Elisabeth Laurel Ford was born to Lilly and Michael Ford on Sept. 13 at 3:25 AM, weighing in at 7 pounds 1 ounce and 19 and a half inches. Her arrival was much awaited as Lilly had to spend more than two months in Anchorage for precautionary reasons. Elisabeth is joined by big sister Abilena and big brother Judah. “Her siblings love her to pieces, she is super healthy and very lively and happy. The family is doing well and excited to get back home to introduce the community to their new addition.
Liz Segars successfully shot her first mountain goat last weekend. “It was all great until the pack down. Fran Daly and I couldn’t find the trail, bushwhacked for seven hours, got to cliff edges several times, but finally got to my waypoint on my GPS and made it to the truck about 1 a.m,” said Liz. The gorgeous weather made the process of skinning out the goat easy and Fran enjoyed the successful hunt with her friend.
Coincidently, Carlos Jimenez, Liz Segars uncle, also shot the first moose of the 2019 season the same day. Carlos was hunting with his son Hayden Jimenez,12, when the three -brow -tine moose was taken. The family is looking forward to processing the meat for the coming winter.
Angie Robinson is in town to help her parents Duck and Karen Hess pull their Chilkat River Adventure boats to dry dock over the winter. Angie is a heavy equipment 406 operator and ran the 1968 friction crane for her parents successfully on a beautiful sunny day. “The last day of the 2019 season and the greatest thing is that our daughter Angie is running the crane,” said proud mom Karen. Keith Keiser mentored Angie during the successful haul out.
Joe Ordonez recently returned from a cruise with the World of Residensea. This ship has a unique approach to cruising- the staterooms are owned by the ship residents and the ship travels around the world on a three-year cycle. Joe first traveled from Whitehorse to Yellowknife, NWT and on to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, where he boarded the vessel for a section of its Northwest Passage cruise. Joe served as an Alaskan lecturer, skiff driver and naturalist guide. Joe said the highlight was the sighting of a female polar bear with two cubs at the edge of the sea ice. Joe plans to share his journey with Haines residents later this fall with a public presentation.
The last Raven and Bear running event was held last weekend. Organizers Keely and Jordan Baumgartner said it was another successful event which piggy -backed the high school cross country races. For the kids 1-mile run, Colton Combs took the top spot followed by Finn McMahan and Isaac Jones. For girls, Anna Bella came in first, then CC Elliott and Brinley Ganey. For the community 5k, Chandler Kemp took first with a time of 16:44, followed by Ben Bard with a time of 19:36 and Dalton Henry with 20:48. For the girls Ari’el Godinez Long took first with a time of 22:30 followed by Alissa Henry at 23:23 and Ashlyn Ganey with 24:15.
Christine Hansen and John Loverink became engaged earlier this summer with an adventurous Seaplanes flight. “We flew over Snettisham and North Sawyer Glacier and to Tracy Arm. We saw a lone humpback whale and a cruise ship way up near the Sawyer Glacier. One or two sailboats were floating about. We landed in Ice Fall Lake, and as we taxied for takeoff our good friend Sam Steensland who was flying the plane, handed me a checklist and asked me to read the checklist for takeoff. I started reading, and in the last paragraph, “Will you marry me?” was underlined. John was kneeling next to his seat. I quickly responded, oh my gosh, no, but I was so surprised I quickly said, yes!”, said Christine. The couple enjoyed some champagne on the float, in the hot sun, enjoying the beautiful scenery around them. “We flew home over the Juneau Icefield, past Devil’s Paw, Michael’s Sword, The Bunny Ear, Taku Towers, and Mendenhall Towers, before flying down the Mendenhall Glacier and taxiing back to hangar alpha at Alaska Seaplanes,” Christine added.
Old friends bailed out Tom Morphet when he needed tools for an emergency truck repair in Palmer during the Alaska State Fair. Morphet figured he’d phone former Haines city administrator Tom Healy to borrow a socket set, but he couldn’t find Healy’s number. He flagged down a policeman who turned out to be former Haines resident Jamie Hammons. Jamie called Healy, who showed up with the tools. On a trip through the state, Morphet also visited sisters Eileen and Kerry McIver in Healy, Alaska. Eileen’s short film, “Denali Winter Explained” won Best Comedy and Audience Choice awards at the Highway Walkers Film Festival last winter. She’s using proceeds from sales of a longer film to fund a documentary she’s creating on the Healy Coal Queens, the town’s women’s hockey team. The team of mine workers, national park employees and dog mushers plays outdoors through winter in bone-numbing temperatures. Kerry McIver, a high school math teacher, recently bought a house on Stampede Road, the route to the famed Magic Bus of doomed sojourner Chris McCandless. The sisters have come to the aid of pilgrims from around the world injured or frostbitten in their attempts to reach the bus.