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Ketchikan: Only two sitting presidents have visited Southeast Alaska A feature story By DAVE KIFFER - Since the advent of intercontinental air travel, just about every President of the United States has visited Alaska, at least briefly, with Anchorage and Elmendorf Air Force Base serving as hosts for several carefully choreographed speeches in hangers and elsewhere.

One of the most famous of those “hangar” events was when President Richard Nixon met with Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1971, the first time that a Japanese emperor had traveled outside of Japan.

Some of the presidential visits have extended beyond the airport, as when President Gerald Ford visited a Trans-Alaska pipeline construction site near Fairbanks in 1975.

Most recently, President Barak Obama spent several days in Alaska and was the first president to travel north of the Arctic Circle and spend time in northern Alaskan villages.

But have Presidents ever made southward it to Southeast Alaska?

The answer is yes.

Both Warren Harding and Franklin Roosevelt passed through Southeast while they were in office.

Harding visited several places in Southeast, including Ketchikan, Metlakatla and Sitka during a lengthy visit in 1923. Harding arrived on the USS Henderson in July with a large entourage that also included future President Herbert Hoover. He visited both Ketchikan and Metlakatla (see “Ketchikan’s only presidential visitor back in the news” SITNEWS, Aug 16, 2015) before heading north where he also spent time in Seward and the tent city that was becoming Anchorage.

On his way back south, Harding stopped in Sitka for a feast that later became controversial.

Harding was not a well man when he decided to make his 15,000 mile trip from Washington D.C. to Alaska and back. White House medical staff recommended against it. But Harding’s administration was just beginning to be involved in a significant corruption scandal and he apparently wanted to generate some good news with the trip.

Harding would die in San Francisco just a week after returning from Alaska. Even today, there are those who suspect his death was not natural for a variety of reasons. But one of the more interesting speculations is that the death did have a natural cause, bad seafood in Sitka. The official cause of death was a heart attack, although he reportedly took ill even before leaving Alaska.

The second sitting President to visit Southeast Alaska was Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt visited Southeast and Southwest Alaska during World War II.

In August of 1944, Roosevelt made an inspection tour of military facilities in Hawaii and Alaska that took nearly three weeks. Like Harding, Roosevelt was not well at the time of his trip and had hoped that the ocean voyage, which he always loved, would revitalize him.

But when he met with Gen. Douglas MacAthur in Hawaii, MacArthur famously wrote to his wife that the “frail” President would not live another six months. As it was, Roosevelt would die just a little over eight months later.

When he visited Adak, Roosevelt had lunch with more than 150 enlisted troops in a large quonset hut mess hall. He gave a speech to the soldiers expressing pride in how they had built a large military base in less than two years. Even though the Japanese had been driven out of the Aleutians by that time, the US was still using bases in the chain as staging points for bombing runs to the northern Japanese islands.

Roosevelt also spent some time fishing, a hobby that he also enjoyed at his other stops In Alaska. - More...
Wednesday PM - February 22, 2017

Alaska: Arctic killer whales alter narwhal distribution and activity By SONNARY CAMPBELL - Narwhals stay active and close to shore to avoid killer whales that have begun to enter areas with declining sea ice cover in Canada’s eastern Arctic, according to a study led by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist.

A tagged killer whale swims in Tremblay Sound on the north coast of Baffin Island, Canada.
Photo by Gretchen Freund

Assistant Professor Greg Breed of the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, along with Cory Matthews of the University of Manitoba and Steven Ferguson of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, discovered the narwhal behavior. For several weeks in summer 2009, they tracked a family group of killer whales simultaneously with seven narwhals in Baffin Island’s Admiralty Inlet.

When killer whales were anywhere within approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers), narwhals avoided them by staying close to shore in shallower water. The narwhals also tended to make longer, faster movements. As soon as killer whales left the area, the narwhals moved offshore to deeper water and decreased their movement.

“The mere presence of killer whales in a system can cause relatively large and persistent changes in behavior and space use in prey species,” Breed wrote. These changes persisted for the entire time killer whales were present in the inlet, not just when they were close to or attacking the narwhals.

Narwhals live deep in the Arctic pack ice. Until recently, this kept them safe from killer whales for most of the year. Killer whales prey on narwhals and many other marine mammals. They have become increasingly common in the Arctic where they were previously largely blocked by sea ice.

Degraded sea ice now allows killer whales earlier access to the Arctic in areas where they historically ranged and new access to many areas where they had never been present before, such as Canada’s Hudson Bay.

The study was the first time scientists had simultaneously tracked both predator and prey marine mammals to understand their interaction. - More...
Wednesday PM - February 22, 2017

London (Yáx? Ádi Yádi), a Tlingit Eagle of the Killerwhale Clan, won the title on Feb. 4 and will now contend in the Miss USA Competition. If she becomes Miss USA, she will vie for the title of Miss Universe.

London is the first Tlingit to hold the Miss Alaska USA title, and she was an impressive representative of her Tlingit culture during the competition, said SHI President Rosita Worl. With her victory, she is now positioned to help spread awareness about Native cultures on a very public platform, said Worl, adding that she is expected to be interviewed on several national television programs.

“We are in a race against time to revitalize our Native languages and we are working to raise world awareness about Northwest Coast arts and to rightfully establish the art form as a national treasure,” Worl said. “Alyssa has already proven herself as a leader and cultural ambassador, and she is now in a unique position to put a big spotlight on our goals and issues.”

“She was a participant in SHI’s annual Latseen Leadership Academy, and she is a great role model for our youth.”

“I’m honored and humbled to officially accept the role of cultural ambassador to Sealaska Heritage,” London said. “Our goals are aligned, and I’m excited to represent my Native culture on the next public stage and with the support of SHI.”

London, an entrepreneur, radio host, motivational speaker and Stanford University graduate, entered the competition because she saw it as a platform to publicize her efforts to boost economic development in Alaska through Native art—a goal shared by SHI, which in recent years has taught skin-sewing to create a cottage industry, especially in rural areas where unemployment is high. - More...
Wednesday PM - February 22, 2017

COLUMNS - COMMENTARY

KYLE JOHANSEN: Juneau Stalemate! - As the volume is turned up to eleven on the debate over the State of Alaska fiscal situation I am reminded of a sage saying by an old friend who still walks the halls of the State Capital building “There is profit in the chaos!”

For some the profit is literal, legal and monetary. However, there are many currencies being exchanged in Juneau. In this particularly chaotic situation one constituency trading currency stands out in my mind as the major barrier to a solution for the next two years, those trading on aspirations for higher office.

This scenario plays out every two years with more intensity every four years during campaigns for Governor. Although this year, during the run-up to a gubernatorial election with open nominations for both the Republican and Democrat parties (assuming Governor Bill Walker again runs as an Independent) the scenario is especially active. Three sitting Republican Senators have expressed interest in running for Governor, and nobody is ruling out a run by the Senate President either. That is one fifth of the entire body possibly running for Governor while serving and legislating.

Every one of these Senators will vote with winning that Republican primary in mind, it is the human nature of politics.

Each year in Juneau requires a different operating procedure than the last, even if the people stay the same. Situations such as which legislation is in play, what chair has which bill, which project or issue has momentum, the temperature of the constituency, and most importantly who is running for which office next will dictate the general success of any given session. Again, even if all the people remain the same, external and internal forces change the dynamics each session.

During each of these unique sessions the Judicial branch is rarely on the minds of most legislators when tackling the policy issues of the day. Therefore, the session dynamics are and always will be three independent bodies sparring with each other in the constantly shifting situation of State politics. The Governor, the House and the Senate are these three bodies and do they love to spar! - More...
Wednesday PM - February 22, 2017

JOHN L.MICEK: Seriously and Literally Listening to Trump - During last year's presidential campaign, my old friend and colleague Salena Zito, writing in The Atlantic, made national headlines when she observed that the reporters covering then-candidate Donald Trump "[took] him literally, but not seriously," while supporters took him "seriously, but not literally."

Now that President Trump has called the news media "the enemy of the American people," is it time to take the former reality TV star both seriously and literally?

Trump's words - delivered last week via his favored medium, Twitter, were not the words of a duly elected leader of the world's strongest and most enduring democracy.

They were those of a strongman with little regard, or even knowledge, of the norms of a liberal democracy. And they came on the heels of Trump's frankly surreal, 77-minute, tongue-lashing of the press last Thursday.

It was a performance that staggered the imagination. For more than an hour and fifteen minutes, Trump scolded reporters he didn't like and heaped praise on those he did. - More...
Wednesday PM - February 22, 2017