By Tom Morphet
Mayor Fred Shields has joined proponents of a "sea walk"
extending from Port Chilkoot to Nukdik Point.
Shields recently advanced the idea at meetings of the borough assembly
and Haines Chamber of Commerce. In a recent interview, he envisioned a waterfront
boardwalk, possibly with totems and Native heritage displays, paid for with revenues from
a new cruise ship head tax.
"I think it would be another centerpiece for the community,"
Shields said.
Compared to other communities, the Haines waterfront is unique, Shields
told the chamber at its annual banquet. "Do we need heavy development on the
waterfront or should it stay beautiful? We’re unique in the whole world in that we
didn’t give away the most beautiful waterfront. It’s actually a valuable asset
just the way it is."
The idea of a "continuous pedestrian corridor" originated
with a 2001 City of Haines plan for public spaces around town. It called for the borough
to work with private landowners to provide an easement for such a walkway.
Assemblywoman Deborah Vogt last year directed the borough’s
planning commission to revisit the 2001 plan and to determine whether any of its
recommendations should be incorporated into the borough’s comprehensive plan.
Planning commission chairman Lee Heinmiller said his group would be
reviewing the borough’s comprehensive plan in the coming months, and expects it will
make recommendations for the borough to buy land and change the plan to accommodate a
waterfront walk.
"We need to line out the real estate before the area develops and
we can’t put in the connections (for a walkway)," Heinmiller said. "We
haven’t gotten around to scheduling a waterfront discussion but we will sometime
soon, since the borough seems to be morphing its harbor plans."
Specifically, the commission will be studying land ownership and space
between the harbor and Nukdik Point, where a walkway may have to squeeze between the
narrow Front Street right-of-way and two dozen, skinny waterfront lots.
Heinmiller has his own vision of a waterfront path, one that would
extend southeast to the state’s walk-in campground, with an electric shuttle bus
ferrying visitors along a beachside arc. He conceded the dream faces some big obstacles,
including poor traffic flow due to bad connections north at Lutak Road and south at Haines
Highway.
"It’s hard to plan harbor development with the transportation
corridor being so lame. (It’s difficult) to get there and get back." A sharp
turn between the highway and Front Street could be softened by re-routing the street
through a mothballed tank farm nearby, Heimiller said.
"It’s an open slate for how nice it could be for integrating
the waterfront area with downtown."
In the short term, brushing out a path and adding signs to direct
pedestrians through the harbor parking lot and to the north side of Front Street would be
a good start, Heinmiller said. "It shouldn’t be that hard to have a walking
corridor that’s interesting and inviting."
Commission member Don Turner III said he’s not opposed to a
waterfront walk, but questions whether it’s realistic, considering right-of-way
issues and private land ownership at the old village site on Front Street.
"(Front Street) is already narrow and I don’t want to make it
one-way just for a walkway and I don’t know if landowners there want to give up their
property for it, or not without a lot of money," Turner said.
Turner said he wasn’t opposed to the idea of acquiring property
but didn’t want "to spend a ton of money" to acquire acreage from private
landowners along the stretch. He suggested expanding picnic and park areas between Lookout
Park and Port Chilkoot Dock would improve public areas around the waterfront.
Harbor RV Park manager Joyce Town said she would like to see a
boardwalk straddling the beach north of the boat harbor toward Nukdik Point instead of a
path paralleling Front Street.
To access the water, her customers have to walk about a block because
her beachfront embankment is too steep to descend. "That would be a perfect spot. I
have a lot of people who want to go down to the beach."
