Krystal Lloyd helped to organize the Haines community Easter egg hunt and hot dog social this year. She gathered volunteers to fill the plastic eggs for the 14,00-egg event at the school on Easter. On Friday and Saturday Ron Weibel, Sue Waterhouse, Joshua Lloyd, Serena Woods, Judy Weibel, Neil Einsbruch, Joan Degen, Megan Highfield-Stewart, Savannah Tinnes, Phyllis Sage, Gary “Bubba” Hinkle, Sophia Armstrong, Chloe Lloyd, Allie Lloyd, Christina Lloyd, Lynndsey Stearns, Kristy Hinkle, Lucille Lloyd and Gloria Kosinski all helped fill the eggs. According to Einsbruch and Waterhouse, the best items stuffed into plastic eggs included the rubber-band punching balloon and slapper wrist bands. The Twix candy bars and stickers were also noteworthy.
Three members of Haines Drama, Debate and Forensics team served salmon and halibut at the Mosquito Lake School on Wednesday. Chisel Triezenberg, Walther Jim, and Zorza Szatkowski helped with the meal and clean-up after an Interface for Change meetup. The fish were donated by Erika Merklin who helped coordinate locally for a 5-year Alaska EPSCoR project partnering with coastal communities on research. Alaska EPSCoR representatives held a community participation workshop where they shared research information about lake sediment using field data, analyses of red seaweed in the Lynn Canal, complete with an interactive memory game, and made VR equipment available for a closer look at what underwater farming looks like. And it came with a delicious dinner. Community members contributed side dishes including local foragers Mike Ogborn and Ron Maudlin who shared pickled fiddlehead salad with herring eggs, onion and garlic. The potato casserole, contributed by Tammy Hauser, was a popular side item also, reminiscent of the Cracker Barrel version of the dish. The lucky winners of swag bags that included an Olerud’s gift card were Mardell Gunn and Charles Peep. The Interface of Change team went on to host the same presentation in Haines at the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood Hall on Thursday where CVN editor Rashah McChesney won a beanie for building the tallest tower out of tinker toys. She may, or may not, have been the only participant. At both locations, a photography project about wild foods, climate and community done by local middle and high school students was also on display.
Amy Kane is moving to Wrangell. Kane has lived in Haines for six years and is relocating for her job with the Alaska Marine Highway System. She is going to get health insurance! Some people know her as the face of The Book Store, before the new owners took over last year. Others know her as a quality source of focaccia bread at pop-ups and potlucks all over the Chilkat Valley. Kane relocated to Haines from Sitka, where she owned and ran the Larkspur Cafe. Kane’s focaccia bread was an important part of the restaurant even though she said she is not a bread maker. She turned out large trays of the bread for paninis and settled on the recipe after some trial and error. Kane calls it a forgiving bread and highlights the importance of a working class bread that can be whipped up quickly, while still allowing the baker to add and take away ingredients based on what is available. Before she moves on to a new chapter in Wrangell, Kane passed along her focaccia bread recipe to Brynn Murphy, who agreed to learn the recipe in a one-on-one baking afternoon. They started with separating the fresh rosemary and thyme, and spent a Friday afternoon practicing the technique for making a really great focaccia. Murphy took detailed notes while they went through the process. She left with her practice bread and a whole new skill set. Murphy intends to share the bread with Haines for years to come
Paul Swift moved to Haines in 1970 and has been thinking about snow and weather ever since. From 2000 to 2018 he was a local volunteer observer for the National Weather Service. In 2018 retired meteorologist Jim Green took over this responsibility. Some of those tasks include logging stats, recording minimum and maximum daily temperatures, snowfall and converting snowfall into liquid measurements. Swift’s wife Anne Boyce shared a picture of him on a porch from the winter of 2011-2012, showing the stark reality of springtime melt in the Chilkat Valley. That year, she said, nearly 360 inches of snow was recorded in Haines. Current NOAA observer Green said Haines has been a very reliable source of weather data for 100 years because of the volunteers in the Chilkat Valley. Both Swift and Green have found it challenging to take vacations, as not many house sitters are willing and able to measure the weather while they are gone. Fun fact, if the observer misses three days of data in a month the information can not be used historically.
Ketch Jacobson took some Haines locals out to test the new engine in the Fjordland Express and look for some wildlife along the way. What they found in Skagway was a pirate named Trevor Clark and a bundle of red rope. Clark needed some help moving his 750-pound engine across the boat yard. Trygve Bakke, Charlotte Martin, Lizzy Hahn, Baylee Pearson, Justin Letson, and Brooke Robinson were up to the task. The group made a plan to move the engine with the rope slung under it and over their shoulders while they shuffle stepped across the boat yard in their XtraTuffs. In the end, Clark got his engine moved and Jacobson tested his new engine. They spotted a few ducks, and everyone enjoyed Easter dinner in Skagway.
The team visiting Haines from Alaska EPSCoR, led by Davin Holen, hosted a mini Alaska science Olympiad at Klukwan School. Shk’oohaalee Justina Hotch kept the children on schedule as they handed out medals to the winners for STEM-based team activities and practiced tower building with tinker toys. First-place tallest tinker-toy tower builders were Kyle Willard Wilson and Sampson Duffy-Webb. Their tower came in at 57.5 inches. Duffy-Webb has previous building experience, with a pirate fort at home. This might have contributed to the team’s win.
If you happened to be sitting in Rusty Compass on Tuesday morning, you might have noticed a group of 10 people quickly file in from the entrance at the rear of the building. They corralled chairs, ordered coffee and snacks and seemed to be having a grand old time when Kristy Hinkle walked in the front door and gasped. Shouts of “Happy Birthday” filled the space, and then someone started to sing the song – which most in the packed cafe joined in to sing. At some point, someone handed Hinkle a helium balloon which she held as she took turns hugging her well-wishers. She turned 41 on Tuesday, and was tricked into heading to the coffee shop by her sister Krystal Lloyd, who also corralled everyone into the surprise greeting.
Recently, Derek Poinsette was snowmachining on Chilkat Lake when he encountered a moose who was maybe curious, maybe mad, maybe feeling territorial – it’s unclear. Regardless, as he passed it, the moose began following him and continued to do so for about a half mile or so, he estimated. Poinsette stopped to get video of it as it followed him across the lake. He kept having to take off to put distance between the two of them, and eventually it lost interest and moved along. Fish and Game wildlife biologist Hannah Manninen and wildlife education and outreach coordinator Abby McAllister viewed the video with some interest outside of the Haines library after a presentation they gave on Tuesday evening. The three speculated about why the moose followed Poinsette for so long. Manninen also noted that it appeared to be a female, and both McAllister and Manninen said she looked pregnant.
Correction: This story was been updated to include the correct year that Paul Swift began taking weather observations. It was in 2000.