Alaska News

Haines is not a postcard, but it's home

HAINES -- I think it was John McPhee who said Anchorage looks like it blew in on the wind, like a spore, from Trenton.

We've all been hearing a lot about the strip-mall center of Wasilla. I would like to say that Haines has a more photogenic and traditional Main Street, I really would. I've been looking closely ever since a friend gave me a newspaper article bemoaning the ugly Alaska infrastructure and calling for photos of a pretty Alaska town, if there is one.

Everyone knows how nice I think Haines is. But while the right angle and good lighting may help, aside from historic Fort Seward, I'm sorry to report none of our developed streets are picturesque small-town American calendar material.

Haines was settled when people walked everywhere, so there is a downtown "core" and there are easy walking routes from one part of town to the next. However, like (it seems) most Alaska towns with cars, the vehicles have the right of way. Sidewalks are rarely passable once it snows, but there are so few of us here in the winter that it is usually safe to walk or run in the road, sometimes right down the middle.

When I first moved to Haines about 25 years ago I would tell visiting relatives to look up and out at the mountains and sea, past the human development, the plywood and metal buildings. I thought we should have Psalm 121:1 posted in the center of town: "I look to the hills from whence cometh my strength."

Now when the same relatives suggest that by now I must take the natural splendor for granted, I assure them that is not true. Every clear day I am amazed at the views. Really. It is hard not to stare and smile when the sun shines on these mountains, rivers and inlets. What I don't notice anymore, unless I look closely, is the shabbiness and general lack of inspiration in our buildings.

Even what is arguably the most handsome neighborhood in all of Alaska, Fort William Seward, looks much better from a distance with a rosy lens filter. One of its grandest buildings, the 100-year-old former barracks, looks about to fall down.

ADVERTISEMENT

We lost a big eyesore last winter, on the other side of town, when the boarded up Food Center building collapsed under the weight of the snow. The good and bad news was there was asbestos in it, so every bit of it had to be picked up and hauled away. The ground under it was even graded smooth. One of my friends joked that they should have kept the clean-up crew moving right through downtown so we could start again.

There is one new building that is both pretty and functional, the library. At the risk of sounding sexist, I think the reason it looks so nice is that (mostly) women built it. The librarians were women, the Friends of the Library group was dominated by women and so was the library board. The first lending library in Haines was put together by the Women's Club in a tiny former steamship ticket office.

By 1957 there was a modest library building. Additions were added over the years, but by the '90s the library supporters decided to quit trying to gild a skunk cabbage and build a brand new library. It would cost about $2 million and the majority of the powers that be -- mostly men -- were skeptical because of that.

When the library supporters hired an architect and asked him to make the building pretty as well as functional, the women were denounced --again, by most of the guys --as wanting the "Taj Mahal." Apparently good-looking and functional are mutually exclusive in the minds of most Alaska men, even though most Alaska women are both.

In full disclosure, my husband is one of those men. His lumberyard would not win a beautification award. He argues that his customers don't want to pay more for a two-by-four to keep his sheds and warehouse spiffy. He also argues -- like many businessmen here do -- that if he could, he'd build a new store, so it doesn't make sense to throw money at the old one. We don't talk about this much, because it is one of the few things we argue over.

While I know I see Haines through rose-colored glasses, and I do wish our buildings and the community at large looked nicer, I also know the most important thing about the business district in Haines will never be captured on film or canvas. All of our stores, like our family's, are locally owned, from the Bamboo Room Restaurant to Howser's grocery.

And you know, when you jog down the street at dusk, with light snow falling on the cove, you don't look out and up. Your eyes are drawn right into the lit storefronts, where people you know work, shop or just stand around and chat in a warm place out of the cold.

Everyone knows a house is not a home. Nice buildings don't make a community either -- the people in them do.

Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com

HEATHER LENDE

AROUND ALASKA

Heather Lende

Heather Lende is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News From Small-Town Alaska." To contact Heather or read her new blog, The News From Small-Town Alaska, visit www.heatherlende.com.

ADVERTISEMENT