The Chillat Valley’s most-read stores of 2025
- Chilkat Valley News
- Jan 1
- 11 min read
By Rashah McChesney
Chilkat Valley News
As the Chilkat Valley closes in on the end of 2025, here’s a look at some of the most widely read of the 904 stories the Chilkat Valley News published in print and online this year.
January
Readers spent the most time on a story titled “Border Patrol launches Juneau operations, with eye on drugs rather than mass deportation” that focused on two new border officers said to be focusing on working with police and other entities in Southeast on ‘high-priority illegal activities” involving drugs. Local refugees from Ukraine and Haiti, now living in Juneau, said they were worried about their immigration status. Elsewhere in the United States, immigration enforcement has ramped up as the Trump administration works to achieve its goal of mass deportations.
In late January, the Haines Borough was still searching for a permanent police chief to replace Josh Dryden when a finalist, who visited town, emailed a dozen people to withdraw from consideration and complain about the interim chief who he said painted the town in a bad light. Interim chief Michael Fullerton said he conducted himself professionally, and with candor.
That same month, a dispute between Fullerton and assembly member Craig Loomis boiled over into a public fight about a moose Fullerton shot while on duty in mid-December. Loomis disagreed with Fullerton’s methods, and as the conflict escalated the interim chief filed a grievance with the police union. Loomis and assembly member Mark Smith also clashed during an assembly meeting.
February
A story about local author and backcountry adventurer Tom McGuire falling through the ice on Chilkoot Lake took the top spot in February. McGuire fell through the ice Feb. 6, sparking a weeklong search. He was found and his remains recovered Feb. 14. McGuire’s death prompted reflection by community members who have had their own close encounters ice skating on the lake, and by the last man to see him alive, who was unable to find and rescue him when he fell through the ice.
Local hunter Tim Ackerman gave some insight into the months-long mystery of dead, headless seals washing up on Haines-area beaches when he went to process a few of the freshest carcasses at Letnikof Cove. He theorized that orcas could have been involved, but also pointed to evidence of a bullet wound in one to show that perhaps marine mammal hunters had played a role as well.
Meanwhile two newly unionized teams of Alaska Power & Telephone workers in the Upper Lynn Canal went through significant restructuring after they were formally recognized by the company. Two were laid off in Haines, two others were transferred to non-union positions within the company and another lineman left for a different job. The company blamed the worker layoffs on a changing outlook because of federal grants that withheld.
March
A story about the cancellation of Haines-based reality show “Gold Rush: White Water,” took the top spot in March and lingered as one of the most-read stories of the year. Business owners in the community worried about the economic impacts of the cancellation as show staff bought supplies from the grocery stores, fuel from Delta Western, and contracted with helicopters to fly into the claims explored on the show.
Residents weighed in on the fallout of a trade war between President Donald Trump and Canada over a billions in tariffs in a tit-for-tat escalation that left locals worried about everything from the price of commodities, to the impacts on tourism to their relationships with neighboring communities.
And the Juneau Access Road, at one point declared dead in 2017, was resurrected after the state announced that it was looking for proposals to conduct a feasibility study on “improving transportation access along the west side of Lynn Canal.” A road linking Juneau and Skagway has been studied by various agencies and policymakers since at least the early 1970s.
April
Gold Rush’s cancellation stayed in the top spot this month but the second most read story was about Haines interim police chief Michael Fullerton stepping down. He was temporarily promoted to the role after former chief Josh Dryden resigned. It was a situation made more complicated by his wife’s role as interim manager, who generally oversees the police chief. Fullerton left the force after nearly six years with the department. His time as chief was marked by high-pressure incidents including a conflict with a sitting assembly member over a moose killing and a violent altercation with a resident who was then charged with assaulting him. Looking at the stress of the job, and what he saw as a lack of opportunity for advancement, Fullerton said he came to the conclusion that the position was no longer worth it. His departure brought Haines’ police department down to just two officers.
About 150 people gathered in Haines to march in solidarity with a nationwide show of opposition against Trump administration policies.
May
A Haines man, Mike Thompson, found his long lost father in a small beach town in Scotland. Thompson, a former park ranger and Air Force veteran, was contacted by a first cousin via the DNA website Ancestry.com. A half-brother tracked him down and revealed that his father was model and actor Stephen Winn. Thompson was able to visit and build a relationship with Winn before he died.
Among the many programs targeted for cuts by the federal administration, the loss of Institute of Museum and Library Services funding squeezed Chilkat Valley libraries and museums. The Klukwan library went down to just four hours a week after the loss of federal grant funds.
A proposal to pay $75,000 to the Freeride World Tour drew support from two assemblies, but raised questions about Haines’ unique position as a sponsor on the world tour. Of the six tour stops set for 2026, four would be held at major Western European ski resorts and one in the nation of Georgia. All of those stops received financial support from the resorts and from tourism initiatives of either regional or national governments. That left Haines as the only stop without any kind of resort or government help.
June
The top story in June was about a state raid on a wildlife center owned by Steve Kroschel. Dozens of animals were caught in the middle of a years-long dispute over the conditions at the Mosquito Lake wildlife facility. Alaska State Troopers reported taking 37 animals, including a brown bear, moose, porcupine, three wolves, a handful of foxes, a red-tailed hawk and three snowy owls. The timeline that led up to the raid included Kroschel losing his federal USDA license to open to the public, though that was later reinstated. His state permit was also revoked shortly after.
Klukwan researchers and emergency planners laid out their significant progress on responding to the village’s landslide risks which includes a landslide-monitoring partnership with the University of Oregon. The tribal government also partnered with Kutí, which is a collaboration between Yakutat, Skagway, Hoonah, Craig, Kasaan, Klukwan, and a host of other experts and regional organizations working to develop tools to mitigate landslide and flood risks in the region.
The community’s first-ever heat advisory landed on a day when downtown was breezy, with temperatures in the high 60s to low 70s for most of the day – far lower than Haines’ record for the hottest temperature ever reported to the National Weather Service in Southeast Alaska. That happened on July 31, 1976, when a gauge in town clocked a scorching 98 degrees. So why the heat advisory? The National Weather Service debuted Alaska-specific standards that went into effect in Juneau. Those include any part of Southeast Alaska reaching 80 degrees or higher for any length of time.
July
Readers spent a lot of time on a Q&A with a whitewater guide who witnessed a fatal rafting accident on the Blanchard and Tatshenshini rivers. In it, 21-year-old Evie Hagan details joining a group of employees from Alaska Mountain Guides on the Blanchard and Tashenshini rivers. One of the four rafts flipped and longtime whitewater guide Marin Pitt died.
Someone posted Patriot Front stickers in multiple downtown locations. The group was founded by organizers of the 2017 white-supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.
A few hundred people crowded into the Chilkoot Lake Recreation Site to watch rafts racing down the Chilkoot River. The race, which began somewhere around 1968, has consistently required that racers must be on homemade rafts, with many choosing to float down the river on giant blocks of styrofoam. But park ranger Jacques Turcotte said he didn’t know about the event until race day and when he showed up was surprised to see so many people crowded into the road. He said when everyone left, there were parts of homemade boats left behind on the weir where salmon had just begun running up the river. Turcotte said he wrote just fewer 10 tickets related to the event on everything from parking illegally to passing in a no-passing zone.
August
The most widely read story in August was about a landslide at Endicott Arm, which caused a tsunami to damage much of Southeast Alaska with waves up to 15 feet high. A group of kayakers sought help with a social media appeal, saying they needed help as one of their boats and much of their personal gear had washed away.
Assembly members voted to hire a federal lobbyist who is also the managing director of a mining company. As it turns out, he was not a registered lobbyist. Kaleb Froehlich, a former chief of staff for Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, is also currently listed as the managing director of mining firm Ambler Metals. Community members raised concerns about his role and the firm, Holland & Hart, withdrew from consideration for the role of the borough’s federal lobbyist.
The Alaska Department of Motor Vehicles’ Main Street office was closed in early August after longtime worker Teresa Albecker resigned. The closure led to some community members having to travel to Skagway or Juneau to get certain kinds of work done.
Residents of Mosquito Lake, assembly members and planning commissioners met at the Mosquito Lake School, which had been proposed to be sold by the borough. Some have suggested the nonprofit that manages the facility could take on ownership.
September
A high wind warning caused a cruise ship to dock in Haines instead of Skagway. It was one of the busier days of summer as the 2,100-passenger cruise ship joined another 175-passenger cruise ship already scheduled to visit Haines. It was part of a series of schedule adjustments in Southeast Alaska because of high winds.
Roughly 250 Holland America cruise ship passengers were stranded in Haines after their boat, the Nieuw Amsterdam, had to sail to a safer place in Lutak Inlet to shelter from dramatic wind gusts. The Chilkat Center was opened to welcome them and several locals showed up with coffee, spare clothes, food, music entertainment, and wine.
After decades of use, the state Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation issued notices of violation on dozens of structures in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. Over the course of two days, notices were left on at least 12 structures along the Chilkat River between the Klehini River and the Kelsall River, giving users until June 20, 2026, to clear out personal equipment, litter or debris from structures, and threatening citations or impoundment in some cases. State park ranger Jacques Turcotte reported to his supervisors that someone had threatened to shoot him over the incident.
A sow and four cubs drew a lot of attention to the crowded Chilkoot corridor for much of the spring and summer season. While they are not the sole contributor to the overcrowding, commercial tour operators are a big one, regional park superintendent Brad Garasky said. It is not necessarily a problem for a sow to have crowds of people nearby. In some cases, she’ll use them as – essentially – babysitters. Fish and Game biologists say the key to keeping that relationship healthy is predictability.
October
A researcher from Italy slipped and fell through a water-filled hole on the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau and disappeared. Efforts to rescue Riccardo Pozzobon, a 40-year-old planetary geologist from the University of Padua, were unsuccessful. Pozzobon was studying ice fracture patterns to better understand the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
The state asked wildlife center owner Steve Kroschel, who maintains that he is in Russia after a June raid shut his property down for good in 2025, to help regulators retrieve animals the agency left behind. Kroschel and his staff estimated about 20 animals had been abandoned after the raid, while state records show 14, including five ermine, three arctic fox, three martens, two minks and a snowy owl still at the facility.
The community got its first look at Southeast Regional Health Consortium’s plans for a hospital facility that would be sited in Haines at Jones Point. The planned complex includes space for currently existing services as well as behavioral health, dental care, and physical therapy.
The board of the Haines Economic Development corporation voted to dissolve the nonprofit due to funding uncertainty. The organization was formed in 2016 to study the local economy and assist local entrepreneurs and non-profits.
Haines headed to Alaska Small Claims Court with the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska over whether a federally recognized tribal government should be required to collect sales tax at all.
November
Readers were primarily interested in knowing more about a Haines man who was shot near Picture Point in mid-November. Haines police briefly held a woman, but have not filed charges though the man had to be medevaced out of town for medical treatment.
American Pacific Mining sold the Palmer Project to Vancouver-based Vizsla Copper in exchange for $15 million in equity in the company, another $5 million if drilling exploration shows at least 22 million tons of mineral resource, and another $10 million if the mine is ever developed.
The Haines fire department welcomed its first paid chief in a ceremony that included an emergency radio broadcast announcing the transfer of leadership from outgoing chief Brian Clay to Zak Overmyer. Starting the job was a quick turnaround for Overmyer who arrived in town 24 hours before being sworn in. The move, he said, was made easier by Clay and four other volunteer firefighters who arrived unannounced at his door to help him unload.
The Chilkat Indian Village and Section 106 consultation experts pushed back against the idea that the process was stalling the Lutak Dock rebuild project. Haines Borough staff, U.S. Maritime Administration representatives, and the Chilkat Indian Village appear to agree that there has been a delay, but they do not agree on a cause. A reviewer for the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation – which oversees the law requiring that review – blamed MARAD, saying the federal agency had combined several steps in that historical review process without notifying the public, tribes or the state.
An exciting BINGO game centered on an early bird pot that grew over the $1,000 mark drew more than 40 people out to the Alaska Native Brotherhood/Alaska Native Sisterhood Hall in Haines. The event raised $400 for the Chamber of Commerce, which holds the charitable gaming permit for the weekly game.
December
So far in December, readers have spent more time reading about the sinking of the 81-foot tender, the F/V Pavlof in the Haines Harbor. The 84-year-old ship has since been refloated, but state spill prevention and response staff reported 1,300 gallons of fuel on board. Volunteers put up boom to keep it somewhat contained. It’s still not clear what caused the boat to sink.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake north of Yakutat shook the Chilkat Valley on Dec. 6 and has, so far, spawned more than 1,000 aftershocks in the region. Dozens of people from Valdez to Whitehorse to Southeast Alaska reported having felt it with several calling it a long, rolling shaker, which is a sign of a big earthquake.
Two Division of Forestry staff could be headed to Haines, defying a trend that saw Greg Palmieri as the state’s lone forestry employee in the borough. Forestry staffing has been decreasing in the past decade and Haines is the only forestry post in the state adding a new position right now.
• This story originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.
