Pink salmon swim in the Tongass National Forest. (Joe Serio / U.S. Forest Service)
As the U.S. Forest Service considers the future management of the Tongass National Forest, I hope that Alaska’s congressional delegation will listen to what Southeast Alaskans already know: Wild salmon are one of the Tongass’ most valuable resources. If we leave the trees standing and protect the habitat that fish need, the Tongass will continue to generate billions of dollars in natural dividends, in turn supporting thousands of fishing jobs and providing millions of pounds of nutritious seafood year after year.
Southeast Alaska, where I live and fish, runs on seafood. Seafood is the bedrock of our local economy and supports our intergenerational way of life. The economic output of Southeast’s seafood industry exceeds $800 million annually, accounting for 15% of regional employment, with 4,400 resident commercial fishermen and 2,900 processing jobs across more than 30 coastal communities. Salmon are a key driver of our region’s fishing industry, accounting for more than half of Southeast’s total commercial catch most years while also supporting significant subsistence harvests, tourism and sport fisheries. Salmon keep Southeast’s fishermen employed year-round, which is critical in our rural communities where employment options are limited.
Southeast Alaska’s salmon abundance is not an accident — and it also cannot be taken for granted. Hundreds of intact and diverse watersheds around the region form a complex mosaic of prime salmon habitat. The Tongass’ watersheds, which are globally unique in their water quality and productive capacity, pump out 50 million salmon per year. With the largest tracts of undisturbed coastal temperate rainforest in the world, the Tongass is unmatched in its biological diversity and productivity.
For decades, Southeast Alaska’s communities and fishermen have fought industrial logging in the Tongass. Despite the recorded ecological degradation, dwindling economic return, and growing local opposition, there are a few decision-makers who remain committed to subsidizing industrial timber extraction. We know where that leads. In the Pacific Northwest, industrial logging and road construction have destroyed salmon spawning and rearing habitat. Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars trying to recover local salmon populations through hatcheries and habitat restoration — with limited success. Why would Alaska repeat that mistake, especially when timber, in recent sales, is going for less than the price of a Big Mac at $2 per thousand board feet? Alaska has the chance to get it right, to protect the natural capital that supports our fisheries and sustains our local economies. We can harvest the rewards of bountiful salmon runs and save money on habitat restoration — it’s a win/win.
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The harmful impacts of industrial logging on Southeast Alaska’s salmon watersheds and our natural dividends are not hypothetical. The timber industry has caused extensive damage to some of Southeast’s most productive salmon watersheds through decades of old-growth logging and the construction of 5,000 miles of roads around the region. These activities have resulted in barriers to salmon passage, with failed culverts blocking over 240 miles of spawning streams and costing fishermen an estimated $2.5 million per year in forgone catch. Past logging has also driven changes in adjacent areas to stream flow and temperature, sedimentation, water quality, and the risk of landslides and floods. By allowing industrial logging to continue in the Tongass, we are undermining Southeast’s economy and future.
Protecting the Tongass is not a charitable act; it is the most cost-effective way to improve ecosystem productivity and ensure the prosperity and well-being for all who call Southeast home. We need our lawmakers and the Forest Service to prioritize protection of the natural capital that sustains our rural communities and local businesses. Our livelihoods depend on it.
Linda Behnken resides in Sitka, where she has commercial fished for over 40 years. She is the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and president of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust.
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The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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