project Artists Chosen - Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has chosen three emerging, master Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian artists to carve three cedar house posts that will be cast into bronze.

TJ Young working on a totem pole now installed at Gajaa Hít in Juneau
Photo courtesy Sealaska Heritage Institute

Haida artist TJ Young, Tlingit artist Stephen Jackson and Tsimshian artist Mike Dangeli will create the carvings, which will be prominently and publicly displayed in front of the Walter Soboleff Building on Seward Street in Juneau.

The artists’ pieces will be juxtaposed against the three monumental Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian pieces at the building made by master artists Robert Davidson, Preston Singletary and David A. Boxley.

“We have pieces by the masters at the Walter Soboleff Building, and now we are showing the world that our culture lives on through our younger generation of emerging, master Northwest Coast artists,” said SHI President Rosita Worl. “Our culture and our art are alive, thriving and evolving.”

The pieces are slated for installation in 2018.

Mike Dangeli is of the Nisga’a, Tlingit, Tsetsaut, and Tsimshian nations. He is of the Beaver Clan and carries the names Goothl Ts’imilx ("Heart of the Beaver House" in Nisga’a) and Teettlien ("Big Wave" in Tlingit). Mike trained under the leaders of his family to be a Sim’oogit (hereditary chief) among the Nisga’a. Mike recently moved from Vancouver, BC, to Juneau and works as a commissioned-based artist. His commissions are primarily by private clients and indigenous people who use his work in ceremony and for their dance groups. Mike co-leads The Git Hayetsk Dancers with his wife, Dr. Mique’l Dangeli. - More...
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017

Columns - Commentary

The Democrats have lost their direction so completely they need a compass to blow their nose. Incontestably, incontrovertibly and incredibly... useless. We are not speaking of a trifling of uselessness here. "Totally and utterly and unconditionally useless" barely scratches the surface. The exact extent of the uselessosity exhibited by Democrats right now is breathtaking in its magnitude. Mythic. Destined to be immortalized in song and dance.

During last year's campaign they skirted the periphery of worthless and ineffectual and futile and just plain lame, but the degree of uselessness they have recently achieved is best measured in AUs, astronomical units. As evidenced by their reaction to Donald J. Trump's first unstable weeks in office. Or lack of reaction. They make listless look downright rigid. Limp is their rock.

As useless as an ejection seat in a helicopter. Mudflaps on a turtle. Pistol range in a bouncy house. Costume designer on a porn flick. Solar powered night scopes. An ashtray on a Harley. Glass pieatas. Triangular wheels.

Oh sure, they strut and pose and squawk and stamp their little impotent feet but so far have accomplished nothing. Less than nothing. Negative nothing if that's even a thing. And no, you're right, it isn't. - More....
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017

JEFF LUND: That Fish - We stood on the edge and looked through the water, trying to focus on the bottom to see movements above, rather than fix on the surface and spot a fish below. It’s one of those weird descriptions that fishermen use when asked, “How do you see the fish?” You just do, but that’s not a good answer.

We caught small, hungry trout because most of the rainbows were picky about what they ate. The recommendations called for size 20 and we were fishing size 16. That totally matters. I bounced a stonefly off a rock and the second it hit the surface it was in the mouth of a quality brown trout 16-inches easy.

That’s the fish of that river.

There’s always that one fish. Other details of the trip don’t really matter, just that fish. Who cares what you had for breakfast who was with you, whether it was 2012 or 2011, there is that fish on that water that you’ll remember.

If you’re supposed to do something you love so that you’ll never work a day in your life, but that something that you’re doing provides only satisfaction and no monetary compensation, then you’re in a bind. Unless you want to hitchhike around the United States and end up in a bus somewhere, there has to be some sort of participation in The Game. You don’t have to be owned by The Man, but it’s really unavoidable. You can’t get new fly fishing gear and get to pretty new water without a job. - More...
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017

BOB GARVER: Picks and Predictions for the 89th Academy Awards - The nominations for the 89th Academy Awards were announced on January 24, 2017. I was reasonably happy with them, though I wish the Academy would have shown some love to Martin Scorsese’s underappreciated “Silence.” Here are my thoughts on ten major categories, who I want to win, who I think will win, and in some cases who’s so sure to win that a lot of analysis isn’t necessary. Sadly, that’s true of many of the major categories, and it’s the lesser ones that inspire the most debate.

(Note: I tried to see as many of these movies as I could, but a few slipped through my fingers. Those films are marked with a star, though I don’t think any of them have enough momentum to be taken seriously in their respective categories) - More....
Saturday AM - February 11, 2017