August 19, 2014 – Festival is Klukwan’s blueberry celebration
Klukwan’s second annual Blueberry Festival kicks off at 8:30 a.m. Friday, Aug. 29, with new games and workshops designed to celebrate the berries.
The festival runs through Saturday, with events held at the ANS Hall and Klukwan Assembly of God Church.
Blueberry-themed contests include photos, arts and crafts, jam, jelly, syrup, vinegar, vinaigrette and baked goods. Contest entries must be turned in at the Klukwan ANS Hall or clinic by 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28.
Organizer Joanne Elsie Spud said she decided to throw in the vinegar and vinaigrette categories this year. “I’ve seen more people making that and using that around here in the last couple years,” Spud said.
Friday’s festivities begin at 8:30 a.m. with a blueberry pancake feed. Gluten-free pancakes will be available. At 11 a.m., festival attendees can dine on fry bread with jams and jellies from the contest entries.
From 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., attendees can view contest entries, and from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., games will be set up. A new addition involves throwing a small, blue gel ball into a bucket to win a prize.
A silent auction will also run throughout the day.
At 2 p.m., Lani Hotch will lead a workshop on the cottage food industry and how to make blueberry-orange nut bread.
Hotch, whose workshop is funded by a SEARHC traditional foods grant, said she will present on the government regulation of cottage foods.
“Cottage food is a special class of foods that you can sell at farmers markets and bazaars and it doesn’t have to come under food safety inspection, because it isn’t easily spoiled,” Hotch said.
Hotch has taught three cottage food industry workshops, featuring berry vinegars/vinaigrettes, zucchini relish and blueberry-orange marmalade. “Hopefully, people will be inspired to make their own recipes and sell things during our tours or during the farmers market.”
A blueberry pancake feed also opens the festival at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, followed by a blueberry-picking storytelling session with Jim Stevens and Hotch at 10:30 a.m. “A couple years ago, (Stevens) was stranded up on the mountain when he went up for picking, and he was up there overnight,” Spud said.
A burger feed with blueberry-themed side dishes starts at 11 a.m. Games, contest entries, and a silent auction with new items will also be set up Saturday.
Walking tours will be available throughout the day for $15, Spud said. Daniel Klanott will lead the tour to the longhouse and traditional knowledge camp, and will tell the story of the wall screen and totem pole there, she said.
For more information, contact Spud at [email protected].
August 26, 1999 – State traps dump bears
Problem bruins get flight to new home
By Steve Williams
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will attempt to relocate as many as six brown bears that have marauded around homes on FAA, Small Tracts and Mud Bay roads following the closure of the Haines Sanitation landfill this month.
State wildlife officials used a large barrel trap at the landfill to catch a two-year-old brown bear Wednesday. It will be held until its mother and sibling can be trapped.
The trio will then be flown south about 30 miles to the Endicott River valley, said biologist Neil Barton. “(The two-year-old) would stand a pretty good chance of survival, but we’re not going to break up a family unit.
The bruin family, a separate mother and cub, and a single adult male started showing up in neighborhood backyards about a week ago.
Carr’s Cove resident Teri Podsiki said bears have visited her home almost nightly. “The first time they got a little dog food. One time the cub was standing in our swimming pool. We hadn’t seen a bear at our place in three years. Now we see them every night.”
The family dog was bitten on the back the first night, but wasn’t seriously injured.
A hundred yards down the road, a bear killed a dozen chickens at a Small Tracts home, and left a broken mirror, chewed rubber molding and footprints all over Wren Ramirez’s pickup. “They’d been coming around for a couple nights. They may have been trying to get inside.”
Mud Bay Road resident Tiana Taylor came home to find her backdoor clawed. “It looked as if he took his paws and tried to open the door. I think he was trying to follow the cat through the cat door.”
Bears accustomed to feeding at the landfill’s open pit associate humans with food, said Haines Sanitation president Lynda Walker. The bruins boldly approach company trucks and earth-moving equipment. “They’re not afraid of us anymore. Now they know we bring food, we see them everyday.” Walker said her two-man landfill crew carries guns, and on Monday a worker touched off a firecracker and shot one of the bears with a rubber bullet to scare it away.
Biologist Barton said he’ll use three methods to capture the bears for relocation before they become even more aggressive.
Barrel traps, five-foot-diameter culvert sections set with spring-loaded doors and baited with salmon carcasses, worked Wednesday on the two-year-old but may not on an older bear. “Older bears are reluctant to go inside a trap.”
Barton and state wildlife protection officer Ike Lorentz set snare traps Wednesday, and have a rifle loaded with tranquilizer darts in case they get a clear shot at one of the bears in the open. “It takes two-three minutes for the tranquilizer to work, but we may try it if we can get the sow in a place where we can dart her.”
Barton hopes the bears can be captured and relocated to the Endicott, where an abundant pink salmon run may prove more attractive than the 32-mile return trip. “If there’s enough food for them down there, they may just stay put. That’s what we’re hoping.”
Barton said relocation is rarely successful, but worth a try in this case. “It doesn’t always work, but it does in some cases. If we didn’t think it would work here, we wouldn’t try it…If we can get them in an area with salmon, they may not walk back.”
If the bears return, Barton said they likely will be destroyed. “We’re giving them an opportunity to go straight. If they come back here, we’ll have to kill them. We won’t (relocate the bears) a second time.”
Two previous Haines relocation attempts were unsuccessful. In 1993, biologists were unable to capture in a barrel trap a male brown bear that was threatening campers at Chilkoot Lake, and in the early 1980s a sow and cub relocated from downtown Haines to the Katzehin River returned to the Chilkat Valley by walking around Lynn Canal through Skagway.
August 22, 1974 – Tagged cohos are being found
Department of Fish and Game biologists are recovering tagged coho salmon which are part of a commercial fisheries research program in Southeastern Alaska.
More than 20,000 juvenile coho salmon in the Taku, Berners and Chilkat river systems were marked in the project in 1972. About 70 of the marked fish have been recovered this year.
Of the recovered fish, 27 came from the Taku River, three from the Chilkat River and one from Berners Bay.
In marking the fish, biologists removed one adipose fin and applied a fluorescent pigment which is visible only under black light.
The department expects the marking program to provide valuable information on the migration and timing of the local coho runs.
All sport and commercial fishermen in Southeastern Alaska are urged to notify the Department of Fish and Game when they find a coho salmon with one adipose fin missing. The fish should be saved so that biologists can examine it under the black light to determine its river of origin.