I grew up in New Jersey and have lived in Haines for five years. I bought my home in Haines 10 years ago after my first visit to this beautiful and unique place of the world. You can’t catch fish in most of the rivers in New Jersey, can’t live near any river that does have fish, and wouldn’t want to eat anything you were lucky enough to catch one way or the other.
The food, jobs, and beauty that the Chilkat River provides to Haines are rare in today’s world and getting rarer every day. Risking everything we get from the river for a handful of jobs for a decade or less from a major timber sale or mine would be incredibly foolish. There are many towns across America that agreed to take such risks, convinced by some big corporation that they could have it all. In the end they ended up with nothing. Let’s not make the same mistake. We need to keep the Chilkat clean and productive for generations to come.
Neil Einsbruch