Dave Kiffer - Alaskan Poet, Historian, Humorist

  SOUTHEAST LOG 10-30-21 Film was personal for filmmakers PRINCE RUPERT - Lorna Brown and Wanda Good had very personal reasons for making the documentary "Adwaak"" which tells the stories of murdered and missing indigenous women in Northwest British Columbia. Brown's niece Tamara Chipman went missing in 2005 from near Prince Rupert. Two of Good's cousins went missing from Terrace in 1995 and Prince Rupert in 1989. THE PRINCE RUPERT NORTHERN VIEW 5 interim manager hopefuls WRANGELL - Five people have applied for the interim borough manager position.. One, Jeff Good, is from Wrangell, the other four are out of state. The interim manager position will be for several months as the borough assembly looks for a permanent replacement for Lisa Van Bargen who resigned as of October 29. THE WRANGELL SENTINEL Moose harvest up PETERSBURG - The area moose harvest of 129 was the highest in the past four years, according to Fish and Game. Ten of the 129 moose w...

  SOUTHEAST LOG 10-23-21 Smelter strike ends KITIMAT - A 69-day strike at Rio Tinto facilities on the north coast has come to an end. Unifor Local 2301 said their membership voted 70.6% in "favour" of the tentative agreement, bringing to end the 900-worker walkout that severely curtailed production at the Kitimat aluminum smelter. THE KITIMAT NORTHERN SENTINEL Lucas wins state PETERSBURG - Uriah Lucas of Petersburg High is the state champion in Division III Cross Country. Lucas finished in 17:38, edging Haines' Leo Wald by nine seconds. THE PETERSBURG PILOT All Native tourney back on PRINCE RUPERT - The All-Native Basketball Tournament that draws teams from both Alaska and British Columbia is back on in 2022 after being cancelled the last two years because of COVID. The tournament will be in February of 2022 and is expected to bring between 2,000 and 3,000 players and fans to Prince Rupert. THE PRINCE RUPERT NORTHERN VIEW Former legislator dies JUNEAU - Re...

  SOUTHEAST LOG 10-16-21 $5.9 million winner! PRINCE RUPERT - October will forever be a lucky month for one local resident. Last week, there were two winners in the $11.8 million lottery national lottery . One ticket was sold in Prince Rupert. THE PRINCE RUPERT NORTHEN VIEW Voters okay taxes for streets JUNEAU - Voters have elected to continue a three-percent sales tax for street maintenance and city and borough operations. Michelle Hale and Barbara Blake appear to have won seats on the Borough Assembly, THE JUNEAU EMPIRE Boro may lift heli-ski limit HAINES - Heli-skiing may become a bigger thing in the borough. The assembly recently took its first steps to remove it's 10-year-old limit on the number of operations in the borough. Currently only three heli-ski operations are allowed. THE CHILKAT VALLEY NEWS Businesses not as pessimistic WRANGELL - Local businesses are not as pessimistic about the economy as those in other communiti...

  The First City in 1898 , before it was a city Visitor from Tacoma wrote it was his idea to move the customs house to Ketchikan In 1898 , Ketchikan was collection of shacks on the edge of becoming a city. By 1900, it would incorporate and eventually go on to become - briefly - the largest city in the territory of Alaska. But when James Bashford arrived in January of 1898 , that was all in the future. In 1948, Bashford shared his memories of Ketchikan in 1898 with the readers of the Alaska Sportsman Magazine in a story called "Frontier Town." It is an interesting view of the First City just as it was transitioning into the first port of call in Alaska. And to, if you take Bashford's word for it, he was at least partly responsible for Ketchikan becoming the main city in Southern Southeast Alaska. While some of the information in "Frontier Town"  is questionable ( Bashford claims to have met notorious Skagway con man Soapy Smith on the voyage up) or j...

  By Dave Kiffer For the Daily News It is not clear when the first Filipinos arrived in Ketchikan, but it was more than a century ago. There is a brief mention in a Ketchikan Mining Journal edition printed in the summer of 1905, that refers to a "Philipino cafe" on Stedman Street in 'Indiantown" owned by Manuel Diaz. There is no connection between that Manuel Diaz and the Diaz family that has operated the Diaz Cafe - also on Stedman Street - for nearly 60 years. But it is clear that Filipinos were in Ketchikan in the earliest days of the community. The 2020 US Census found that that more than 12 percent of the city of Ketchikan population was Filipino, only about four percentage points behind population of Native Americans in the city census. The only city in Alaska with a higher percentage of Filipino-American residents is Kodiak, with more than 20 percent. In 1992, Sue Romero gave a presentation to the Tongass Historical Society on the history of Filipinos in the c...