The Chilkat Valley Index: Visitors, most popular book, magnet sales and other numbers for 2025
- Chilkat Valley News
- Dec 23, 2025
- 3 min read
By the Chilkat Valley News
About 7,456 people walked into the Haines Visitor Center this year, down from more than 10,600 in 2024. Tourism director Rebecca Hylton attributes that drop, in part, to a road closure during Second Avenue reconstruction and the lack of evening cruise-ship dockings. The center is estimating that approximately 67,833 cruise ship visitors came to town this year, but that figure doesn’t include crew.
1,717,644 pounds of trash and 625 tires were dropped off at Community Waste Solutions’ landfill in Haines. The landfill also sold about 10,964 prepaid orange trash bags this year. Just two bears managed to break into the landfill this year according to manager Craig Franke.
The most checked-out book among adults in the Haines public library was Broken Country, a love story and mystery that patrons checked out 17 times. Sofia’s Magical World, a story centered on a girl who becomes a princess, was checked out 18 times, propelling it to the highest spot among kids’ books. And a DVD copy of The Order was checked out 28 times. All told, 40,198 items – that’s books, cds, DVDs and other physical media – were checked out from the Haines library this year and there were 54,123 individual visits.
According to weather watcher Jim Green, during the 69-day period between the second week of April to the middle of June, just four days were hotter than the historically average daily high temperature. On June 13 the high temperature peaked at 47 degrees F, one of the top 0.4% coldest June days on record for Haines. The amount of precipitation during that period, 15.50 inches in Haines, was second only to 1987. There were a record 44 days with measurable precipitation within those dates.
Since the switch to full-on winter around Dec. 6, the cold outflow winds have taken a few breaks. In Skagway, sustained winds have been almost twice the long-term average, and gusts have hit at least 40 mph daily, and over 50 mph about half the days. Subtract about 15 mph and you have the general idea for Haines. Add about 20 mph or so and you have an approximation at Eldred Rock.
Haines Home Building Supply has sold 2,482 magnets since 2019 due to an ordering mistake and what they called great product placement.
Alaska Sport Shop sold 36,000 yards of combined braided and monofilament fishing line this year. They also sold 846 fat fishing flies and 570 of them were made by Gabe Long.
Through November, 11,410 copies of the Chilkat Valley News were sold on newsstands in the Chilkat Valley.
In the hotbox at Olerud’s grocery store, the fastest mover of the year was the popcorn chicken. Staff sell six to eight cases a week. On the produce side, they sold 1,253 cases of green grapes, 564 cases of red grapes. Each box of grapes holds 19 pounds
The most-read story on the Chilkat Valley News’ website was about the reality television show Gold Rush: Whitewater being canceled. Since it was published on March 10, it has garnered 27,400 views.
On April 10, 2025, the Haines Avalanche Center conducted its annual USDA snow survey at the Geisan/Mount Ripinsky weather station. They measured just over 102 inches (260 cm) of total snowpack and 33 inches of snow water equivalent (the height of water that would remain if you melted the snow down to its liquid state). The ongoing 9-year-average is 48 inches of snow water equivalent with the biggest year of 98 inches in 2021 and the lowest of 18 inches in 2018.
The Haines Animal Rescue Kennel did 248 nail trims this year.
The Haines Senior Center made 75 meals a day, three times a week in the summer and 60 meals a day three times a week in the winter according to cook Chuck Baltzell. That means a total of 10,530 meals this year.
1,446 is the maximum single-day count of eagles for 2025 according to Takshanuk Watershed Council biologist Stacie Evans.
George, the office dog at the Parts Place, has worked 2,080 hours this year. We’re still crunching the numbers on what that is in dog hours…
Realtor Leslie Evenden walked 3,817,411 steps this year according to the pedometer app on her smartphone. 5.6 million is the number of steps Teslin and Josh Whitby’s dog Riley walked around Haines in 2025 according to the couple’s Fi app which is, essentially, a pedometer for dogs.
• This article originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.
