Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

The timeline for the Alaska LNG project — a planned 806-mile pipeline that would carry natural gas from the North Slope to a liquefaction plant and terminal in Nikiski — has not been affected by the federal government shutdown, but progress on the Alaska Stand Alone Pipeline has been halted due to the shutdown, according to a recent community update.

“We’re waiting on a signed record of decision from both the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management,” said Lisa Parker, Alaska Gasline Development Corporation’s stakeholder engagement manager, at the Jan. 15 Alaska LNG Advisory Committee meeting. “That has been affected by the shutdown. We don’t know when we will receive those records of decisions. Once we receive them, the only outstanding issues with ASAP would be getting state local permits that would be required.”

Parker also said the Federal Regulatory Commission is requesting more data for the Alaska LNG project.

“We thought we received the last data request, however, our Christmas present on Dec. 26 was a note from FERC with 91 additional data requests,” Parker said.

She said the majority of data requested is engineering related, and they won’t affect the draft environmental impact statement, which is set to be released by the end of February.

Parker said they plan to respond to all of the data requests by June. As of last Tuesday, the project has received 1,655 data requests from FERC. All but 111 data requests have been responded to.

Both Valdez and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough have expressed interest in housing the Alaska LNG project, but the likelihood of the Alaska LNG project staying in Nikiski seemed high after Parker’s update. In the last two months, formal resolutions supporting the Alaska LNG project in Nikiski have been passed borough wide, from the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District, and the cities of Kenai, Soldotna, Homer, Seward and Seldovia.

“So you have support from Seward to Seldovia that the facility should be located here in your neighborhood,” Parker said.

The draft environmental impact statement coming at the end of February will identify a location for the Alaska LNG project. All of the work that has gone into identifying facilities and infrastructure would need to be replicated in those communities. The Alaska LNG project thus far has already cost tens of millions of dollars, Parker said.

“The draft (environmental impact statement) will identify a location for a liquefaction plant facility, which 99 percent of me says will be Nikiski,” Parker said. “Will there be people that challenge that and say we want it in other places? I suspect yes… I don’t see FERC coming back and identifying a different location.”

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

While the borough’s ports and highways fill up with thousands of visitors from across the world in the summertime, more and more travelers are looking to experience Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula in the fall and wintertime.

Alaska has seen an increase in winter tourism, according to a new report from Anchorage-based research firm, the McDowell Group.

Locally, several chambers across the borough have reported seeing small increases in winter tourism.

In Seward, Cindy Clock, the executive director for the Seward Chamber of Commerce, said in an email that there has been a slight growth in winter tourism in the Seward area.

“Although we are too far south to promote consistent aurora activity, Silverton Mountain Guides has been offering heli-skiing for the past few years,” Clock said. “Activity, lodging and restaurant businesses have been evolving into year-round businesses as well since they too are aware of this travel trend.”

Cooper Landing has also seen growth similar to Seward’s, with a handful of businesses choosing to stay open longer in the winter, President of the Cooper Landing Chamber of Commerce Stephanie Lesmeister said.

“Several of our members are open this winter and seem to be staying steady,” Lesmeister said. “Local volunteers have been grooming the cross-country ski trails and that seems to draw people to the area. Additionally, fly fishing has been getting more and more popular and we seem to see people out fishing later and later into the winter.”

Lesmeister said Drifters Lodge, Sunrise Inn, Wildmans and The Inn at Tern Lake are a few of the local businesses that have stayed open for the winter.

Tim Dillon, executive director of the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District, said the winter tourism numbers in the borough are up.

“Borough-wide everybody is pretty pleased with the numbers we’re seeing,” Dillon said. “We’re seeing some growth.”

Over the last three seasons, winter visitation in the state has increased by 2.1 percent. The report said Alaska’s winter tourism has been growing steadily over the last decade, though still far below summer tourist numbers. The report says the number of tourists visiting between the fall and winter season of 2017 and 2018 was up 33 percent from a decade earlier. Data refers to the time period between the months of October and April, and both out-of-state and Alaska residents.

The report notes that the “Chinese market has exploded over the last several seasons.”

“The main draw is the northern lights,” the report said.

The report also notes that Girdwood’s Alyeska Resort reported “unprecedented growth in out-of-state visitation over the last several winter seasons.”

Dillon said local chambers are in a listening mode and are gathering information about what travelers might be interested in doing in the winter.

“Whether it’s northern lights, ice-fishing, snowmobiling, or other winter sports, the peninsula can really accommodate,” Dillon said. “Our tourism industry has really been able to hold its own.”

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

Near Anchorage’s Ship Creek, a new bronze statue of an elder named Olga, a Dena’ina matriarch from the village of Eklutna, stands and overlooks land that was once a prosperous Native fish camp.

Soldotna artist Joel Isaak, who is Dena’ina himself, worked on the statue for two and a half years. He said he doesn’t take the opportunity to represent his culture through art lightly.

“It’s a lot of reflection,” Isaak said. “Trying to consolidate the history of cultural annihilation and assimilation in a positive light is tricky. It’s a way to convey that we are still living people.”

Isaak, a Dena’ina language professor at the Kenai Peninsula College, created his proposal for the statue after the village of Eklutna sent out a call for art. The parameters of the project included a piece that was in the likeness of Olga and that it tiedinto the fishing heritage at the site of Ship Creek.

Isaak said it’s always a rare opportunity to himself as an Alaska Native in public art.

“Most of the figurative work, if it is of indigenous people, looks like European people,” Isaak said. “I don’t identify with it from a visual standpoint. Being able to have the opportunity to be able to be a little more in control of the narrative is an honor. It’s exciting to see other people’s excitement at that opportunity.”

Isaak’s work can be found in many places across Alaska. He worked on a beluga whale diorama in Anchorage’s Ted Stevens Airport. Art of Isaak’s can be found in the Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka. Locally, Isaak completed statues in front of the Dena’ina Wellness Center and salmon skin bowls in the Kenai Courthouse.

Isaak had two photographs of Olga to base his statue on. The statue has Olga in customary Dena’ina clothing, like fish skin boots and a dress featuring quill work. Isaak said Dena’ina regalia has been important to him to him from an early age.

“Part of my journey in making the bronze statuary is learning how to make the clothing,” Isaak said. “I’ve wanted to learn to make regalia since I was in either first or second grade making paper pilgrim and Indian costume stuff. I researched at museums, and took workshops and learned all the methods needed to produce that clothing so I understood what I was trying to replicate before just looking at a picture in a book and trying to make it look something like that.”

The Dena’ina culture is a matriarchal society. Olga was an elder and a leader in Dena’ina land north of Anchorage. Isaak said the piece was not only honoring Dena’ina history and heritage, but also women in our society.

“Honoring our indigenous women and women everywhere — our society is based off of that model so there’s strong precedent for making an elder and then having the elder be a woman,” Isaak said. “I think it’s poignant in our current situation for the need to honor and respect women in our state and in the world, but especially with the current statistics. Bringing a visual voice to honor the role that women have in our society and culture.”

Born and raised in Soldotna, Isaak has many connections to Dena’ina culture, and even Olga herself. His family comes from the Upper Cook Inlet area in Point Possession. He said he’s distantly related to Olga, going back several generations.

“I’ve always had a strong desire to be connected to my indigenous Native culture and all the different cultures that my family comes from,” Isaak said. “But living here in Soldotna on Dena’ina land there has been a very strong desire from me from a very early age to learn my language and material culture.”

In Dena’ina culture, clothing is used as fine art. Dena’ina people were semi-nomadic or sedentary and would move between summer fish camp and a winter village, which was sometimes in almost the same spot, Isaak said. For this reason, art would move with the people in the form of clothing, which would represent things like where a person was from and what family they belonged to.

“You put (your art) on your clothing and you bring it with you,” Isaak said. “So the quill work design in the shape of the tunic can tell where you’re from — it can tell your clan information. It’s a form of visual written communication that we don’t really have that Rosetta Stone for. It served as a function for that and it also brings in that visual fine art. We just brought it with us everywhere instead of leaving it behind glass or in a frame.”

The statue is near Anchorage’s downtown, which a busy and growing part of the city. Isaak said the statue is a reminder of the area’s past.

“Having it be in Anchorage is making invisible people visible,” Isaak said. “It’s surrounded by this growing city, but we’re still here and making that visual presence.”

Joel Isaak is a Soldotna-based artist who teaches Dena’ina language classes at the Kenai Peninsula College, on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Victoria Petersen/Peninsula Clarion)

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

A mural not seen for decades has been uncovered on the facade of the Kenai Municipal Airport.

The decades-old mural, which was revealed Tuesday by construction crews working on the airport’s remodel, depicts familiar local icons, such as the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox chapel, fishing nets and a dog musher.

The Peninsula Clarion was unable to reach the airport manager, however, Chris Parker of K &A Design said the mural dates to the 1960s and was covered up by metal siding in the 1980s.

The airport was built in 1966 and has been renovated three times since. An expansion of the airport took place in 1983, and the restaurant and lounge were added in 1988. In 2004, sidewalks, entryways and parking lots were updated.

After construction workers removed siding from the facade of the Kenai Municipal Airport, a mural with iconic Kenai images like fishing nets, the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox chapel and a dog musher, was revealed on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 in Kenai, Alaska.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District superintendent Sean Dusek announced his retirement on Monday.

Dusek will be leaving the district at the end of the school year, effective June 30.

“I’m resigning for retirement purposes,” Dusek said during Monday’s Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education work session.

There is no one lined up to replace Dusek. On Monday, the school board discussed plans to create a committee that would begin the process of finding a new superintendent.

Dusek has served as the superintendent for nearly five years.

During Monday’s work sessions, school board member Dan Castimore said the district was large enough to have a CEO instead of a superintendent. The school board’s committee will see what’s the most suitable plan of action for filling the superintendent’s role later this year.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

Editors note: This story has been updated to show there were 110 suicide risk assessments.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has so far this year seen an increased number of suicide risk assessments and referrals to the Office of Children’s Services compared to the previous year.

As of last week, the district has conducted 110 suicide risk assessments on students this year, Assistant Superintendent of Instruction John O’Brien told the school board during a work session on Monday. Last year, the school district reached a record high of 140 suicide risk assessments for the full year. Suicide risk assessments are done on students who have exhibited suicidal ideation.

In recent years, the district has been working to get more counselors and psychologists in schools to help alleviate growing issues with students’ mental health. O’Brien said he was hoping the district would be able to fund four additional counselors, two for the central peninsula, and one each for the southern peninsula and eastern peninsula, which would cost $400,000.

“Administratively and fiscally, on what’s going on with the state, the board was reluctant to come up with an additional $400,000 for those counselors,” O’Brien said at the work session.

The district uses the number of OCS referrals and suicide risk assessments as indicators of student mental health. O’Brien said recent data for the number of referrals and assessments was troubling.

“I hate to continually bring you this kind of data, but it is real,” O’Brien said. “Our school psychologists, counselors and principals, especially schools that don’t have counselors, are the ones who are on the front lines of students dealing with crisis.”

O’Brien said the number of OCS referrals this year has exceeded numbers compared to 2016.

“At this point in the year we already have almost as many OCS referrals as we have had in years past for the entire year,” O’Brien said. “We’re only one semester into the year now.”

School board member Mike Illg said he is going to keep pushing for more counselors in schools.

“I would like to see (more counselors) in the budget, even if it means we have to cut something else,” Illg said. “Our schools are literally on fire, internally. We owe it to these kids to help them where we can.

“This is coming at us hard and fast and it’s only going to get worse if we do not provide the services they need in our schools. $400,00 is a lot of money, but what’s the long game on this?”

The school district is beginning to work on their FY2020 budget. It is unknown if they will fund additional counselors.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

A resolution to establish an election stakeholders group to explore election models to better serve the peninsula voters was introduced at Tuesday’s Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting.

The resolution would task the borough clerk in establishing the group, which would maximize accessibility and inclusivity in the voting process.

The stakeholders group would evaluate and solicit constituent comments about various election models to better serve borough and municipal voters.

“While local elections directly impact the everyday lives of borough residents, voter turnout in the borough and municipal elections is typically low and the current election process consumes considerable community resources,” the resolution reads.

The borough conducts regular elections through traditional polling places open on election day and by mail for more remote precincts through absentee and in-person voting sites, according to the resolution.

The stakeholder’s group would also research ways to increase voter turnout in the area.

The group would include a representative of borough administration, one community resident who would represent the interest of people with visual impairments, two members of the borough’s canvas board, one member representing the League of Women Voters, the municipal managers and one council member from each of the borough’s municipalities and two borough assembly members.

The group is slated to form and meet by August 2019.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

The Kenai warehouse space and former home of Lowe’s Home Improvement has been sold, Fred Braun of Jack White Realty said.

Braun, the main broker for Jack White Realty, said the new owner, U-Haul, gets the keys to the warehouse space Monday.

Braun said he didn’t know what U-Haul planned to do with the building at this time.

The building, located on Marathon Road near WalMart, has been sitting vacant for about eight years since it was last occupied by Lowe’s. In 2008, Lowe’s built the building, but shut its doors in 2011 because the store wasn’t meeting sales expectations, according to the Associated Press.

The warehouse has 111,348-square-feet with an additional 26,568-square-feet of covered-garden center space, according to information on a brochure for the space.

The brochure lists the property at $4.2 million.

Originally published in the Peninsula Clarion

Last New Year’s Eve I was at the same event I was for the two previous New Year’s. I rang in 2018 in a duplex on Anchorage’s Southside where my boyfriend, his roommates, new friends and old friends from high school gathered to drink boxed wine and beer.

This year, my boyfriend and I sat by the wood stove watching “Bob’s Burgers,” and after drinking half a beer, I found myself under my comforter, with the lights off, before 9 p.m. It was a great New Year’s.

New Year’s is anticlimactic. Jan. 1 was just another Tuesday for me.

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. I think we have just as valid of an opportunity to set goals for ourselves and make positive changes in our lives any time of the year.

However, this winter season has me extremely goal-oriented for some reason. Maybe now that I’ve graduated college, I am overwhelmed by the world’s possibilities, or maybe I’m less distracted in life because I can’t get internet at my new house.

Before heading to bed early on New Year’s Eve, I was reminiscing with friends over text about the New Year’s Eve of 2013. A group of friends and I took off to Hawaii for a month. Most of the trip was spent at the condo of my friend Kate’s aunt, but for New Year’s we rented a house through Airbnb on the other side of the island.

The house had limited internet, was walking distance away from a black-sand beach, and had a big outdoor garden with citrus trees, several hammocks and a ladder to a flat roof where we laid and watched the stars every evening. It was a magical space.

The night of New Year’s Eve, we made tacos, popped a bottle of champagne and went around the table diving deep into what made us happy in 2013, and what we wanted to improve in the new year. I told my friends I would travel more in 2014. It was the first time I made a real, conscious New Year’s resolution.

Since I told my friends I would travel more, I had to follow through. In 2014, I was living in a small, dry cabin on 40 acres of birch forest in Fairbanks while I was working for the Alaska Railroad. The six months of isolation I experienced sent me on a journey that started with dropping out of college and ended with me getting on a plane to the Philippines. I needed a change of scenery.

I saved all of my summer earnings and traveled for three months by myself down the West Coast of the United States, couch surfing with family and old friends. Once in Los Angeles, I flew over to Japan and the Philippines, stopping in South Korea and Hong Kong. It was my first time leaving North America. I didn’t set out on a soul-searching adventure, but it inevitably turned into that.

I haven’t set a New Year’s goal since 2013. Despite this, I met goals in 2018 I’ve been working toward for years, like getting a full-time reporter job at a daily newspaper, becoming a business owner and finally graduating from college. These accomplishments are propelling me into 2019.

This New Year’s, I’m making some goals for myself, call them resolutions if you wish. I want to read more books. I hope to cook more, which is something I’ve been doing a lot more of since moving from Anchorage to Kenai this year. Most importantly, though, I want to embrace my new home this new year.

Since moving to Kenai, I’ve taken advantage of our newfound solitude. It’s nice to live in a place where we only have one real neighbor and seeing the aurora borealis doesn’t require a drive to Flattop Mountain where the light pollution is minimal. On clear nights the aurora shines right through our bedroom window.

When I got my job at the Clarion, I was excited to move back to the peninsula, a place associated with happy childhood memories of playing through tall stalks of fireweed, beachcombing at Captain Cook State Recreation Area and swimming in Salamatof Lake near my parents’ Nikiski home. However, as a newfound adult, summer days of no responsibility are long gone, even on the peninsula.

Living here these last eight months or so has been difficult. I miss my friends and family in Anchorage. It was almost too easy to spend time with the people I loved. A simple text or call, and within minutes I could find myself at a brewery with friends or making dinner in the kitchen of a family member’s home. I’ve been lucky to make great friends on the peninsula, but it’s not so easy to meet up when we’re spread across cities and schedules are hectic.

Despite living with my boyfriend and our dog, I feel like I’m alone in that Fairbanks cabin again. Some days are better than others, and some days have me searching for the cheapest flight out of here. Every day things get easier because they become more normal. I am finding joy in the peninsula’s outdoor spaces, which are more abundant and more accessible than my Anchorage neighborhood of Spenard. I brought out my old high school cross-country skis in hopes fluffy snow will return so I can explore a trail I found by my house.

Embracing my new home will come when I embrace the quality of alone time, which is probably best spent exploring the outdoors. Get outside 2019.