Litter
Dear Editor: I’m the guy you may have seen along HPR, SMC, and Airport Road in clement months over the last 11 years, cleaning up after my fellow Sitkans. I sought to make that contribution volitionally after retirement, and while folks have offered their thanks from time to time, I was glad to do it. I am no longer so inclined.
Perhaps I’ve created a moral hazard with my efforts, in that the assumption has been made that the city streets can be used as trash cans because the old guy with the whiskers will clean them up. Certainly, the waste deposited on the areas I policed has increased, and more rapidly. I’d hate to think I’m incentivizing this behavior.
The author and journalist Sebastian Junger wrote in his book “Tribe” that littering is a manifestation of disengagement from one’s community. I’ll bite. Curiously, there’s a lot of lip service offered up in this town about “the environment”; logic dictates that eyesores constitute environment.
In any event, we’re looking at grand numbers of visitors returning in the coming years. My motivation to date was that Sitka should be presented in her best light to them. Going forward, perhaps somewhere in administration the means to keep the roads clean might be found – fact is, the areas I tended are technically under Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities aegis. Wherever lies the corrective horsepower, I’m moving on. I don’t consider it quitting; I consider that I have done my share.
Charles Dean, Sitka
Fishermen’s Expo
Dear Editor: Building on the success of past Fishermen’s Expo, the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust hosted our sixth virtual Fishermen’s Expo on April 4 and 5 to provide educational workshops to local fishermen. Thanks to our sponsors, all events were free and open to the public.
ALFA has been providing trainings in the form of our Fishermen’s EXPO since 2016. At the Fishermen’s EXPOs, participants have the opportunity to attend educational forums on a variety of topics. This most recent EXPO event provided workshops and presentations on fishermen training courses, commercial fishing insurance, management updates on halibut bycatch and pending salmon bycatch actions, business planning for fishermen, break-even analysis, preparing for your lender, Deckhand Logbook updates, troller-led oceanography in Southeast Alaska, and ALFA’s crew training program.
Providing resources and educational opportunities for local fishermen, especially young fishermen, is part of ALFA’s mission. In the future, we hope to build on this successful model with support from the Young Fishermen’s Development Act and other similar initiatives.
On behalf of ALFA and ASFT’s staff and membership, we would like to thank our Spring Virtual Expo partners for their generous support: Edgerton Foundation and City and Borough of Sitka Fishery Enhancement Fund. We would also like to thank the following for their generous raffle prizes: Orion Sporting Goods, Delta Western, Sea Mart and Alaskans Own.
We look forward to hosting more educational events for our local fishing fleet and community members in the future, and invite anyone who is interested in ALFA’s work to visit our website at alfafish.org.
Natalie Sattler, Program Director, ALFA and ASFT
Linda Behnken, Executive Director, ALFA
