This is the time of year when indoor houseplants come back into clear focus. Where have they been? We spent our entire summer paying attention to things outdoors. Without question, most houseplants in Alaska suffer as a result.

Given that we do have such a unique fixation with our summer flowers and vegetables, it comes as a surprise to many Alaskans that the No. 1 plant category in the U.S. now happens to be houseplants. Something about the pandemic is the probable cause. People fell in love with their plants and started to buy more.

The internet also has something to do with the heightened interest in houseplants. It is not always easy to get plants shipped up here throughout the year, but fortunately local nurseries and box stores bring them in when you cannot rely on mail, and as long as the car is heated, they can be easily transported home.

Of course, many of us in Alaska have some very special houseplants that we simply cannot let die. These were brought up the Alaska Highway when we moved here. A snippet from, say, Grandma’s Christmas cactus became instant family when settling so far away from home. Today, that Christmas cactus has extremely high sentimental value (not to mention size). So start paying attention.

First of all, your house’s heating system has kicked in for the winter. Make sure all your plants are appropriately situated away from heat sources (as well as drafts). This is when I start getting questions about spider mites. Look for tiny mites and webs at intersections of stem and leaves and underneath leaves as well as sap under plants.

Thrips are another complaint. These tiny, annoying flies lay eggs in soil. Keep the soil surface dry or put paper over soil so females won’t lay eggs.

Humidity is sometimes of concern. My vote is to keep plants that don’t care (like mother-in-law tongues, spider plants, philodendrons — the big ones) for around the house. If you want a collection of something, say African violets or gloxinia, set up a room or a location where you can add humidity, maybe even enough to fog the windows occasionally! A humidifier works, obviously.

Of course you should clean up your plants. Get rid of dead leaves and those that are half dead as they are not coming back. Shape the plant if it needs it.

Less obvious is whether to repot a plant. If it has outgrown its container, go for it. If not, water regularly and see how it does. If it looks healthy, leave it alone.

A little bit of store-bought compost or even homemade compost on the soil surface is a good idea. The compost should be enough, but you can add diluted commercial ferts, preferably organic if you see new growth.

One reason why you might see new growth is because you finally took my strongest advice and set up a system to provide extra light to your plants. Whether you grow a collection of plants under it or simply move plants around to give each a turn at some “sun” this winter, set things up now. You will enjoy the results for nine months, not three, and you will be able to start seeds under it, both this winter as well as next spring.

In the early days of this column, I suggested a double or quadruple, fluorescent, shop light fixture. Today I urge you to just hop on the internet and search “Indoor plant lights.” You will find something to suit your needs be it the above suggestion, T-5 bulbs or one of myriad other options. You can and should buy locally, however, if possible. We gotta stick together.

Jeff’s Alaska Garden calendar:

Alaska Botanical Garden: Have you joined? There is as much going on there in the winter as there is in the summer.

Faucets: Did you disconnect hoses and timers and turn off the outdoor water? Had troubles in the past? Get and use a foam faucet cover.

Driveways and walks: Mark them so you know where the snow should be piled.

Alaska House Speaker Cathy Tilton suggested on a talk radio show that Republican members of the House majority blocked an election bill because it would have increased the likelihood of Alaska’s Democratic congresswoman holding on to her seat by making it easier for predominantly Alaska Native residents of rural Alaska to vote.

On the “Michael Dukes Show” last week, Tilton said the election bill, which was blocked by House Republicans on the final day of the legislative session, would have benefited U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, who is running for reelection against Republican challenger Nick Begich III.

The bill would have eliminated the state’s witness signature requirement on absentee ballots. Witness signatures are meant to prevent voting misconduct, but the Alaska Division of Elections currently has no method of verifying the signatures, and accepts any mark on the signature line without review.

The witness signature requirement led to the disqualification of ballots disproportionately in rural parts of the state in the 2022 special primary election, the state’s first all by-mail election. In one rural district, nearly 11% of all ballots cast were rejected for missing witness signatures.

Alaska Native voters, who make up the majority in some rural districts, have overwhelmingly supported Peltola, the first Alaska Native woman to serve in Congress.

”The changes in that bill definitely would have leaned the election towards Mary Peltola, to be quite honest, with no signatures on ballots in, you know, in rural areas,” Tilton said on the radio show last week.

Tilton did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily News.

In response, the Alaska Federation of Natives, which represents 177 federally recognized tribes, expressed “deep concern” over Tilton’s comments. AFN released a statement saying those comments “bring to light troubling implications” that state legislators would “actively work to disenfranchise voters to prevent the election of a specific candidate.”

The state’s witness signature requirement on by-mail ballots has disproportionately affected Alaska Native voters in rural parts of the state, AFN said.

”It is important to ensure that laws affecting Alaskans’ right to vote are fair and non-partisan. Protecting the constitutional right to vote is a responsibility that all legislators share, regardless of their affiliations, and they should work to uphold this right for all Alaskans,” said Joe Nelson, co-chair of AFN and Peltola’s ex-husband, in a prepared statement.

The state has a history of repeatedly failing to make voting accessible in some rural communities. In the August primary election, several polling locations in rural parts of the state did not open, meaning voters in those communities had no way to cast their ballots altogether.

Election data shows that the witness signature requirement also impacts other voters for whom English is not a primary language, including low-income voters in some neighborhoods of Anchorage.

“Alaska Natives are not a monolith,” Shannon Mason, a spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign, said by text message.

”Mary has been working for All Alaskans for two years — and we hope to earn their votes in the election. It’s disrespectful that her opponent’s supporters would attempt to prevent Alaska Natives from voting. We hope all Alaskans and especially Natives send a signal to Nick and his allies that this type of scam will not be tolerated,” Mason said.

The bipartisan election package Tilton referenced in her comments failed to pass the House in the final hours of the legislative session in dramatic circumstances. The bill was introduced by Homer Republican Rep. Sarah Vance to allow the state to remove ineligible voters from its rolls more quickly. The Senate added several other elements, including same-day voter registration, a method for voters to correct errors on absentee ballots and the elimination of the witness signature requirement on by-mail ballots.

After the amended bill passed the Senate on the final day of the legislative session, key House Republicans wanted to block the measure from passing, including Vance, according to Tilton. Vance did not respond to a request for comment. As the clock wound down to midnight on the final day of the session, Anchorage independent Rep. Calvin Schrage, the House minority leader, made a motion for the House to consider the elections bill. The motion failed 20-20.

For the next two hours, the elections bill was at the center of a standoff between the Republican-led House majority opposed to hearing the bill and the Democrat-dominated House minority in support, with outgoing Republican Rep. Jesse Sumner joining the minority in stalling the House from adjourning.

“It was one of the major disappointments of the session. That election bill failed as it did right at the very end — and by a single vote or two,” said Dillingham independent Rep. Bryce Edgmon, who caucused with the mostly Republican majority but supported the legislation.

Edgmon is one of four non-Republican members in the House majority. He said the elections bill was a priority for the influential Bush Caucus, which is made up of lawmakers representing rural Alaska districts. Rep. CJ McCormick, a Bethel Democrat and a member of the Bush Caucus, echoed Edgmon’s comments and said that the state’s “current election system is not acceptable and needs to meet the needs of rural voters and not silence them.”

He said the state’s signature requirements “are incredibly ineffective” and “prohibitive for communities that struggle.” Edgmon said that he wasn’t surprised by “the mentality” in Tilton’s comments that suggested Republicans blocked the elections bill because it was seen as benefiting Peltola.

”It was not lost on me that those forces were in the background and at play,” Edgmon said. “The measures in the bill would have benefited rural Alaska, and it’s disappointing that not everyone shares the objective of making it easier for rural voters to vote.”

Kotzebue independent Rep. Thomas Baker, who serves in the House majority as a member of the Bush Caucus, voted against hearing the elections bill on the last day of the session. He was appointed to the House by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and initially served as a Republican before changing his affiliation. Baker said on Tuesday by text message that he was not aware of Tilton’s comments.

“My opinion on that legislation is that there were many changes made once it left the House and got through the Senate which the House did not have time to thoroughly review before it came back to the House floor,” he said on Tuesday.

In 2020, the Alaska Supreme Court ordered for the state to pause the witness signature requirement on by-mail ballots due to safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. In oral arguments, state attorneys were unable to cite a case where that requirement had exposed voter fraud in Alaska.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska sued the state in 2022, arguing that voters’ constitutional rights were being violated because Alaska does not have a method for voters to correct mistakes on their by-mail ballots, including by adding a witness signature after the fact. That lawsuit is still open in state court.

• • •

Fish hanging in a smokehouse, a wolf holding a piece of meat, a beluga whale: Those were some of the images etched on bowhead whale baleen during a workshop at the Elders & Youth Conference.

Over 50 people gathered on the first floor of the Dena’ina Center on Tuesday afternoon to inscribe their designs on keychains and plaques made from bowhead whale baleen. The workshop was presented by Utqiaġvik’s Ilisagvik College and offered participants a chance to use the Iñupiaq art form to depict what subsistence means to them.

“Etch about your future. Etch about what Indigenous ways of life mean to you. Etch about what makes your heart happy,” said Tigigluk Frieda Nageak, Ilisagvik College spokeswoman and one of the workshop hosts.

[Photos: 2024 Elders & Youth Conference opens in Anchorage with dancing, drumming and more]

Baleen, found in the jaws of whales and used to sieve planktonic creatures from the water, can reach 14 feet in length and varies in color and texture, depending on the age and size of the whale, said Avu Justina Wilhelm, Ilisagvik College president. Indigenous artists have traditionally used baleen for carving, etching, weaving baskets and making jewelry, artwork and miniature ships.

The Tuesday workshop brought together people from the northern regions of the state, as well as the Interior, Southeast and Southwest Alaska.

Shirley McMillen from McGrath drew northern lights and the Big Dipper on her baleen plaque, “just for all of us in this room, we’re from Alaska,” she said.

Lena Layland, an 18-year-old from Cantwell, made a gift for her auntie Violet Jamison: an etching of Denali that she sees often and can draw from memory. Layland, who is Athabaskan and has Inupiaq relatives, has never made art from bowhead baleen before.

“This is the first time,” she said.

A mother from Buckland sat with her son drawing a sissauni, a beluga whale, which is the Buckland school mascot and a type of traditional food that has been less common to harvest in the area in recent years.

Danny Cornell from Juneau honored his clan of Eagle/Wolf moiety by etching a picture of a wolf holding a piece of meat.

“That piece of meat,” he said, is “just to represent the tough life in the wintertime.”

While workshop participants focused on their art, college staff, students and elders in the room spoke about the role harvesting bowhead whales plays in subsistence and cultural preservation in Arctic communities.

[Bowhead quota extended for northern Alaska communities]

“We set everything aside and we focus on the whale,” Wilhelm said. Wilhelm, whose husband is a whaling captain, shared that with the fall whaling season active in the Arctic now, the community of Utqiaġvik in the past weeks has been landing large whales, averaging between 42 and 52 feet.

One Elder in the room was Delbert Rexford, the former president and CEO of Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corp. and a prominent Utqiaġvik whaling captain. He shared that his Inupiaq name is Suqqaq, which translates as baleen.

“Because my name is Suqqaq, baleen, I am a work of art,” he laughed.

Rexford emphasized that harvesting a whale is a spiritual practice and a community effort in his village, only possible after months of preparation and when people come together.

“When we harvest a whale, we feel whole,” Rexford said. “It’s a labor of love.”