Anchorage Daily News

BEARS ARE REGULAR CUSTOMERS AT JUNEAU PIZZERIA: A trash bin outside the downtown Juneau restaurant Bullwinkle's Pizza Parlor continues to attract black bears, The Associated Press reports. Four bears have been captured near the restaurant this year and moved out of the city.

CELEBRATING A CENTURY-OLD NATIVE LEADER: The tributes continue for Walter Soboleff of Juneau - a Tlingit scholar and Presbyterian pastor - who turns 100 years old today, reports the Juneau Empire. In a speech Thursday at the Southeast Alaska Native Summit, Soboleff said that as white culture overtook Alaska, he "tried to take the best of both worlds."

His son Ross Soboleff, 57, said that pluralist attitude was novel in his father's time. "It certainly was presented to us, and to his generation, 'The Native ways are old. We've got to put those aside and take on the new life.' He was someone who pioneered the idea that, well, no, you don't have to put those aside, those things are part of who you are. ... I can make it in this greater society we live in, but I'm still a Native. Things that are part of our way of life have validity and value. Someone had to come up with that idea. This guy was one of the first to see that it's possible - not just see that it was possible, but to actually do it."

The article includes photos from Soboleff's life. Soboleff gave a dramatic keynote speech at the Elders and Youth Conference last month in Anchorage. You can hear it at the Alaska Public Radio Network site. More than 1,000 papers by Soboleff documenting Alaska Native history are being archived by the Sealaska Heritage Institute. Many can be seen here.

OLD TELEGRAM SHOWS RACIST PAST: Also at the Southeast Alaska Native Summit, Harvey Marvin of Juneau showed copies of a telegram sent by the Sitka Auxiliary of the American Legion in 1926.

"Wholesale voting of illiterate Indians has endangered municipality of Sitka and is serious menace for Territory," it reads. "Sitka in control renegade whites put in office by vote of illiterate natives." Marvin, 75, a veteran originally from Hoonah, keeps it to remind himself and others of the importance of voting. "The right to vote was the first thing the Alaska Native Brotherhood fought for," Marvin said. "Our people fought for nothing if we don't use it."

NORDIC SKIING WITHOUT SNOW: Want to ski but hate snow and cold? A solution is at hand. FasterSkier.com reports on new Nordic skiing variations of the Neveplast artificial gliding surface, which is already in use at European downhill ski resorts. If you don't believe it, check out the YouTube videos linked to by FasterSkier. So put a ski track in your backyard next summer. Skate or classic - your choice.

HEY, BRITS - DON'T STEREOTYPE ALASKANS: UAA English professor Clare Chesher, a British expat, tells readers of The Guardian of London who have lately been following Alaska news that we're not all "rednecks with moose kill in (our) pickup trucks and ice in (our) beards." Her column has drawn dozens of reader comments. She wrote it in response to a Guardian reporter's less-than-flattering description of Wasilla in an article about Gov. Palin.

NEW INSTITUTE LINKS ARCTIC SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY (Dartmouth News)

Dartmouth College and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks have partnered with Urbana University of Ohio to create an institute aimed at examining scientific research about the Arctic and its effect on policy making. The new Institute on Applied Circumpolar Policy, headquartered at Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding in Hanover, N.H., celebrates its opening today at the American-Scandinavian Foundation's Scandinavia House in New York City.

CONSTRUCTION OF MAT-SU FERRY BOOSTS KETCHIKAN ECONOMY (KTUU)

For the past year a ship yard in Ketchikan has been working on what will become a new transportation link between the Mat-Su and Anchorage. At Alaska Ship and Drydock in Ketchikan, things are happening that have never happened at any other shipyard in the world.

ROUGH ROAD FOR POTENTIAL FAIRBANKS LAND AUCTION (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

Public land managers are pulling back the curtains on plans to turn land west of Fairbanks ... into new home sites. Managers hope to build more than a mile of road across the 438-acre site - prime property north of the Tanana River - and eventually auction 100 lots for prospective homeowners or builders.

SOUTHEAST VILLAGES DREAM OF NEW ELECTRICAL LINKS (Juneau Empire)

Piecemeal progress toward a Southeast electrical intertie is coming along, and some say this is the year to push for big funding. ... The "intertie" is really many pieces of transmission line that are slowly being linked together as money comes in one grant at a time.

Also: Despite falling oil price, renewable energy a focus for Southeast Natives (APRN)

ARCTIC ICE MELT SPARKS PLANKTON BLOOMS: Scientists don't yet know where Arctic Ocean phytoplankton are getting their food, but the tiny organisms are thriving as the ice melts, reports Discovery.com. The article includes enhanced satellite imagery showing the spread.

STATE REDUCES WINTER ROAD MAINTENANCE IN SOUTHEAST (KFSK, Petersburg)

The state Department of Transportation says it's cutting back on its winter road maintenance in Southeast towns because of a budget shortfall. Local officials say the decision could have serious impacts and, police are warning motorists that road conditions on Mitkof highway and other state roads could be worse than usual this winter.

Return to Alaska Newsreader through the day for new links.

----------------------

HIGHLIGHTS FROM RECENT NEWSREADERS:

Coal stoves back in vogue in Homer (Homer Tribune)

Athabascan Fiddlers Festival shows no signs of slowing down (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

A week of Sarah surfing (Washington Post)

‘Eagle Lady' is one of a kind (Homer Tribune)

Alaska Territorial Guardsmen still don't get veterans benefits (KTVA)

What Sarah Palin didn't say in this week's interviews (Tina Brown's The Daily Beast)

The future of the poles: Northwest Passage (Scientific American)

Proposed Izembek refuge road raises drilling fears (Washington Post)

ADVERTISEMENT