Haines, Alaska, is a small rural town of about 2,100 people. If we were down south, we would most certainly be described as “podunk,” but because of our setting, we have escaped that nomenclature. (maybe)
Haines is a great place to live. It is quiet, mostly friendly, safe, clean, and perhaps, yes, podunk. I don’t know about you but, I like Haines just the way that it is.
Apparently, not everyone in our town feels that way. They adhere to this pervasive capitalist rally call that we must constantly be getting bigger or we will “be doomed.” To what? Well, I’m not sure. Maybe a ghost town with crows feeding on the last carcass of an environmentalist who successfully stifled industrial development.
Transforming Haines into an industrial corporate feeding zone where our forests are cleared and sent away; where mining trucks rumble 24/7 along our roadways to a massive industrial marine terminal; where throngs of tourists clog our recreation areas; where cell towers line the shoreline and neighborhoods… Well, to some they will call it all progress. I call it suicide.
Tom Faverty