Alaska Science: Archaeologist creates a field guide to coffee cans By NED ROZELL - The year is 1905. You are a prospector in Alaska relaxing in your cabin after a chilly day of working the tailings pile. Craving a cup of joe, you pull a tin of coffee off the shelf. Though you can’t imagine it, that distinctive red can, the one you will later use for your precious supply of nails, will long outlive you. And it will give an archaeologist a good idea of when you made your Alaska home.

Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Steve Lanford with a Hills Bros. coffee can.
BLM photo by Craig McCaa

The coffee was Hills Bros. The can was vacuum-sealed. For more than a decade, no other coffee company mastered this technique that was first used with butter. This made Hills Bros. of San Francisco the primary choice of early Gold Rush cabin dwellers. The pungent beverage was so popular in Alaska it inspired a local archaeologist to produce a field guide, the “Hills Bros. Coffee Can Chronology.”

Steve Lanford of the Bureau of Land Management in Fairbanks finds Hills Bros. cans valuable because he finds the sturdy cans at old cabin sites all over interior Alaska. Lanford knows that designers at the company changed the label often enough that the cans are a diagnostic tool helpful when estimating when someone lived at a site.

“They didn’t leave their diary on the table,” Lanford said of the gold and adventure seekers who built cabins all over Alaska. “But these coffee cans show up often enough in their dumps to give us good information.”

Lanford has rooted through the trash heaps of old cabin sites and older prehistoric sites throughout the Interior for the past dozen years. He teamed with BLM’s Robin Mills to produce the field guide to Hills Bros. cans. His goal was to create a tool for archaeologists.

“This lets us walk away from the site and not disturb it, and it allows us not to take up space in a museum with cans,” Lanford said.

Old trash is sometimes of great value to archaeologists, Lanford said. - More...
Wednesday - November 03, 2010

Alaska: Federal Experts to Help with Anchorage Homelessness - With more than 20 deaths on the streets of Anchorage in or around the homeless community over the past several months, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) has secured the assistance of the federal agency which deals with homelessness. At the senator’s request, two of the agency’s top officials plan to travel to Anchorage next month to help local leaders address the tragic problem.

“I am pleased to learn some of the country’s leading experts on homelessness are coming to Anchorage to try to help with the growing crisis around homelessness and death in public places,” Begich said. “Perhaps with local, state and federal officials working together, a clear plan of action can move forward to safeguard this population.”

Concerned by the extraordinary number of Alaskans dying on the streets, Begich in September wrote a letter to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) seeking assistance. In a response earlier this month, the agency called Anchorage’s homeless situation “alarming” and said USICH Deputy Director Jennifer Ho and Regional Homelessness Coordinator for Region 10, Paul Carlson, will travel to Anchorage Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 to meet with local officials. - More...
Monday - November 01, 2010

National: Worries arise about possible government monitoring of social media By CED KURTZ - Under new legislation being devised by the Obama administration, the government would be able to listen in on all your Internet communications -- Twitter, Facebook, Skype and others.

The administration plans to propose to Congress legislation that would require all companies with products allowing Internet communication to build in a back door to their encryption. That way the government could quickly monitor conversations.

This would, for the first time, bring peer-to-peer communications services such as Facebook and Skype under the same government surveillance requirements imposed on telecoms by the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act.

Court authorization would still be required.

All of this is, of course, in the name of fighting crime and preventing terrorism, in a time when technology is advancing so quickly that the government is falling behind in its ability to crack communications of terrorists and criminals. - More...
Monday - November 01, 2010

Viewpoints
Opinions/Letters
Basic Rules

RE: Miller Time By Laura Plenert - Mr. Hanger, why can you never be concise in your comments?? And why are you always calling names and blaming others for everything?? Your points might be taken seriously if you weren't always accusing and could keep it to a couple of paragraphs. - More...
Friday PM - October 22, 2010

Pro Joe Miller By Debbie Nance - Lisa Murkowski, I have a question. The voters made their choice known and Joe Miller won, yet here you are insisting that you know better. How many other times have you decided you knew better than those you represent??? - More...
Friday PM - October 22, 2010

Write-in Lisa Murkowski By Lyle Simpson - I am a lifetime Alaskan (over 70 years) and I have never seen a campaign as dishonest as the one launched by Joe Miller. His attacks on Lisa Murkowski misrepresented her stand on issues and then he had the audacity to lie about her financial disclosure claiming that she has investments that actually do not exist. Yet, he has not bothered to file his own disclosure statement which was due 6 months ago. what is Joe hiding? He presents himself as a fiscal conservative yet he used the very system that he rails against when he collected farm subsidies for several years. Joe denied taking subsidies but was forced to admit to them when the facts became known. Where is the transparency he promises? How can Alaskans trust Joe when he has lied so much throughout his campaign. - More...
Thursday AM - October 21, 2010

Write-in Lisa Murkowski By Olga Simpson - Alaskans need to be united against outside interest groups who are trying to buy our U.S. Senate seat. Thousands of dollars from Californians, Nevadans, Pennsylvanians and many other outsiders are being poured into Joe Miller's campaign for Alaska's Senate seat. Previous involvement from outside groups have prevented us from utilizing our State's natural resources. Once again these OUTSIDERS want to involve themselves in Alaska's business by removing our influential Senator Lisa Murkowski. As a native born Alaskan, she knows ALL of Alaska well. Every vote she has cast during her tenure has been in Alaska's best interest. - More...
Thursday AM - October 21, 2010

KGBSD vs local nonprofits By Agnes Moran The Ketchikan Gateway School District (KGBSD) has secure sources of funding from the local, state and federal governments. The KGBSD needs to rein in their spending. They need to put off implementing expensive programs such as providing Apple laptops to every high school student until the local economy improves. KGBSD should not be competing with local nonprofits for local charitable resources. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

The Challenge of Fixing Our Economy By Mary Lynne Dahl - As I think about my vote in the upcoming election, I cannot help but make a few comments. I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I am not impressed with or interested in blasting any candidate. I am a fiscal conservative and a social moderate, for what it's worth. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

Write-in LISA MURKOWSKI By Vicki Harsha - It has been a couple of weeks since I wrote my first letter to Sit News asking for answers from either Joe Miller or his supporters. I am still unable to get a response to my questions from his campaign. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

What’s Right For Alaska? By Connie Emmert - Remember how “Hope and Change”  turned out to be something other than what Obama’s voters bargained for?  I think about that every time I hear Lisa say she’s going to do “what’s right for Alaska”.  What does that mean?  It’s an ambiguous phrase. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

Write-in LISA MURKOWSKI By Jonna Cragun - This is my choice. because it's best for Alaska.. and I'm a democrat. The other candidates are too green to get what Alaska needs at the DC level. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

WHO’S REALLY LYING? By Andy Rauwolf - Lisa Murkowski has accused Joe Miller of lying about her record and her vote on health care, repeatedly stating that Joe said she voted for the bill.   I have searched the Web, including Senator Murkowski’s website, and nowhere can I find a video clip or recording of Joe Miller stating she voted for Obamacare.  What Joe has said is taken directly from Lisa’s statements from videos, namely:  “It’s not so much that the government run plan is in and of itself a bad thing … what we have to have is a government run plan that actually works.” This and other recorded statements she has made leave little doubt that Lisa Murkowski is supportive of some form of government run health care which will ultimately lead to the end of private sector health insurance. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

MILLER TIME By David G. Hanger - That short step to jackboots, brownshirts, and storm troopers has now been taken by this nut job, Joe Miller. I think now you can clearly see that what I said then is not in any sense an exaggeration of current circumstance. He has his own hired goons and thugs who now handcuff and kidnap anyone who asks questions of this man who wants to be our Senator, but refuses to answer any questions whatsoever about his past. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

Standing water on the roadway By Laurie Price - With monsoon rains of late I have notice more standing water on the highway. It could be an easy fix if the state would muck out the grass and dirt build up from under the guard rails allowing for proper drainage. - More...
Wednesday PM - October 20, 2010

'Personal Responsibility' By Virginia E. Atkinson - Bullying in this country is so out of control thanks to too much negative news coverage and all the copy-cats coming out of the woodworks 'cause they have that strong desire for a few minutes of fame and shame. Bullies ought to be treated like any other criminals 'cause it involves individuals harming others around them. - More...
Wednesday PM- October 20, 2010

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