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Ketchikan: The Day that Margaret Bell saved two plane crash victims; Local author, who wrote about 'heroes', 'heroines,' was also one in real life By DAVE KIFFER - The  most successful author to have called the Ketchikan area home was Margaret Bell, who published a dozen novels in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Focusing on their younger protagonists, Bell's novels - published by major companies like Morrow - are what would now be called "young adult" novels and featured many stories that she had lived in her decades in Alaska.

Margaret Bell on Gravina Island  beach across Tongass  Narrows from Ketchikan
Source: Ballard Hadman  Collection, Ketchikan Museums
Courtesy: Alaska State Library

But one day, in 1965, Margaret Bell became a "heroine" in a real life Alaskan adventure story.

For many years, Bell lived in the village of Loring, more than a dozen miles north of Ketchikan, using her black and white former Navy boat to go back and forth between her home and Ketchikan. And that was what she was doing the day she participated in a dramatic rescue.

According to the February 2, 1965 edition of the Ketchikan Daily News; Don Moore, 35, a shift engineer at the Ketchikan Pulp Company and Tim Victorson, 21, a KPC power house employee had taken Moore's single engine Luscombe float plane for a flight and landed in the waters of Moeser Bay, between Knudsen Cove and Loring.

"Moore gunned the engine of the little plane for the take-off from smooth waters," the Daily News reported. "Then something happened. Moore said that with about 200 feet altitude, the controls jammed, the plane nosed down.  He regained control, but it was too late, as one wing dragged, dumping the plane into the water, smashing one float and seriously damaging the rest of the plane, except for the engine."

As luck would have it Bell was returning from Knudsen Cove to Loring after dropping off her husband, Sam Wiks, who was heading to Ketchikan for his regular shift on the Alaska State Ferry Malaspina.

"Moore and Victorson crawled out of the wreckage, which did not sink," the Daily News reported.  "With the paddles they managed to get the wreckage ashore after half an hour of arduous effort. They struggled along the rough shore toward a cabin, each step for Moore (who had a spinal injury) a painful movement.  Then they heard the purr of Margaret Wiks 10-horsepower engine, heard her cut the speed, attracted by the plane wreckage.  Then she saw the castaways."

The Daily News reported that that Bell picked up the two men and headed for nearby Deep Bay where she knew a resident had a radio.

"As they sped along, a sheer-pin broke and our heroine found she had no tools for the replacement," the Daily News reported. "They all paddled, or rowed for half an hour or so.  Then, Moore, getting stiffer from his injury all the time, discovered a pair of pliers.  They went ashore and Victorson replaced the errant pin.  Soon they made Deep Bay."

The Coast Guard was contacted and the cutter Cape Romain rendezvoused with them in Clover Pass. The two men were taken to Knudsen Cove and an ambulance took them to the hospital.

"Mrs. Wiks gunned the little motor (of her boat) and headed once again for Canoe Pass, the route home, not knowing that she had become a heroine," the Daily News concluded. - More...
Monday PM - May 08, 2017

Alaska: Wasting disease devastates Kachemak Bay sea star populations By LAUREN FRISCH - In one year, sea stars have almost disappeared from Kachemak Bay, Alaska.

A sea star with wasting disease lies on Kachemak Bay’s shore in spring 2016. Wasting disease caused this star’s arm to disconnect from its body.
Photo by Brenda Konar

This is likely the aftermath of a sea star wasting disease episode. The disease causes lesions, and may result in the loss of arms, making a sea star look as if it is melting or decomposing. Similar episodes have been spreading across the southern coast of Alaska and as far south as Baja California.

“In spring 2016 we counted 180 sea stars during our intertidal surveys, which was high in the books,” said Brenda Konar, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. “Just one year later, we counted only five sea stars.”

Konar and CFOS professor Katrin Iken are part of Gulf Watch Alaska, a monitoring program established by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council to better understand how intertidal and other marine ecosystems were affected by the 1989 oil spill. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tide. Konar and Iken monitor Kachemak Bay on the Kenai Peninsula near Homer.

Their transect lines are small subsections of the intertidal at various locations around Kachemak Bay. They are used to represent the entire bay. These snapshots are helpful, because you can’t measure every beach in Kachemak Bay. By monitoring these transect lines every year, Iken and Konar can get a sense of how the bay is changing over time.

Sea stars are important top predators in intertidal ecosystems. They help keep prey populations in check, which helps maintain species diversity. Without sea stars, the kinds of species that dominate these intertidal communities could change.

“We will have to keep monitoring this area to see any long-term changes,” Iken said. “It could be that the prey of sea stars, such as mussels, limpets or chitons become more abundant, or maybe other predators become more abundant for at least awhile.” - More...
Monday PM - May 08, 2017

COLUMNS - COMMENTARY

Next on the agenda other than trolling for May kings around here, is a trip to California for a wedding, then to Montana for fly fishing adventures near Yellowstone National Park. 

Yeah, I know, it’s weird. Every summer I have to explain why I would leave the state for two weeks or so when I endured a winter specifically to enjoy the outdoor summer bonanza. 

It’s one of those things you have to do once in a while to remember why you live here. 

The wedding is near Truckee, so it is surrounded by really great high Sierra Nevada trout waters. Since the hotel was filled, I rented a little cottage on a river and plan on arriving a day early to harass some trout. - More...
Monday PM - May 08, 2017

CHRISTINE FLOWERS: House GOP to the Sick: Suffer More - 35 years ago this week, my father passed away at the age of 43. 50 years ago this week, my baby brother was born. He never saw his 43rd birthday, dying unexpectedly at 30. These two events have always been connected in my mind by the proximity of time and the poignancy of loss: I miss you Daddy, happy birthday Jon.

Rarely do I think of one without the other, even in normal times. But these are not normal times. These are the days when we have started to examine the character of our society, forced into this moral contact sport by outside events (the election of a president some love and some hate) and an evolving sense of justice (Black Lives Matter, LGBT Lives Matter, Unborn Life Matters).

The thing that has really brought that into focus for me has been the health-care debate. As I write this column, the GOP attempt to dismantle Obamacare has cleared the first hurdle, in the House.

I'm not trembling, because I have insurance. It's not the best kind or the cheapest, and I have no love for the company that presumably protects me, but I have insurance. - More...
Monday PM - May 08, 2017

SUSAN STAMPER BROWN: Cleaning Up Democrats' Health Care Mess - Last time they were in charge, Democrats created the dumpster fire we know as Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, which is nothing more than a failed wealth redistribution experiment.

Historians will look back at the Obama years and note the rise of Democrat Party lemmings who threw themselves off the Obamacare Cliff in a fit of melodramatic sanctimoniousness. They will question why Democrats passed a bill they knew from the beginning was a pile of excrement and then left it for someone else to clean up.

And that cleanup is upon us, given some people are asked to pay premiums the equivalent of small house payments to pay for policies requiring $10,000 (or more) in out-of-pocket costs. Ironically, Democrats promised Obamacare would lower costs.

Historians will also ask how leading Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama never second-guessed their decisions even while watching Obamacare collapse from within. - More...
Monday PM - May 08, 2017