Category: Alaska News

The natural beauty of this valley is what ultimately drew me and has kept me here. 

I love that I can walk a few minutes from my home and be surrounded by jaw-dropping beauty. I believe the benefits of this cabin will far outweigh any of the negatives. 

With both land and water access this cabin will provide local families the opportunity to enjoy this beautiful part of the canal year-round. It allows our elders and those of us who have limited mobility the chance to camp.  

As a mother of two teenagers, I can tell you that Haines can feel very small and confining in the winter.  Having this cabin will provide a safe and healthy opportunity for our youth to get outside and enjoy this amazing piece of beauty. 

I am so grateful for all of the work that Haines Huts has done for our community, especially the wonderful Tukga Hut.  Let’s continue this forward momentum by making this amazing place we all call home more accessible to all.  

Here’s to more cabins and trails in the Chilkat Valley! 

Jess Crowe 

The post Yes to Twin Coves cabin appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

After this past weekend’s Freeride event, I’ve been reflecting on just how many people it takes to make something like this happen. 

I wish I could thank everyone individually, but that would likely require a full-page ad in the paper — and I’d still worry about missing someone. What I can say is that events of this magnitude simply don’t happen without a community willing to come together, lend a hand and support one another along the way.

I feel incredibly grateful to live and work in a place where that spirit is so strong.

A special thank you goes to my small but mighty team at Visit Haines. The long hours, creativity, and dedication that went into making this event successful cannot be overstated. It is truly a privilege to work alongside people who care so deeply and show up at all hours to get the job done.

To everyone who helped in big ways and small — thank you. Your support made this event possible.

With gratitude,
Rebecca Hylton, Haines Borough Tourism Director

The post Thank you for the work and support of Freeride event appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Please join me Saturday, March 28, for what will likely be the biggest national day of protest in U.S. history.  

I prioritize attending the Justice for All Rally because I abhor the unnecessary cruelty and violence of ICE — the smashing of car windows, the dragging of people out of their houses without court-issued warrants, and the use of excessive force which has resulted in three murders of American citizens and many more senseless deaths in ICE detention facilities.  

Please read the Fourth Amendment.

I prioritize attending to protest an illegal, undeclared war with Iran.  Please read Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution that gives Congress the exclusive power to declare war.

I prioritize attending because justice for more than 1,000 victims of childhood sexual abuse and trafficking is being stonewalled to protect pedophiles.

I prioritize attending because I fear we have lost our Constitutional checks and balances. The framers of the Constitution aimed to safeguard against the concentration of power, ensuring each branch could limit the others, and prevent tyranny.

I prioritize attending because the SAVE Act will disenfranchise millions of eligible citizens from voting — an intentional act from the man in the White House who will stop at nothing to retain power.  Please remember January 6, 2021.

If you share any — or all — of these concerns, please join me at Tlingit Park at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 28.

Dena Selby

The post Prioritize joining demonstration for national day of protest  appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

The Haines Volunteer Fire Department recently completed an intensive ice rescue course that resulted in certification of 10 members and our state park ranger. 

I would like to take the time to thank a few people and organizations that made this class possible:

• Luc Mehl, Triple Point Training – He delivered an outstanding course with professionalism, knowledge, and realistic training scenarios that challenged our team.
• Southeast Road Builders – Without your donation of plowing the road to Chilkoot Lake, we could not have accessed the lake with our equipment and vehicles.
• Southeast Region EMS Council, Inc. – The Code Blue grant that we received supported the purchase of the ice rescue craft. 
• Firefighter/Advanced EMT Jenn Walsh – Her organization, coordination, and persistence all made this class possible.
• Assemblymember Eben Sargent – For housing his friend Luc and allowing him to borrow a vehicle for the weekend.
• Jennifer Motes – For providing some delicious breakfast for the class on both days.

Our dedicated volunteers filled in on-call duty shifts during the days so this crew could focus on training and ensure a timely response to any emergencies in town.

Thank you to all! Your support directly strengthens the safety and resilience of our community.

If you are interested in learning more or joining the fire department to serve your community, visit our website, social media pages, stop by the firehall, or give us a call.

Zachary Overmyer,  Haines Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief

The post Thanks for ice rescue course appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Alaska legislators have sidetracked a bill originally intended for the legislative fast track.

In a pair of votes Wednesday, the Alaska House and Senate voted to send House Bill 289, the state’s supplemental budget bill, to a conference committee empowered to iron out differences between two different versions respectively enacted by the House and Senate.

Lawmakers took that unusual action after the House failed to approve a Senate-passed plan to pay for the bill with more than $373 million from the state’s principal savings account, the Constitutional Budget Reserve.

The committee is scheduled to hold its first meeting at 3:45 p.m. Thursday.

HB 289 is intended to fund expenses in the current state fiscal year that were incurred after lawmakers adjourned last year’s legislative session. 

That includes money needed to respond to last summer’s wildfires and ex-Typhoon Halong, which devastated Western Alaska in the fall.

One key item in the bill — $70.2 million intended to unlock federal construction grants — is time sensitive. For months, the state’s construction industry has been lobbying for fast action on that money, saying that without surety on federal grants, they cannot make hiring and purchasing decisions for this summer’s construction season.

In February, the House passed a version of HB 289 with more than $500 million in expenses and proposed to pay for it by spending from the reserve. 

It takes 30 votes in the House and 15 votes in the Senate to unlock the reserve. This month, in order to meet the threshold in the Senate, lawmakers there cut the bill to slightly over $373 million.

That earned unanimous support in the Senate, but not in the House, which is controlled by a 21-person multipartisan majority coalition. Meeting the 30-vote threshold would require some support from the 19-person, all-Republican House minority caucus.

For more than a week, that caucus has been united in opposition to spending from savings, saying that a forecast boon to state finances — caused by higher oil prices amid the Iran war — should be enough to pay for the extra spending.

Members of the House majority, meanwhile, have been just as adamant in their position that it is unwise to rely on war-driven oil prices.

Sens. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel; Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; and Mike Cronk, R-Tok, were appointed to represent the Senate on the committee. Reps. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage; Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage; and Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks; will represent the House.

Cronk and Stapp are members of their respective minority caucuses; the other four lawmakers are representing their respective majority caucuses.

Additional meetings are expected after Thursday’s initial organizational hearing.

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In Alaska’s rural communities, the school budget conversation no longer starts with new ideas but with what we must give up next. I see this firsthand as a school principal in Kotzebue.

For years, districts across rural Alaska have trimmed budgets, delayed expenses, and stretched every dollar they could find. Programs have been reduced. Positions have gone unfilled. Class sizes have crept upward. Staff members wear more hats each year. What remains is a system held together by dedication and grit rather than stable funding. There comes a point where there is nothing left to trim.

The costs of rural education are fundamentally different from those in urban Alaska: dramatically higher energy costs, unpredictable and expensive transportation costs, and a recruitment model that requires travel and relocation costs. In most communities, districts must also provide housing for teachers simply to make staffing possible. These are not luxuries. They are the basic conditions required to operate a school in remote Alaska.

Meanwhile, inflation has driven up nearly every operational expense. Fuel, food service supplies, maintenance materials, shipping and insurance all cost significantly more than they did only a few years ago. Yet the base level of education funding has not kept pace with those realities. Small adjustments do not solve a structural gap.

The result has been deep cuts across rural districts that students see immediately. We have fewer programs, larger classes, less individualized instruction and fewer adults available to support students who are struggling academically or behaviorally. Teachers and staff are working harder than ever, but the margin to meet student needs continues to shrink. As morale suffers, turnover increases, compounding the issue.

For rural schools, consolidation is not an option. Schools serve as the center for community life, language preservation, and opportunity for future generations. Students should not have to leave their community to receive a quality education.

Alaska can demonstrate that it values our rural schools by taking three practical steps.

First, education funding would have to increase at a level that reflects the real cost of operating schools today. Incremental increases that lag behind inflation simply force districts to continue cutting.

Second, Alaska would have to forward fund our schools. Districts cannot responsibly plan staffing, housing, and transportation logistics when they do not know their budget until the end of summer break just as the school year begins.

Third, Alaska would have to strengthen educator retention. One of the most powerful tools the state once had was a defined benefit pension system that encouraged experienced teachers to build long careers in Alaska’s schools. Rural districts feel the loss of that stability every year as recruitment becomes harder and turnover increases.

Rural Alaska school districts are at the point where every cut removes an opportunity. Every unfilled position reduces support for students. Every year of uncertainty makes it harder to recruit the teachers our communities depend on. Rural schools are not asking for excess. They are asking for the resources necessary to provide the constitutionally mandated education Alaska’s children deserve.

The question now is whether the state will choose to invest in those communities or continue asking them to do more with less until there is nothing left to give.

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Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators are pushing the Trump administration to waive a recently hiked visa fee for all public school employees.

The Trump administration raised the fee for highly skilled workers visas, known as the H-1B visa program, from $5,000 to $100,000 per visa in September. That has consequences for Alaska school districts, which have grown to rely on international hiring to fill teaching and staff positions.

“As soon as this proclamation was released last year, I have been sounding the alarm with the administration about the importance of the H-1B visa program to Alaska’s school districts,” U.S.  Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a prepared statement announcing the bill. 

Murkowski introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate on Mar. 12, saying it would help alleviate financial strain for Alaska’s school districts. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan signed on as a cosponsor of the bill on Tuesday. 

The H-1B visa program provides non-immigrant visas for U.S. employers to recruit highly skilled workers, with at least a bachelor’s degree, in fields such as healthcare, technology or education. The visa is valid for up to six years. 

“Our public school classrooms have been facing a staffing crisis for years, but teachers in Alaska on H-B visas have been instrumental in bridging that shortage and serving our students with talent and care,” Murkowski wrote. “This legislation offers a commonsense exemption that will ensure Alaska’s schoolchildren have access to more high-quality educators while keeping class sizes reasonable.”

The Alaska House of Representatives introduced a resolution this month urging the visa waiver for teachers. 

There are close to 600 international teachers working in Alaska and 341 of them use H-1B visas, according to data provided by the Alaska Council of School Administrators, which assists districts in recruitment and hiring. 

“In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff,” said Lisa Parady, the council’s director, in a statement with the bill’s announcement. “School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it financially impossible for many districts to continue hiring the teachers their students depend on.”

Alaska districts are also in the process of hiring teachers for next year, and officials say the fee imposes an impossible financial barrier. 

Cyndy Mika, superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District, said in a written statement with the bill’s announcement that nearly 20% of teachers district wide — and 75% of village teachers — are international hires through visa programs. 

“These educators are not replacing American teachers—we simply do not have applicants for these positions,” she said. “Without access to international educators, districts like Kodiak will struggle to fill classrooms and provide consistent learning environments for students.”

The situation is exacerbated in Alaska’s rural districts by recent additional restrictions on the J-1 visa program, which requires visa-holding teachers to be placed in areas with access to health care services, transportation and other public services. 

Tammy Dodd, superintendent of the Bering Strait School District, said in a statement the new J-1 visa restrictions put rural districts at a unique disadvantage. 

“So the H-1B visa is the only choice,” she said. “The Bering Strait School District employs 86 international teachers, which is roughly 40% of certified staffing. With the new fee in place, the district would be unable to replace those positions with international hires.”

Murkowski sent a letter of concern to the former U.S. Sec. Kristi Noem with the Department Homeland Security, which administers the visa program. Noem responded in a letter on Dec. 15 shared by the senator’s office. Noem wrote that some exemptions are possible.

“Exceptions to the $100,000 payment are extremely rare and are granted only in extraordinarily compelling circumstances. Petitioning employers may seek an exception by sending their request,” Noem wrote.

“Evidence should support the alien worker’s presence in the United States as an H-1B worker is in the national interest, no American worker is available for fill the role, the alien worker does not pose a threat to security or welfare of the United States, and requiring the petitioning employer to pay the $100,000 payment would significantly undermine the interests of the United States,” she wrote. 

Jennifer Schmitz, director of the Alaska Educator Retention and Recruitment Center, a division of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, said by email Monday that some districts have sought individual exemptions from DHS for teachers with pending H-1B visa applications, but have received no response and no timeline from the department.

The post Alaska’s U.S. senators back effort to waive $100k visa fee for public school employees appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators are pushing the Trump administration to waive a recently hiked visa fee for all public school employees.

The Trump administration raised the fee for highly skilled workers visas, known as the H-1B visa program, from $5,000 to $100,000 per visa in September. That has consequences for Alaska school districts, which have grown to rely on international hiring to fill teaching and staff positions.

“As soon as this proclamation was released last year, I have been sounding the alarm with the administration about the importance of the H-1B visa program to Alaska’s school districts,” U.S.  Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a prepared statement announcing the bill. 

Murkowski introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate on Mar. 12, saying it would help alleviate financial strain for Alaska’s school districts. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan signed on as a cosponsor of the bill on Tuesday. 

The H-1B visa program provides non-immigrant visas for U.S. employers to recruit highly skilled workers, with at least a bachelor’s degree, in fields such as healthcare, technology or education. The visa is valid for up to six years. 

“Our public school classrooms have been facing a staffing crisis for years, but teachers in Alaska on H-B visas have been instrumental in bridging that shortage and serving our students with talent and care,” Murkowski wrote. “This legislation offers a commonsense exemption that will ensure Alaska’s schoolchildren have access to more high-quality educators while keeping class sizes reasonable.”

The Alaska House of Representatives introduced a resolution this month urging the visa waiver for teachers. 

There are close to 600 international teachers working in Alaska and 341 of them use H-1B visas, according to data provided by the Alaska Council of School Administrators, which assists districts in recruitment and hiring. 

“In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff,” said Lisa Parady, the council’s director, in a statement with the bill’s announcement. “School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it financially impossible for many districts to continue hiring the teachers their students depend on.”

Alaska districts are also in the process of hiring teachers for next year, and officials say the fee imposes an impossible financial barrier. 

Cyndy Mika, superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District, said in a written statement with the bill’s announcement that nearly 20% of teachers district wide — and 75% of village teachers — are international hires through visa programs. 

“These educators are not replacing American teachers—we simply do not have applicants for these positions,” she said. “Without access to international educators, districts like Kodiak will struggle to fill classrooms and provide consistent learning environments for students.”

The situation is exacerbated in Alaska’s rural districts by recent additional restrictions on the J-1 visa program, which requires visa-holding teachers to be placed in areas with access to health care services, transportation and other public services. 

Tammy Dodd, superintendent of the Bering Strait School District, said in a statement the new J-1 visa restrictions put rural districts at a unique disadvantage. 

“So the H-1B visa is the only choice,” she said. “The Bering Strait School District employs 86 international teachers, which is roughly 40% of certified staffing. With the new fee in place, the district would be unable to replace those positions with international hires.”

Murkowski sent a letter of concern to the former U.S. Sec. Kristi Noem with the Department Homeland Security, which administers the visa program. Noem responded in a letter on Dec. 15 shared by the senator’s office. Noem wrote that some exemptions are possible.

“Exceptions to the $100,000 payment are extremely rare and are granted only in extraordinarily compelling circumstances. Petitioning employers may seek an exception by sending their request,” Noem wrote.

“Evidence should support the alien worker’s presence in the United States as an H-1B worker is in the national interest, no American worker is available for fill the role, the alien worker does not pose a threat to security or welfare of the United States, and requiring the petitioning employer to pay the $100,000 payment would significantly undermine the interests of the United States,” she wrote. 

Jennifer Schmitz, director of the Alaska Educator Retention and Recruitment Center, a division of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, said by email Monday that some districts have sought individual exemptions from DHS for teachers with pending H-1B visa applications, but have received no response and no timeline from the department.

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