Heather Davis cleans veteran Benson Lewis Davis’s grave after a Memorial Day ceremony on Monday, May 25, 2026, in Haines, Alaska. (Rashah McChesney/Chilkat Valley News)

Evangeline Ruth Lewis and Heather David stood in the Monday heat, swatting away the occasional mosquito and looking at George Lewis’ grave. 

In a wood-fenced plot in the Jones Point Cemetery, George Lewis’ was one of dozens of graves decorated with new American flags, freshly decorated by volunteers and family…

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...