Aug. 17, 1970
To arms for Lynn Canal Players
“Pipe-wrappers, to arms!” is the cry sounded by the board of directors of the Lynn Canal Community Players in an effort to prepare the Chilkat Center for the coming winter.
Water pipes must be heat-taped and insulated before the freezing weather arrives, and the board has set this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, for the work days.
All LCCP members are urged to don work clothes and come to the Center starting at 9 Saturday morning. Be prepared to crawl through dingy basement spaces and hazardous wall openings, the board warns.
Pipes have always been drained (or frozen!) during the winter season in the past, and this year it is the fervent hope of the board that full facilities will be available throughout the winter.
Aug. 17, 1995
Loomis 3-time winner of top award
Thomas Bruk is going out to pasture in style. The 19-year-old Arabian gelding wore a blue ribbon after his final competition at the Southeast Alaska State Fair Horse Show Friday, as rider Erica Loomis became the first three-time winner of the 4-H High Point Champion Trophy.
The 25th anniversary of the fair horse show drew 25 competitors for three days of competition and crowned champions in eight divisions.
“I’ve been working hard. I ride him at least once a day,” said the Haines 17-year-old, who competed in four classes of competition to win the division.
Bruk and Loomis have been together since 1989 and have won several competitions together in addition to the 4-H trophy the two previous years. But after Loomis graduates from high school next spring, she’ll be heading to Oregon, where she’ll take the white chestnut show horse to spend his last days munching grass unbridled.
Aug. 19, 2010
‘White’ glacier bear north of Wells gives guide a thrill
Jetboat tour captain Jono Greene spotted a white bear cub Saturday while guiding about two miles upriver from Wells Bridge.
Greene was giving a tour to 18 cruise passengers when he saw a black dot at a place known as “Bear Slide.” The avalanche chute is an interesting spot where green brush grows from soil on top of a year-round snowpack.
“I like to point it out because it’s an anomaly, though I never saw a bear there,” Greene said. Through binoculars he could see the dot was a black bear, then after moving the boat closer, he saw a smaller, white animal walking along side it.
“First my brain says ‘It’s a fox. Then, ‘It’s a dog.’ My brain would not process what my eyes were looking at.” It was a white bear, and not a blond one, either he said.
“I’ve seen a lot of blonde brown bears. It was definitely not blonde. It was white like a polar bear cub,” but with a black bear cub’s shape, he said.
About a dozen clients snapped photos that company owner Don ‘Duck’ Hess reviewed. Hess said he’s never seen anything like the white bear in 45 years on the river.