10 years ago 

The Chilkat Indian Village is pursuing protections for the Chilkat River that would prohibit activities affecting the river’s water quality.

The village submitted a proposal to the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve Advisory Council last week requesting the river be designated as an Outstanding National Resource Water, which protects waters of exceptional recreational, environmental or ecological significance and prohibits any degradation of the waterway.

“In the context of the (federal) Clean Water Act, it’s basically the highest designation protection level that is afforded a water,” said Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Water program manager Earl Crapps.

There are no Outstanding National Resource Water designations in Alaska. Other states including Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Mexico have awarded the designation, also called “Tier III” protection.

The village’s proposal cites the Chilkat River’s exceptional cultural, ecological, economic and recreational importance to the Chilkat Tlingits and the broader community.

“Our founding fathers chose this location because of its abundance of wild stock salmon and other natural resources. Those abundant resources have not only sustained our people for countless generations, but it also sustains the Alaska residents that make the Chilkat and Klehini River valleys their homes,” the proposal said.

How the village might acquire the designation is unclear. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, states are required to adopt policies that allow such a designation to be made. Alaska hasn’t.

In the meantime, the Chilkat Indian Village’s only recourse would seem to be lobbying the Alaska Legislature to introduce a bill that would designate the Chilkat River as an Outstanding National Resource Water.

Chilkat Indian Village Tribal Council President Jones Hotch Jr. said village representatives have been visiting Juneau to talk to legislators. “It’s to protect the river to make sure we get our wild stock salmon to keep spawning,” Hotch said of the proposal.

Hotch wouldn’t say what the village is trying to protect the Chilkat River from, and declined to comment on whether it was a preemptive protection effort against the potential development of the Constantine Mine.

15 years ago 

Coast Guard and National Guard helicopter crews on Wednesday rescued a 28-year-old Skagway skier who became stranded last weekend on the Meade Glacier in bad weather, seven miles from his food cache. 

Kyle Dungan immediately returned to Skagway and could not be reached for comment at press time Wednesday. 

Rescue efforts started Monday, a day after Dungan failed to appear at a pick-up location on the Meade. He’d set out on a solo kite-skiing adventure on the Juneau Icefield Feb. 20. 

After weather thwarted rescue attempts Monday and Tuesday, Coast Guard rescuers located Dungan and dropped a signal for the lighter-weight National Guard Black Hawk helicopter, which landed and retrieved him from a rough and windblown spot about 3 p.m.

Haines State Trooper Ricky Merritt, who commanded rescue efforts, said Dungan appeared to be in good condition when he landed at the Haines Airport and declined a medical exam. 

Storms and low visibility thwarted efforts to reach Dungan by helicopter or plane, but a pilot was able to locate him Monday during an opening in the weather and determine he was tired and hungry, but uninjured.

Clouds broke again Tuesday afternoon, but low cover prevented a Coast Guard helicopter and a private one from reaching the skier, authorities said.

“He has a sleeping bag, tent, and arctic weather gear,” said trooper Merritt. “If he hunkers down in his tent, he should be okay. He just has to wait it out until we get to him”

Merritt said if helicopters were not able to reach Dungan Wednesday, a small search and rescue team would be dropped on the glacier and hike in to his last known location with enough food and first aid supplies to spend a week waiting for rescue.

“Everyone has their hands tied because of the weather,” Drake Olson, the Haines pilot working with Dungan, said Tuesday. “He has had a time of it up there.”

Olson dropped Dungan on the Meade Glacier Feb. 20 in a Cessna 180 fitted with skis. Dungan planned to kite-ski a large loop around the icefield between the Meade Glacier and the Taku Glacier near Juneau, Olson said. “He had an ambitious program.”

Dungan did not take a satellite phone or other long-range communication device. 

Olson on Sunday piloted his plane to their prearranged meeting place, but Dungan didn’t show. Deteriorating weather forced the pilot back to Haines. 

On Monday, during a brief window in stormy weather, Olson again flew over Meade, locating Dungan about seven miles from the rendezvous point, at about 4,300-feet elevation.

Unable to land due to terrain, Olson dropped a hand-held radio to Dungan, who said he hadn’t eaten in four days and was hungry and tired. He said stormy weather had prevented him from reaching his food cache.

“You are talking difficult conditions,” Olson said. “When things get ugly out there, it’s kind of difficult to contemplate how ugly.

“He had left a cache at a drop-off point and I was really encouraging him to try to make it there… The weather was closing in… I can’t describe how close we were and I couldn’t stay.”

The radio Olson dropped to Dungan has limited range.

Helicopter pilots set off Tuesday afternoon, but visibility over the icefield remained poor and crews were able to get only within three miles of Dungan’s last known location. 

Paul Reichert, tour manager for Temsco Helicopters in Skagway where Dungan worked as a glacier guide in 2008, described him as a strong athlete, climber, and skier. 

Skiing and mountaineering trips on the Juneau Icefield are not uncommon. Reichert said at least one former Skagway resident has done a kite-skiing adventure there. Generally people plan the trips later in the spring, Reichert said, perhaps because days are longer, with fewer storms.

Many solo backcountry adventurers carry satellite phones, which work in most places in the world, though foul weather and geography can sometimes impede signals to satellites.

An official said the Coast Guard does not charge for search and rescue efforts unless the call is determined to be a hoax. Officials were not able to estimate total costs for the rescue at press time.

25 years ago 

A Haines family is in the process of obtaining permits needed to log approximately 92 acres of family Native allotment land near the Ferebee River.

Tlingit and Haida Central Council forest manager Cal Richert told a group of state and federal land managers this week that the Berry family is seeking to cut up to 3.2 million board feet of spruce timber from the family’s 160-acre allotment as soon as the market for raw logs improves.

Richert said the logs could be worth as much as $2 million in a strong market. He said there are no plans to log the land this year. “It’s more likely 2002 if the market gets better by then…. Until the market comes back, we wouldn’t be doing any of this at all.”

Richert, who represents the Berry family, is applying for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a 900 square-foot rock and gravel log-loading facility between the high and low tide lines on the west side of Taiyasanka Harbor. 

The State Department of Natural Resources and Department of Fish and Game must issue permits to build three miles of 12-foot-wide gravel road from the landing to the logging site. 

Richert said the road would be built along the west side of the Ferebee Valley, across two neighboring Native allotments, and pass over the river flats for 1,000 to 1,500 feet. It would be removed after logging is complete to avoid recreational traffic, Richert said. 

He said ground-based logging would be conducted between December and March, and take approximately three months. Workers would live on a boat anchored in Taiyasanka Harbor or commute from Haines to work each day. 

Logs would be loaded onto two or three barges and hauled to the Lutak Dock for shipment. Richert said the Berrys considered helicopter logging the site, but found the cost prohibitive. 

“I know it’s not the best plan for the environment, but helicopter logging would cost $1.5 million, and the owner isn’t thrilled about that.” Richert said helicopter logging could be considered if the state would release adjoining land for logging. “If the state is willing to log with helicopters, then maybe we could reduce the costs.”

But that’s unlikely, since the state currently has no plans to sell Ferebee timber. State forester Roy Josephson said although the area is included in the Haines State Forest timber base, it’s not currently included in a five-year logging plan. “It’s there in the timber base, but we’re not planning to log there anytime in the next five years.” 

The public comment period on the Berrys’ Corps of Engineers permit application to build a log-transfer landing ends April 4.

35 years ago

Attempting to break the cycle of non-funding which has kept the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve largely unstaffed, unstudied and unmanaged since its creation in 1982, the preserve’s advisory council is trying a different funding tack: a legislative solution. 

The group held a special meeting in Juneau last Tuesday to draw attention to the preserve’s penniless plight, timing the session with legislative subcommittee finalization of budgets for the state departments of Fish and Game and Natural Resources. Represented at the meeting were the governor’s office, the DNR commissioner’s office and Rep. Peter Goll. 

Advisory council members came away from the capitol encouraged by the last-minute inclusion of almost $110,000 earmarked for the preserve by those two departments, but wary of the funding’s survival through the budget process. If approved, the money would be the first appropriation ever for operation of the 48,000-acre preserve. 

Some council members this week said that the group’s success in securing money for the eagle preserve may hinge on local input. “We’re pleading,” business representative Erich von Stauffenberg said. “It’s not going to survive unless we get a huge amount of people to contact their legislators and say “It’s ludicrous you haven’t funded this thing.”

Council co-chair Ray Menaker concurred, urging residents to become involved. “This preserve was created by the state of Alaska through the legislature and the State of Alaska has taken no responsibility for its funding so far…. It’s high time the State of Alaska took financial responsibility for the preserve it created.”

Menaker said this week that the advisory council decided to deal directly with the legislature after years of frustration in seeking funds through department and gubernatorial channels. “We have decided we’ll go directly to the legislature, since the executive branch so far hasn’t done anything for us,” Menaker said. “These aren’t brand new requests, although where they’re going is brand new.”

High on the council’s priority list is staffing for the eagle preserve, baseline biological and hydrological studies, attention to health and safety needs in the preserve, including highway pull-outs and signing, garbage receptacles and toilets.

Parks director Neil Johanssen said Wednesday that his division hasn’t asked for any money for the preserve in recent years because of constraints set by the state administration. “We were told to submit a continuation budget…. It should be reflected as not a statement of need. The need is very clear.”

Under the funding proposal adopted last week by the House Finance Subcommittee, the Department of Natural Resources would spend $45,800 to staff the preserve with a ranger and seasonal technician. An adjustment to the Fish and Game budget would also direct $63,800 to the preserve, primarily for staffing to conduct baseline research on habitat and wildlife. Together, the departments’ funding is about one-third of that sought by the advisory council. 

The group heard support for its funding needs from several Juneau-based groups who testified at last Tuesday’s special meeting.

The Juneau Area State Parks Advisory Board reiterated the council’s request for a full-time position in the preserve, saying that its members “are getting increasing expressions of concern about the lack of full-time management” of the preserve. The group also endorsed a reduction of speed limit within the preserve, and re-routing of the highway away from the river.

Other groups supporting the preserve’s funding request include representatives from the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, the Alaska Environmental Lobby, and the American Bald Eagle Research Institute. 

Keeping the proposed preserve funding intact may mean cutting other items out of the DNR and ADFG budgets. To remain viable, the request will also have to run the gauntlet of full House, Senate and gubernatorial approval.

In a letter to the preserve’s advisory council dated Feb. 9, Gov. Steve Cowper indicated he may veto the proposed budget increases. “Expenditures on new programs that had never been funded will be extremely difficult. If the departments are not able to prioritize available funding for the Preserve over other projects. I will not change or increase their budget request.”