Travis Kukull stands inside the building where he plans to open a new restaurant, Deer Heart, in the spring of 2025 in Haines, Alaska. (Rashah McChesney/Chilkat Valley News)
Travis Kukull stands inside the building where he plans to open a new restaurant, Deer Heart, in the spring of 2025 in Haines. (Rashah McChesney/Chilkat Valley News)

Just after midday on Saturday, Travis Kukull slipped a key into the lock at 37 Blacksmith Street in Ft. Seward and let himself into the dark kitchen at the back of the building. 

“It’s a pretty well set up restaurant,” he said as he maneuvered around steel tables,…

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...