Native groups and the State of Alaska have cleaned up and cordoned off a Haines Highway pullout that for decades attracted squatters, partiers and illegal trash dumpers.
“The main thing is it was getting to be an environmental issue. People were camped out here and trash was piled up two feet high,” said resident Tim Ackerman, a local tribal member who pushed for the effort at 7 Mile Haines Highway.
The cleanup was a coordinated effort between the Department of Transportation, Sealaska regional Native corporation and Chilkoot Indian Association.
Besides trash, the area was littered with trailers, appliances, furniture and old vehicles. The turning point came last year when a man living at the site was indicted in a number of crimes, including shooting a family of brown bears and stealing an ATV from a nearby gravel pit.
“The bandit kid put the kibosh on it,” said Ackerman, who sent photos of the trashed site to Sealaska, which owns the historic Native fishing camp in protectorship for the tribe.
CIA administrator Harriet Brouillette said the tribe and Sealaska signed a memorandum of agreement three years ago to have the tribe maintain the land. Under its historic designation, the land can’t be developed and is to be used by tribal members for traditional purposes, she said.
“This area has been used and abused. It’s been hard for tribal members to stand by and watch,” Brouillette said. She said even many residents aren’t aware the pullout is Native land.
“Hopefully, with knowledge about what the land means to the tribe, people may behave differently out there,” said Brouillette.
Ackerman was parked at 7 Mile this week, watching goats on a mountainside. With the junk removed, the riverside pullout is a pretty spot, in a grove of cottonwoods and with a view toward the Kicking Horse Valley, he said.
Residents of the highway neighborhood are determined that the area not become trashed again, he said. “The message is clear. Everybody is watching it.”
Ackerman said he was concerned that closure of an area across the street from the pullout known as “The Redneck Rifle Range” has pushed shooters up to a site at 24 Mile that’s now being trashed and contaminated with lead.
“There needs to be something somewhere to accommodate people who just need a place to sight their guns in” that’s not as expensive as the $35 membership required to use the Haines Sportsman’s Association rifle range, Ackerman said.
Michele Metz, lands manager for Sealaska, said the corporation was hoping to work with the state to create parking at 7 Mile opposite from the Native site. The corporation also would like to see better signage there.
“The short-term action was to clean up the area and give it some protection,” Metz said.
Overnight camping is prohibited at the site, which is for day use by Natives only, Metz said. “We’ve spoken to the state trooper and he’s willing to give us some help with that.”
Users of the site are asked to haul out garbage, as there are no plans to put either trash cans or rest rooms there. State DOT spokesman Jeremy Woodrow said that due to budget cuts, his agency is looking at eliminating trash cans and outhouses it already maintains along the state’s roads.
The property includes state right-of-way and Native land.