About 100 apple trees brought to Haines in May may be planted on the south side of Main Street between Third Avenue and Old Haines Highway, along the south side of Old Haines Highway between Lutak Lumber and Third Avenue and at Fort Seward this fall.

That’s the current vision of Joe Poor, chair of the Haines Chamber of Commerce economic development committee, who started the project by bringing several varieties of dwarf apples to town.

“So far, it’s all been positive,” said Poor, who is working on spacing, distribution and permission of landowners.

Discussions with snow plow drivers and property owners make him hopeful about his location plan, which would plant trees about 30 feet apart and several feet into properties from sidewalks.

Pam Randles, who runs the school’s composting program, said she’d be interested in incorporating the trees into the gardening project. Poor is hoping to get high school students involved, too.

“Ownership is really important for getting people to take care of them,” Poor said. The trees will grow to 15 feet and should yield full-size apples, he said.

Poor said he’s more concerned about the trees surviving than he is about possible problems with the trees attracting bears, moose and other wildlife to downtown.

“We figure, what the heck, if moose come into town, that’s an opportunity for our visitors to get some good pictures,” he said this week.

Shannon Donahue, who works for the Division of Parks as Chilkoot bear monitor, said keeping black bears and deer away from apple trees in Missoula, Mont. was a big part of her job there with the Great Bear Foundation the last three years.

Missoula was historically an apple-growing hub and daily bear visitations prompted the town to pass a law requiring fruit to be removed from the ground at all times and for a tree visited by a bear to be picked clean.

“We coordinated volunteers to help people pick their fruit,” Donahue said. “They do end up putting down a lot of bears there, depending on the year.”

Brown bears are attracted to apples but generally don’t climb as well as black bears, she said, which might lessen a potential problem here.

“I’d recommend electric fencing, and to clean up all the windfall apples and pick the rest of the apples as soon as they’re ripe,” Donahue said.

In Missoula, the apple harvest was a community event that would benefit the local food bank, while bringing people together to pick and make cider, she said. “If it’s planned out, it’s great. Local food security is great. It just needs to be well thought out,” Donahue said.

Resident Rob Golberg has grown apple trees at this property at 6 Mile Mud Bay Road for 20 years and has 10 trees.

He erected a nine-foot fence to keep moose out, but that didn’t keep out juvenile black bears. He put up two strands of electric fence which has worked to separate them from his apples.

“When they start making fruit, bears can be there,” Goldberg said, although he said downtown Haines may not have the same issues.

The apple trees at the Sheldon Museum has lasted for decades, apparently without causing bear problems, he noted.

Goldberg has lost trees to cold, snowless weather and now insulates the bases of them with up to a foot of leaves. He also wraps small trees around posts to provide support from snow. “It’s a challenge to keep the trees alive,” he said.

Poor said he’d like to have a big community turnout in September to plant the trees. The trees will blossom with white and perhaps other-colored flowers, he said. “It should be quite pretty in the spring.”

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