Anchorage City Talk

I have no idea why, but this morning I started thinking about Book Cache.  Having moved away from Anchorage in 1990, I am constantly surprised by all the changes.  I did a bit of research and learned that poor little Book Cache had a lot of problems in the early 90s when the big box stores came to town.  They began closing selected branches in the early 1990s, and by the late 1990s all of the Book Cache stores had closed.

When I was growing up in Anchorage in the 1970s and 1980s, on the one hand, life was a lot simpler.  If you wanted a new book, you had your choice between the Book Cache stores and a small handful of Waldenbooks stores.  If the book you wanted couldn't be found there, then you were out of luck.  What were you going to do, drive to Willow and check there?
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From The Redoubt Reporter, a newspaper published weekly in Soldotna, comes this epic tale of a commercial fisherman who found himself mediating a bear versus shark tug-of-war.

Earlier this week fisherman Bill Holt, a trail caretaker and school board member, dropped his nets in Clam Cove just outside Ketchikan. Holt place his buoy as close to the shore as he could, given state regulations.

He and his other crew members (his 12 year old son Galen, and an assistant named Maggie who is entering Harvard Medical School next fall) proceeded to lay out the rest of the net. As the tide started running out, and they began bringing in fish, Holt suddenly saw the buoy bob below the surface and start "thrashing around."

Holt quickly discovered that a salmon shark had become entangled in his net. Salmon sharks are a swift species which reach lengths of six to eight feet long, and can weigh up to 500 pounds. Read more

Alaska blogger Mudflats (herself a Democrat, who has supported Mike Doogan in the past) earned a substantial rep last year for blogging about Sarah Palin from a local perspective. I always appreciated Mudflats' observations, because (unlike many bloggage about the presidential race) it was always even handed and clear headed. Considering what a frenzy the blogosphere was last year, her posts were always a well reasoned breath of fresh air.

Last December, Mudflats (along with several other people) sent Doogan an email asking for more transparency and accountability in government. Doogan responded with a single response to everyone who had emailed him - he put them all on the CC line, and responded with a snarky, dismissive message. Irate, the recipients used "reply all," which really got Doogan's goat. Here is his response, copied from Mudflats' blog post on the incident:

"Are you people nuts? You send me - and everybody else in the legislature [sic], from the looks of things - Spam and then lecture me on email etiquette - as if there were such a thing? Read more

Perhaps heralding a slow news day, news outlets across the country have lept on the news that Mount Redoubt might be about to blow.  Any minute now!

Mount Redoubt's volcano erupted with very little notice in 1989, causing most air traffic to be re-routed, and a fine layer of ash to be deposited all across Cook Inlet.  (I say "most" air traffic because a KLM jet ignored or didn't receive warning in time, and flew right through the ash plume over Talkeetna.  Although the pilot was able to bring the jet's engines back online and everyone arrived safely at the airport, it was a pretty scary experience.  The Anchorage Daily News has a vivid account of the near-crash experience in <a href="http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/672551.html">today's article on Redoubt</a>.)

Volcanic activity is fairly common in the Aleutians, and in unpopulated areas across the world.   Mount Redoubt captures the national attention because it's fairly close to an urban population.  I remember when Redoubt blew in 1989, we could see the ash plume from Anchorage (although just barely).

A fine dusting of ash fell over everything, and we were warned to change the air filters in our cars, and to w Read more

As of yesterday, January 5th, glass can no longer be recycled in the city of Anchorage. According to the Anchorage Daily News recycling blog,

"[...]the glass drop-off containers at the Anchorage Recycling Center off Dowling Road (Smurfit-Stone Recycling), the Anchorage Regional Landfill and at Brown Jug Warehouse on Old Seward will be removed."

Recycling has become less profitable across the country, as costs for transportation have soared in line with gas prices. However, Anchorage is one of the first cities to stop recycling a category as big as "glass." Although glass recycling is said to be "on hiatus" in Anchorage, there is no word yet on when it will resume.

This spells trouble for recycling overall in Anchorage, because glass has traditionally been one of the easiest, cleanest, and most profitable items to recycle. Unlike plastics, paper, and cardboard, all of which require a lot of processing, glass simply needs to be melted in order to be recycled. Glass is one of the few products which requires less energy to recycle than it does to make from scratch. Read more

The Discovery Channel recently aired an episode of a new show called "Bear Feeding Frenzy." The show purports to give viewers an inside, hidden camera look at grizzly bears in the wild. Former soap opera star Chris Douglas sits inside a bear proof plexiglass box while a grizzly bear approaches, mangles a mannequin tied to the outside of the box, and drags it away into the woods for further chomping.

The catch? It was filmed entirely at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage, inside an eighteen acre fenced enclosure.

"Bear Feeding Frenzy" opens with a sensational shot of claws ripping through a red tinged background. Read more

On Christmas Day, a small squadron of snowmen appeared in front of City Hall, carrying signs in support of Snowzilla. Sadly, the snowmen were destroyed, and their remains scattered across the sidewalk.

The Snowzilla saga is a long and complicated story. Some people say it's a tale of one man struggling against bureaucracy. Others say it's a story of a stubborn man's insistence on setting up an annual eyesore, despite the protests of neighbors.

For the last three years, homeowner Billy Powers has constructed a giant snowman in the yard of his Columbine Street home in the Airport Heights neighborhood. Read more

Winter solstice (December 21st) is a big day for Alaskans. Although Solstice is technically the first day of winter, for many Alaskans it feels like the midpoint of the season. Once the days start getting longer, the end is in sight.

Everyone celebrates Solstice in their own way, even if it's just a sigh of relief upon waking on Sunday morning. Many adults hold their own solstice parties, either formally or informally. Hardy souls hike Flattop to celebrate. Typically, a small handful of people will extend the festivities by camping there overnight.

The solstice celebration may be one of the oldest holidays in the history of human civilization. Even the earliest cultures marked the return of daylight with relief:

Neolithic Ireland
Newgrange is a prehistoric earth work, which was built in Ireland at about the same time Stonehenge was built in England - between 3300 and 2900 BC. Newgrange is a long stone passage built below a huge earth mound, and used primarily for burial rites. Read more

The Anchorage Daily News recently reported that the Assembly is thinking about staffing Anchorage with a "bear cop." The idea was proposed by Eagle River Assemblyman Bill Starr, and will be discussed at a public hearing tonight at the Assembly meeting at Loussac Library.

Grizzly bear attacks within the city limits have been on the rise in the past few years. Last summer was one of the worst for bear attacks in Anchorage history. In the past, bears in the city have been handled by the Department of Fish and Game and, in emergency situations, by the city police. The idea behind adding a dedicated bear manager to the city payroll is that they would be able to consult in both short-term emergencies and in long-range planning.

The presence of wildlife (BIG wildlife) in the city is one of the benefits to living in Anchorage. Nevertheless, it's understandable that people are thinking about drawing the line at bears. Read more

The Anchorage Daily News reports that 680 students from Central Middle School had to abandon the building Tuesday after a blocked underground pipe caused a backup of raw sewage.

The students were initially split up by grade and sent to different schools. Seventh graders were sent to Chugach Optional next door, and eighth graders were bused to Romig Middle School about a mile away.

Central Middle School is a district-wide alternative school program, with a strong focus on math and science (its official name is "Central Middle School of Science"). Central accepts students from throughout the Anchorage School District. Read more