Anchorage Daily News

A debt unpaid for 139 years. A carving of William Henry Seward sits atop a shame pole in Saxman, put there as a reminder of what villagers say is an unpaid debt going back to 1869. And now a Ketchikan Daily News story says federal officials are working on plans to repay the debt, which would amount to holding a party.

According to the story, the debt grew out of a Seward visit to Southeast Alaska in 1869, two years after he had negotiated the purchase of the state from Russia. Tlingits decided to hold a potlatch, expecting Seward to return the gesture in a couple years, which is the tradition. He didn’t. And the villagers are still waiting for the fun to begin. Presumably, Seward will remain on the shame pole (also called a debtor’s pole), where he’s been for more than 100 years, until the feds own up to their obligation.

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Crewmen recall ice collisions. Two crew members who survived the sinking of the Alaska Ranger are quoted in a Seattle Times story today saying ice encounters on earlier fishing trips might have made the vessel vulnerable to leaks. The worst collisions, according to one of the sailors, occurred in February when the Alaska Ranger was running through broken ice pans as the fish master aboard the vessel pressed for more speed.

“You could feel the whole hull vibrate” during some of the impacts, one of the crewmen told the newspaper. A hearing in Dutch Harbor this week is looking into circumstances surrounding the March 23 sinking of the vessel, which claimed the lives of five crewmen.

Unalaska’s KIAL News, which is also covering the hearing, notes in its most recent story that a fisheries observer aboard the vessel when it sank “took a dim view of some of the safety measures on the boat.” The observer also testified about collisions with sea ice, according to the story.

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Homelessness and alcoholism in Nome. The recent death of a 42-year-old woman from Noatak who was found in a “residence known to be home to transient partiers” has stirred new debate in Nome about alcohol abuse and homelessness, according to a story in The Nome Nugget. Marjorie Norton’s death is the third that occurred over the winter involving visitors to Nome who had no housing.

“These are the extreme cases of a problem that put Nome on the national radar as an alcoholic sin city after a syndicated news article investigated binge drinking in so-called Alaska Bush communities,” the story says.

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Fish farm system targets salmon poo. A British Columbia salmon farmer has big hopes for a system he’s developing that might solve the waste problem that comes with fish farming and that is the target of so much criticism from environmentalists and others, according to a National Post story from Canada. Richard Buchanan’s “closed containment salmon farm” would fundamentally alter the open-cages system that critics say is causing the spread of disease and is damaging the ecosystem.

Closed systems have been tried before, according to the story. But Buchanan aims to try again, though his first efforts might hit the water in China, not Canada. Shunning the bureaucratic problems of getting a system in gear in Canada, he has bought a fish hatchery in China and negotiated the rights to test his system growing trout in three reservoirs.

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Think winter is history? Think again. Up to a foot of snow socked regions north of Fairbanks on Monday morning, according to a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story, with Manley being the hardest hit. Fairbanks got about an inch. Conditions on the Elliott Highway were bad enough for the state to issue a travel advisory, and forecasters are expecting cold air to move in after the snow, with temperatures falling below zero.

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A glimmer of life for Susitna Dam. The state House has approved a measure allocating $1 million to bring back to life and update a 1984 study looking at the viability of a Susitna River dam to generate power, according to an APRN story. Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, sponsored the measure and said the project could create a major source of renewable energy for the entire Railbelt.

“We’ve all talked about renewable resources a lot,” he said. “I think it’s now time to take action. And this will be the first step. … This will not exclude things that are in the works now — geothermal, wind, some of the other hydro projects. This will be a part of — maybe the cornerstone of — renewable energy for the future.”

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Broccoli growing in Greenland. “There is nothing that we know of that would prevent the Arctic from going to a new seasonally ice-free state,” one environmental scientist is quoted as saying in a new Scientific American story on the melting of the Arctic sea ice. The story points to changing ocean currents, plankton growth moving north, broccoli growing in Greenland and people’s lives being transformed as some of the consequences of the changes.

“The last time it was 3 to 5 degrees warmer, which is where we are heading,” said geologist Eystein Jansen of the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research at the University of Bergen in Norway, “Greenland’s ice cap was 30 percent smaller and sea levels were four to six meters higher. … The Arctic is the key to what will happen for the next several hundred years to humanity.”

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With spring comes wildfires. The Division of Forestry is already reporting 11 fires in the Mat-Su area, including one that climbed up the side of Bodenburg Butte last week, according to a story in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. And Mat-Su emergency services people are already preparing for the wildfire season, which will run into the summer, the story says.

Residents wanting to burn brush or other materials will need a permit through the end of August, according to the story.

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Big on birds. A Kodiak Daily Mirror story takes note that the National Audubon Society has designated Chiniak Bay as an Important Bird Area of “global importance.” The designation, which puts the area in the company of more than 140 other regions in Alaska that have state-level IBA recognition, raises hopes that the region will get more money for research and will be resistant to development.

Gary Wheeler, manager of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, told the newspaper that Chiniak Bay has at least 23 seabird colonies and provides seasonal habitat for other water birds.

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State’s suicide rate dipping. The Juneau Empire, which has been running a series of stories on suicide over the past few days, reports in a story today that the state’s suicide rate, long at or near the top in the nation, has been falling the past few years. But the figures are not sufficient to determine whether they signal a trend, according to state officials.

The rate dropped to 19.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2006, down from a high in 2004 of 23.5. That’s good news, said James Gallanos, state project coordinator. “If it continues to decline, it will be better news.”

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OK, we’ll fall for it … for now. Assuming it isn’t an April Fools’ stunt, one of the busier Alaska bloggers (he’s good for a posting or two just about every day), Kodiak Konfidential, is packing it in. The goodbye post from the blogger who has called himself Ishmael Melville is convincing enough to sucker you into believing him:

“I've been fingered as Ishmael too many times, impairing my ability to comment openly about the goings on here in Kodiak. I get too many truly mean comments that are just too disturbing to deal with on a daily basis. And, really, what else do I have to say? I think I've accomplished all I've set out to do. More, really. Who knew so many people would be interested in some guy blithering in Kodiak.”

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Speaking of April Fools’ …. The Huffington Post today has one of the more clever of the April Fools’ postings that are cropping up on the web. “Introducing the bipolar bear,” the web site headlines the posting, which goes on to relate how “Sara Bellum of Nome” came up with her winning entry in a “Rename the Polar Bear” contest favored by the Bush administration over protecting the animals’ habitat:

“Dr. Bellum, a taxidermist and practicing psychiatrist, explained her winning entry, ‘I noticed the bears were getting very sad and tired in the summer when the sea ice melted and they had to spend more and more effort catching fewer and fewer seals. But then come the fall they began moving inland, frantically eating everything in sight, rummaging through garbage and attacking people, which, perversely, seemed to make they quite happy, at least for a while. So that's where I came up with the name. Bipolar bear. Ursus manic-depressus. I never expected a call from the president. He asked if he could call me ‘brainy.’ Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

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