Julian’s Todos Tacos
Mario and Natalie Benassi are back in Haines after a winter in Colorado and they’ve reopened their taco stand on Main Street.
Julian’s Todos Tacos closed last year after Natalie Benassi had a stroke in the fall; the couple spent months in Anchorage, then headed to an intensive speech therapy program in Denver over the winter.
Mario Benassi said the goal has always been to reopen the stand, despite the challenges.
“Natalie was really insistent on getting back to normal life,” he said. “Now she’s living in the cabin, doing dishes and laundry and kind of just happy to be in our home after a year of living out of a suitcase.”
The stand has been open for several days and will reopen next week. The couple is in Juneau as of press time for some medical care. Mario Benassi said they intend to stay open through November.
Right now, the stand is mostly staffed by Mario Benassi and a rotating group of four girls — Ruby Martin, Maddy Hart, MJ Hotch, Ezra Nash — who help keep the place running smoothly. Mario Benassi said he’s in there cooking most of the time; his wife is able to drop in occasionally and make tortillas or catch them up on the dishes.
“It’s a little too much for her because she can’t do everything she wants to do. She can’t yell at me like she’d like,” he said. “It’s really frustrating for her to sit here and look at a pile of tickets on the board and not be able to do anything about it.”
Mario Benassi said keep an eye out for weekly specials, including mole poblano, posole and menudo. And, he said, stop in for the freshly made basics.
“We make our tortillas fresh daily, all the salsa and pico de gallo – nothing is used the next day,” he said.
Todos Tacos hours are currently Tuesday through Friday from noon until 6 p.m.
Camping at Portage Cove
After a years long back and forth between the state and the borough of Haines — one that included a guerrilla camp-in organized by Mayor Tom Morphet — the Portage Cove State Recreation Site has reopened for camping.
The campground has for years been the only public place in town to set up a tent outside of special events. It’s about a mile from Main Street which makes it easier to access town without a car. But the State’s Division of Parks and Recreation stopped allowing camping there in 2022.
According to a new cooperative management agreement, the borough is taking on most of the work of managing the 7.4-acre site, including collecting fees, maintaining the site, and doing trash removal. State parks provided picnic tables, a bear-resistant food storage system, and eight steel fire rings.
Under the agreement, the borough can manage the area for up to eight tent-camping sites within the open field, none in the woods or near the viewing deck area. Each site can only have two tents at a time, meaning a maximum of 16 tents or 32 people are allowed to use the site, for up to 10 consecutive days at a time.
Borough finance director Jila Stuart said Visitors Center staff Kiara Hylton and Rebecca Hylton have taken the lead on designing a payment system and masterminding getting the campground going again.
It’s early in the year, so it’s not clear how much money the campground will bring in. Stuart said it opened in the last few days of May and brought in just under $300 for the month.
The state’s website hasn’t been updated to note that camping is still allowed, so it has been somewhat word-of-mouth for travelers. But campers have started trickling in — including three mountaineers who camped out in two of the sites on May 27.
Poland resident Janus Wegrzyn, Alberta resident Dan Dwyre and Zhebin Hu, of Montreal, stayed at the campground while waiting for a weather window so they could get up to climb Mount Fairweather. The group was on standby with Fly Drake, waiting for the right time to head out.
“We need a spot where there’s a cell phone signal,” Dwyre said. “So we were glad to learn about this.”
The trio found out about the campground from talking to residents.
“Drake didn’t even know it was open,” Hu said.
The group did have to find parking for their vehicle as there’s no overnight parking allowed in the small campground. But Dwyre said he spoke to someone who gave him a spot to park overnight.
“We’re glad that we don’t have to drive somewhere further,” he said.
Taking a break
Chilkoot Tribal Administrator Harriet Brouillette joined eight other people in Alaska who were awarded the Rasmuson Foundation’s sabbatical award. Billed as “a well-deserved break,” each person gets three to four months of paid time off to relax and explore their personal interests.
Brouillette has been the tribal administrator for a decade and under her leadership, the organization has expanded from six employees to more than 30, according to the foundation. The hiatus was a first for Brouillette who said between work and being a single mom, she’s not sure she’s ever taken an extended vacation.
“I started working seriously for the tribe when I was about 26,” she said. “I just haven’t been able to take a break since then.”
Though the award was only announced recently, Brouillette said she has already returned from her break, which she took from February through April. She travelled to Ecuador and the Galapagos toward the end of her trip, but first spent six weeks in Hawaii.
“I had to do at least two things on my bucket list,” she said. “One was visiting Molok’ai and the other was the Galapagos.”
During her time off, she said she made an effort to track how she was feeling.
“I had an opportunity to really think about what I was putting in my body, what I’m going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she said. “My hair was softer, my skin was clear and my mind was clearer. I have had more energy and a more positive outlook on things that are happening.”
It did take some adjustment when she returned to the valley and got back to work however. “I realized that I was full of energy and I was bringing a lot of energy with me that the staff hadn’t had. They’d just gone through a really wet and dark period of Southeast Alaska weather and here I was coming back in full of energy and sunkissed – sunburned maybe,” she said. “I had to ease my way back in and try hard not to expect a whole lot.”
Brouillette said she’s learned a valuable lesson about leaving work behind when traveling. “I’ve always had an open phone policy, no matter where I was. No matter what time of day, the staff knew they could always get a hold of me,” she said.
But the sabbatical requires that no one from work can contact the person who wins the award. They gave Brouillette a second phone and an admonishment that she could not attend meetings or try to get work done while traveling.
“This was all about needing a mental health break,” she said. “I think that as U.S. citizens we’re programmed to feel that working more hours and sacrificing sleep and personal time and family time is what we’re supposed to do. But if you want a more well-rounded life, you really have to take some time to learn how to relax, learn how to shut things off, and learn how to decompress.”
The Bottom Line follows how money, labor, and resources move through the Chilkat Valley – tracking new businesses, closures, nonprofit funding, and the work that holds it all together. Send tips, story leads, and your ideas about the local economy to [email protected]