Dave Kiffer - Alaskan Poet, Historian, Humorist

http://www.sitnews.us/DaveKiffer/112919_kiffer.html    (originally published 11-29-19) Cast Those Stones , Ketchikan is Without Sin! Ketchikan has come a long way in the last 90+ years The 1920s were a rollicking time in the First City. The city was shaking off the economic doldrums of the teens and the salmon canning industry was booming thanks to the fish traps that supplied hundreds of thousands salmon each year to Ketchikan's 13 canneries. It was the time when Ketchikan, rightfully, called itself the "Salmon Capital of the World." But, there was something else that Ketchikan was known for, far and wide. Vice. While Prohibition was making the rest of the country very thirsty, Ketchikan's proximity to ready alcohol in Canada meant that any boat that could float was being pressed into "rum running" across Dixon Entrance. And, with the hundreds of single fishermen in the community, more than 100 women of negotiable affection were plying their tra...

 http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/HermanLudwigsen/032520_herman_ludwigsen.html    Ketchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in Early 1950s   Most area residents are familiar with the plane crash of legendary pilot Harold Gillam in Boca de Quadra back in 1943. But almost exactly a decade later there was another crash in Boca de Quadra, barely a mile away from where Gillam's plane when down. This one involved Ellis Hall , the multimillionaire owner of Texas-based Condor Petroleum. Hall was on a vacation with his wife, two daughters and a family friend to Southeast Alaska. After visiting Juneau, Ellis was piloting his de Havilland DH 104 Dove, a large twin engine plane. The plane would disappear after leaving Annette Island on August 17, 1953 leading to a month long search, before the wreckage was found by Ketchikan pilot Herman Ludwigsen . Hall had landed his plane at Annette because the weather was beginning to deteriorate but wa...

  POSTCARDS FROM A SIMPLER TIME   (Copyright 2020)   Facebook would like to remind me That five years ago my son played soccer At the Fawn Mountain Field and a friend Took a photo of him with his tongue out   Facebook would also like to remind me That my wife had a sale at the bookstore Two years ago and that she was open late For people to get their mail orders in   Facebook would like to remind me That three years ago, there was still Heavy snow on my driveway And I was sick of shoveling it   Facebook would like to remind me That nine years ago my son Visited an ice cream truck In New Mexico, for the first time   Today Facebook wants me to know These things could not happen today But that I should wash my hands and Await further instructions from the past

  http://www.sitnews.us/DaveKiffer/121719_kiffer.html (this was originally published on 12-17-19_ Hopefully ,  any   blasts   are   long   in   the   past ! When I was a little kid, my Dad used to scare  the  holy heck out of me with stories about how Deer Mountain spewed lava and ash when he was a kid.  Seriously, Dad and his Charcoal Point  are a hoodlum friends had to FLEE  IN TO  THE  OCEAN to avoid  the  wrath of Deer Volcano!!!!! Well, maybe not, but I was all of four or five so it seemed possible. Especially with  the  peak of Deer Mountain looking all volcano-cone like. Unfortunately for  the  story, when  the  state volcano studiers issued a report about volcanos  in   the  state  a while back, Deer Mountain was not on  the  list. I'm not saying it never spewed ash. But not  in   any  geological time frame worth consider...

  http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/StanleyMacDonald/040120_stanley_macdonald.html The 'King of Cruising' and the Princess Patricia Stanley   McDonald  got the idea for Pacific cruising at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair It isn’t often that an entire industry can be pegged to the creative drive of one person. But while there were “cruise ships” before  Stanley   McDonald  took a small Canadian steam ship and began making runs between Los Angeles and Mexico in 1965, there is a reasonable argument that the $134 billion cruise industry would not be where it is today with him. McDonald  was born in Alberta, Canada in 1920. He was raised in Yakima, Washington. Eventually, he ended up in Seattle and attended the University of Washington. During World War II he became a US Navy pilot. After the war, he founded a company called Air Mac, a Northwest company that specialized in material handling equipment. The company expanded with offices in numerous foreign companies...