Dave Kiffer - Alaskan Poet, Historian, Humorist

  Column: Humor Helping Those Who Help Ourselves! By DAVE KIFFER   April 18, 2018 Wednesday PM Ketchikan, Alaska - Ketchikan residents are nothing if not helpful. We always endeavor to assist newcomers to our community. We just plain love to help people out. Whenever someone says to me "Can you help me out?" I always answer ""Absolutely. What way did you come in?" With than in mind, it's that time of the year when we helpfully provide a guide to those "summer people" who will be staying with us for the next few months. The people that come here to "help us" relieve the visitors of their spare change. Ketchikan changes a bit in the summer. You may have noticed this. Things get a little busier. The weather gets worse. No, scratch that, the weath...

    Alaska Celebrates Civil Rights Pioneer Peratrovich's Efforts Pre-Dated Martin Luther King By DAVE KIFFER   February 18, 2008 Monday Ketchikan, Alaska - Elizabeth Jean Wanamaker Peratrovich is often referred to as the Martin Luther King of Alaska, but the truth is she was fighting for equal rights for Alaska Natives a decade before Martin Luther King gained fame during the Civil Rights movement. Peratrovich was born on July 4, 1911 in Petersburg. Her Tlingit name was Kaaxgal.aat and she was of the Lukaax.adi clan of the Raven moiety, according to information from the Alaska Native Sisterhood. Elizabeth Jean Wanamaker Peratrovich Her parents died when she was very young and she was adopted by Presbyterian missionaries Mary and Andrew Wana...

  ON THE ROAD TO BILLINGS (Copyright 2018, by Dave Kiffer) You have made this trip many times before And could probably make it in your sleep, At the least your Buick, like a faithful horse, Certainly knows every hill and valley of the way And, yet, you want company, so I oblige, I am happy do this, even as the snow Makes it sometimes hard to see the road And the wild animals draw near in the dark The miles tick by and so do your stories The names, places, the stanzas rolling out, The seamless adventures of a long life That has not been lived solely in the mind Later there will be a time I will wish That I had thought to have a tape recorder But for now it is enough to sit quietly In the glow of your everlasting light

  Column: Humor Lies, Damned Lies, and Wall Street Statistics By DAVE KIFFER   May 11, 2018 Friday PM Ketchikan, Alaska - So,  a friend from Down South asked me recently, how I felt to live in the "poorest town" in Alaska? Considering the fact that, by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, Ketchikan is NOT the poorest town in Alaska, this question comes up surprisingly frequently. It seems that there is a website that offers any random clickers a list of the "poorest towns in each state." And it seems like every couple of weeks, the USA Today website spits out this bit of stale news and everyone sops it up like it is a new story. Apparently the numbers - which of course never lie - have determined that Ketchikan is the poorest town in Alaska.  The m...

  2007 Year In Review Plane Crashes, Fires Top 2007 Stories By Dave Kiffer   January 03, 2008 Thursday AM Ketchikan, Alaska - 2007 was a year in which tragedies struck during the summer visitor season and again right before Christmas. In the summer, two tragedies struck weeks apart and resulted in 11 people dying in two float plane crashes. A Taquan Dehavilland Beaver crashed in Misty Fjords on July 24, 2007 Photograph courtesy Alaska State Troopers The Christmas tragedy involved a cooking fire that sent deadly smoke into upstairs bedrooms of a small house killing four children of the Credito family. 11 Die In Plane Crashes 2007 was one of the deadliest years in local flight seeing history. First, a Taquan Dehavilland Beaver crashed in Misty Fjords on July 24, killing the pilot, Joseph Cam...

  CONTINENTAL DRIFT   (Copyright 2018, by Dave Kiffer) After a while, you begin To lose track of the times You have gone to bed On one rain swept coast And woken up on the other No, you weren’t teleported Over the barren Fly Overs, You were aware of each Irrigated mile passing, The conveyored slo-mo tableau   Still, it is always a quick dash Compared to the endless slog Your great grandparents made Before trains, roads and now planes Evaporated the time on task   But in some ways you are Moving slower across the miles, Your jet setting is diminishing Along with your ergonomic throne, As you become Continental Drift

 http://www.sitnews.us/DaveKiffer/092720_kiffer.html   (Published on 9-27-20)       SITNEWS COLUMN #424 "We're on a Flight to Nowhere !!" I don't know about you, but I actually miss flying. I miss just missing the airport ferry and having to wait a half an hour more just to get across. I miss completely disrobing at TSA on the off chance I am trying to smuggle a five-ounce Jack Daniels in a body cavity. I miss the unbearable plastic chairs in the terminal and the incomprehensible airport TV. I miss the person sitting next to me shouting into her cell phone. "Yes, we're at the airport. Yes, we're on time. Yes, I remembered to turn the stove off!!!!" I miss sitting with the middle seat open only to have a very, very, very large person get on the plane at the very, very last minute and plop down into it. I miss hearing the safety lecture half a dozen times between Ketchikan and Anchorage. I miss the wind tunnel roller coaster between Wrangell an...

  KPU: Ketchikan's Home Grown Utility Water, Power and Telephone for more than 7 Decades By DAVE KIFFER   December 19, 2007 Wednesday AM Ketchikan, Alaska - For more than 70 years, KPU - or Ketchikan Public Utilities as it is officially known - has been a constant, and sometimes controversial, presence in the lives of local residents. When the city of Ketchikan decided to purchase Citizen's Light, Power and Water from a Minneapolis holding company in the mid 1930s, Ketchikan became the first community in the United States to own water, telephone and electrical utilities. Citizens Light, Power & Water Co. Office and Sales Building Appraisement, Citizens Light, Power & Water Co. Author: General Appraisal Company Donor: City of Ketchikan, Tongass Historical Society Photograph Courtesy Ketchikan Museums...