Justin Letson pulls his raft out of the Chilkoot River with other teams in hot pursuit during Saturday’s Mad Raft Race, July 4, 2025. (Will Steinfeld/Chilkat Valley News)

A few hundred spectators crowded into Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site on the Fourth of July to watch a rafting race down the Chilkoot River that has become a staple of the community’s celebration of the holiday. But some are now fac-ing tickets and fines from state…

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...