Last Thursday’s Skagway Assembly meeting discussed problem bears and drivers on the Klondike Highway and a possible study to understand the impacts of tourism. A surprise visitor with deep Skagway roots delighted participants. 

 

 

The May 6 Skagway Borough Assembly meeting featured an impromptu history lesson when the granddaughter of Dr. Peter Dahl, the namesake of the medical clinic, addressed the audience. Margit Dahl went over the allotted five minutes for Citizens Present but no one complained.

“Thanks for letting me speak,” Margit says. “It is a thrill to be here for the first time in 47 years. The last time and only time I was here was in 1977, which was two years after my father had died. And my mother brought the three girls up to Skagway because it had been such a part of our lives, because it was such a huge part of his life.”

Margit read an excerpt from her Uncle Robert Dahl’s book, “After the Gold Rush: Growing up in Skagway, Alaska.” It starts with Margit’s grandmother protesting about her husband taking a job in the far north.

“‘You still have the nerve to ask me to move to another godforsaken part of the world. Alaska? I just won’t hear of it. And I don’t want you to talk to me about such foolishness ever again.’ 

In mid November, or thereabouts, Dad came home one day and announced that he had decided to accept the position and they had already sent the tickets. 

‘What?’ mother said. ‘What position?’

‘The one I told you about. The one in the Alaska town called Skagway. I’ll be the physician for the railroad there. I’ll have a salary, a regular income.’

 ‘But I told you never to talk to me about that job again.’

‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘I didn’t.’”

Tour operator Sherry Corrington also spoke at Citizens Present, addressing the issue of rental cars and tour buses from Skagway displaying risky behavior on the Canadian side of the highway.

“And we have a major public safety issue on the roads of the Klondike Highway, which I did bring up this winter,” Corrington says. “And that is with the behavior of rental cars, with bears, and wildlife, and just driving in general.”

Corrington says a bear is attacking vehicles because it has been fed by tourists, and also notes buses and other vehicles stopping or turning around in the middle of the narrow road to view wildlife.

Assembly member Deb Potter called the pictures and videos she had seen of incidents on the Klondike Highway “horrifying” and requested the mayor contact Canadian law enforcement. Mayor Sam Bass agreed and said he would also write to local businesses.

At the next assembly meeting on June 20, members will consider McKinley Research Group’s Proposal for Cruise Passenger Impacts on Municipal Services. At a cost of $49,000, the study would develop a way to show financial impacts of cruise passengers on municipal services. It would also map where cruise passengers go, helping to evaluate the necessity of capital projects.

Originally proposed by Assembly member Potter, she asked the agenda item be pushed to the 20th to ensure the scope of work be thoroughly vetted. 

And finally, the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Ore Dock will take place June 27 at 6 p.m. All Skagway residents are invited, as is the governor.