Author: alaskaadmin

Samantha (Sami) Mallon married Martin Duncan in Shelton, Washington on April 20 with close family and friends in attendance, including Mallon’s mother Martina Larsen. Their officiant was Lex Schillinger. Dakotah Kindle and former Haines resident Austin Woodard were groomsmen. The bridesmaids were Lisa Hosley and Makayla Jessie. The newlyweds will be enjoying their honeymoon on the beaches of Oregon before returning to Haines in early May, by way of a legendary road trip on the Alcan with their dog Diesel. 

Warren G. Price walked into the forest 22 years ago but left instructions for his children about what to do on his 100th birthday on April 17, 2026. They were to travel to the Price property where his bench is located, smoke cigarettes, have a shot of whiskey and talk about memories of Dad. All eight of his remaining children did just that. Nadine Price said some may have used candy cigarettes and mocktails but a good time was had by all. 

Robin Beaudry’s  2001 Subaru went silent as she drove toward town and through the construction zone on Friday, right before the car burst into flames. Moments earlier Beaudry was waved through the traffic by flagger Helena Muench. Muench was just ending her flagging shift and ended up driving a fire truck that responded to the incident, according to Beaudry. The fire was unfortunately not in cellphone range, making a call to the fire department a bit more challenging. In the end,  the car-b-que was extinguished by the water truck working the construction zone. 

The Haines Chamber of Commerce Community Clean-up collected a heap of trash. Executive director Amanda Brandon made a scavenger hunt for trash collectors, adding a little bit of a thrill.  A vape pen and a shoe were the only items not found on the scavenger hunt. The biggest, most awkward item dropped off was a canoe. Tessa Tersteeg and Rhylen Tersteeg picked up trash for their second year in a row. This year they chose Lutak Road.  They collected two full bags and some larger items that could not fit in the banana-yellow bag. Sophia Armstrong and husband Reilly Kosinski were crowned 2026 queen and king of trash. The past two years Joan and Pete Degen walked away as the winners. While she was collecting trash, Armstrong found an Elks coin from 1998 that entitles her to a free drink. The next time she is in Skagway, she says she will try to claim that drink. The Armstrong family brought in multiple car-loads of trash. Their enthusiasm and dedication to community clean-up is appreciated.   

The American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) held their annual bridge tournament in Haines last weekend. Thirty-three participants from Juneau, Whitehorse, Anchorage and Haines participated in the event held at the ANB/ ANS Hall.  Local participants included Dr. Stan Jones, Frank Holmes, Ann Quinlan, Joseph Orlando, Gregg Bigsby, Fred Shields, Debra Schnabel and Jim Wilson. Nearly all placed among the top three scorers in each event. The Saturday evening feast was king salmon, provided by Don Nash, and barbecue ribs prepared by Gordy and Julie Olson. The bridge tournament started with one casual warm-up and was followed by five competitive games during the weekend. Following the games, individual results were tabulated for each player. The high scorers were ranked. Canadians Jourdain Patchett and Chris Bookless tied for first. Local Jim Wilson came in second. Mark Davey from Whitehorse came in third with the Fred Shields and Roger Schnabel team tied for fourth place. 

The post Duly Noted: Celebrating a 100th birthday, a wedding, a car fire, and more appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Watershed Weekly is a paid commentary written by the Takshanuk Watershed Council.

By Derek Poinsette

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines migration as “the process of animals traveling to a different place, usually when the season changes.” 

Biologists use the term specifically for large-scale movements of populations of animals over relatively long distances and between different habitats. For example, a bear moving up onto the mountainside to snooze during the day, and then back down to the river to feed on salmon at night, is not technically a migration. This behavior would instead be called a diel (or daily) activity pattern. 

An example of a proper, and quite impressive, migration is the arctic terns that breed here on Glacier Point and then spend our winter months on the ice surrounding Antarctica — an annual round-trip of 50,000 miles, give or take.

Animals are able to expend large amounts of energy migrating because there is a significant benefit for them to do so. In other words, something about that behavior has increased the animal’s chances of survival and reproductive success over time.  

Evolutionary biologists call this concept fitness. The migrating animals are able to take on a significant risk in seasonally moving long distances because the grass actually is greener on the other side. In doing so, they are increasing the chances of passing genes to future generations, even while many individual animals do not survive the journey. If this was not the case, if there was not this high-level benefit to the animal and to the species as a whole, they would just stay home.

Down on a more flesh-and-bones level, animals migrate for a few different reasons. Large schools of herring and hooligan start moving into the Upper Lynn Canal from the outer coast in the middle of April to spawn and reproduce. They come here because thousands of years of evolution have indicated that this is a good place to do that, and the chances are good that their offspring will survive and thrive.

Following closely behind these forage fish (herring and hooligan) are sea lions, seals, whales and piscivorous (fish-eating) fish like Chinook salmon and halibut, all of whom are migrating here not to spawn, but to feed. So, although the herring and hooligan are being gobbled up by the millions on the journey to get here, it is still worth their collective effort over a long, multi-generational, time frame. The same cost-benefit equation applies to all migrating animals, including humpback whales that are burning lots of calories and exposing their newly born calves to a gauntlet of predators, in swimming more than 3,000 miles from Hawaii and Mexico.

Tens of thousands of birds also stop here in the spring to take advantage of the hooligan and herring runs, and other resources as well, like mollusks and aquatic invertebrates. Gulls may be the most abundant and noticeable avian migrant, followed by surf scoters. A recent study found that as many as 18% of the entire world’s population of surf scoters could be coming to the Upper Lynn Canal every spring.¹ That’s an astounding number, given that surf scoters are relatively common throughout North America, on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts from arctic Canada down to Florida and Mexico.

For most winged creatures, the Upper Lynn Canal is not their final destination, but is instead a convenient refueling station to propel continued migration to summer breeding grounds farther north. The Chilkat Valley is particularly critical to this phenomenon, as it provides for the migrants an abundance of food and a safe and efficient flyway up and over the ice-covered mountains to the interior.  Like the schools of forage fish out in the fjord, the gulls, terns, ducks, geese, shorebirds, cranes, loons, song birds, woodpeckers and hummingbirds are constantly being pursued, and fed upon, by migrating birds of prey: eagles, hawks, falcons, ospreys and owls. The benefits provided to these creatures by the geography and the ecosystems of the Upper Lynn Canal must be great indeed to be worth such a price.

There is a concept of ecology called the ecotone. It occurs where two or more different ecosystems meet and overlap, usually resulting in relatively greater biodiversity. The entire Upper Lynn Canal area could be conceived of as a large ecotone. It is situated at a geographic nexus of geology and biology, where the temperate maritime ecological zones to the south and west meet and are linked via migratory corridors with interior sub-arctic and boreal forest ecozones north and east.  

For both birds and terrestrial animals (including humans), a small handful of mountain passes provide connectivity, and allow for relatively quick passage between a number of very different ecosystems and biogeographic regions.

For these reasons, the Upper Lynn Canal is one of the most biologically productive and diverse places in Alaska, and the annual spectacle of spring migration is a direct result of this complex interaction of geography and biology.  

From the perspective of the resident organisms, including us, this connectivity and ecological viability is an extremely valuable and precious attribute, as is attested to by the abundance of migrants who fly and swim great distances to visit us each and every spring.

The post Spring Migration in the Upper Lynn Canal appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

An Alaska woman is accusing the Alaska Department of Public Safety, two Alaska State Troopers and the A&E Television Network of compromising her privacy and safety as a confidential informant after they filmed an arrest without her consent.

The woman, identified in the filings as Jane Doe, says that she received death threats after she was a confidential informant whose information led to an arrest that was filmed and later aired on the Alaska State Troopers reality show.

The woman’s attorney, Jeff Barber, declined to comment on the case and said that he plans to file a motion to make the case confidential for her safety.

In court filings, Barber argued that the defendants had a duty to protect the confidential informant from harm. Barber wrote, “the defendants were motivated by fame, fortune or financial gain,” and they exploited Jane Doe’s “life and safety for profit and/or personal gain.”

The television show followed troopers in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Fairbanks, Western Alaska and Valdez in 2025. A&E Television Network aired nine episodes of the show between January and March 2026.

The lawsuit names Alaska State Troopers Scott McAfee and Lucas Altepeter, the Alaska Department of Public Safety, the show’s executive producer Anna Rodzinski and her company Anusia Films LLC, and A&E Television Networks LLC as defendants. Jane Doe is suing each defendant for $100,000.

According to a complaint filed in state court on April 23, Jane Doe assisted the Alaska State Troopers as a confidential informant in 2025 and was later threatened by a person who suspected her of being a confidential informant. She assisted troopers for a second time in 2025 and a film crew filmed troopers arresting the person who suspected Doe. 

Jane Doe told McAfee, a trooper, that she objected to A&E filming the arrest, and court documents say troopers relayed Doe’s objection to the film crew. According to the filing, the film crew filmed the arrest anyway. This caused Jane Doe “severe emotional distress and harm.”

In the lawsuit, Jane Doe’s attorneys claim that the crew filmed the episode in a way that could reveal Jane Doe’s identity and involvement. After the episode aired, Jane Doe received hostile communications and death threats.

Jane Doe suffered “medical expense, pain, anxiety, suffering, severe emotional distress, inconvenience, security and privacy expenses,” Barber wrote in the filing.

The case alleges that McAfee and Altepeter’s negligence and recklessness breached their duty and created danger to Jane Doe.

Barber accused the defendants of violating Jane Doe’s right to privacy and right to due process, and their actions inflicted intentional emotional distress.

Austin McDaniel, communications director for the Department of Public Safety, told the Alaska Beacon by email Wednesday that DPS had not been formally served with the lawsuit yet and will respond in court.

“We take the safety of all Alaskans extremely seriously and reject any suggestion that DPS personnel would knowingly endanger anyone’s life,” McDaniel stated.

The post Alaska woman sues troopers, TV network for exploiting her role as a confidential informant appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

The Tongass is the largest national forest in the country, and that’s no small thing to trifle with. But trifle the Trump administration is doing, treating the Tongass, the U.S. Forest Service employees who work in the Tongass and the communities that live here as not worthy of being told about their future.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which takes its orders from the White House and which runs the Forest Service, announced three weeks ago that it was restructuring the 121-year-old agency, closing research stations,closing and consolidating regional offices and moving people around — those it doesn’t fire.

That’s about as much detail as the department is sharing. It’s as if the Trump administration is playing a game of Pick-Up Sticks with the forest, federal employees and communities. Toss everything up in the air and see how the jumble lands.

The federal officials who decide what to tell the public and what not to tell people have said the forestry research station Anchorage, which serves the Tongass and the Chugach National Forest in Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland will both close.

The department has not answered questions about the future of the 78-year-old forestry sciences research station in Juneau.

Nor will the department answer how many people will lose their jobs, or when. Or even when someone will decide who loses their jobs.

“The transition will occur in phases,” the department answers when asked by reporters. “The number of relocations beyond those already identified in the National Capital Region (moving Forest Service headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Utah) is unknown at this time.”

Which leads to the question: Is anything known at this time, other than the Trump administration apparently likes Republican Utah more than Democrats in Washington. Utah certainly has its beauty and great outdoors, but there are 10 states in the union with more national forest land than Utah. Maybe 11 is the new lucky number.

Forest Service employees went through similar unknowns and stresses more than a year ago, when the president’s Cutter in Chief, the unelected Elon Musk, and his Department of Government Efficiency fired more than 3,000 Forest Service employees nationwide in February 2025. Almost 100 employees in the Tongass were terminated, though some later were called back to work.

Firings and more uncertainty are no way to treat valued employees who work hard to protect the forest and all that lives among the trees and waters. It’s no way to treat businesses and individuals who depend on the agency for information and services. But it appears there’s no way to stop this irresponsible management. Not until the next election.

The post No way to treat people, communities or the forest appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.