A proposed Chilkat Valley recreational memorial site at 25 Mile Haines Highway would honor deceased Haines residents who have promoted the outdoors for at least a decade of their lives.
Jim Stanford has been making plans for the memorial site for eight years now. He imagines a place that pays tribute to old friends and active sportsmen while also encouraging recreation at a popular area for snowmachining, walking, skiing and hiking.
“There’s been very little organized recognition of these folks,” Stanford said.
Stanford said that a general plan has been submitted to Alaska State Parks, which manages the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve the 25 Mile site is within, and is pending approval, but will likely consist of a kiosk memorial and a ring of benches around a fire pit.
Preston Kroes, area superintendent at state parks, said his team is working to make Stanford’s plan compliant with agency regulations, which encourages “serv(ing) a bonafide recreational purpose” and discourages “plaque-only types of memorials.”
“We really want people to be able to interact with or utilize it, so we’ve been working with Jim on something more compatible,” Kroes said.
If the plan goes through, Stanford hopes to break ground by summer. He anticipates using all volunteer labor and material donations to facilitate the memorial.
Local skiers, snowmachine racers, and climbers who have organized and promoted outdoor activity are among those to be honored by the memorial.
In order to qualify, candidates will be required to have dedicated at least 10 years of service, Stanford said.
Bobbi Figdor, former elementary school teacher who died of cancer in 2005 at age 59, was an outdoors lover known for bringing students skiing out the highway once a week, her husband said.
“One of the things (Bobbi) tried to do was get kids out in the community and experience the things adults did,” George Figdor said. “She had kids climbing (Mount) Ripinski at five years old.”
Pete Lapham was a crew chief at Department of Transportation and an avid snowmachine racer who helped organize and direct the ALCAN 200 for more than 30 years before he died at age 62 in 2011.
“Our whole lives were racing and riding,” wife Diana Lapham said. “If Pete wasn’t plowing, we would be out on snowmachines.”
Bruce Gilbert, who died last year at 86, was described by his friend and fellow climber Paul Swift as a mountaineer and an outdoorsman who ascended Mount Denali in Alaska, Mount Rainier in Washington and Mount Logan in Canada.
Gilbert was among the first 90 people to summit Mount Logan in 1973, a trip that took 23 days up and back, Swift said this week.
Other honorees Stanford proposes include: Guy Hoffman, an avid skater, skier, musher and dog race marshal; Dennis Miles, a snowmachiner and skier who maintained the trail at 25 Mile out of pocket; Lawrence Willard, who assisted with winter events like the ALCAN; Dan Katzeek of Klukwan, a dog musher and winter adventurer; Pat Jones, who supplied the Haines school with skis and was a founding member of the ski club; Erwin Hertz, who began the Mad Raft Race on the Chilkoot River every Fourth of July.
Stanford said that he imagines adding to the memorial in the future.
Memorial honorees, with the exception of Gilbert, all passed away at an abnormally young age, Figdor said. “They were all too young when they died, and they all spent times outdoors until the day they died,” he said.
Kroes said that state parks will come to a decision on the memorial permit within the next few months. “We want to see it happen, it’s just a matter of making sure it’s good and is utilized in a way that everybody agrees with,” he said.