Skagway’s Mayor has proposed giving half of the land that was once a Native boarding school to the local tribal government. The proposal was made on Monday night during a special assembly meeting to discuss the long-term future of the five acres that’s now a municipal-owned RV park.
The Garden City RV park was the site of the Pius X Mission School, which housed Native children and helped indoctrinate them into Western culture in the mid-1900s.
On Monday night Skagway’s assembly held a special public meeting to discuss the park’s long-term plans. Mayor Andrew Cremata started the meeting off with a proposal that appeared to take many in the room by surprise.
“There is a scar at Garden City and it covers a wound that was created when the Pius X Mission was operational. I would recommend seriously entertaining taking half of that property, recognizing the scar exists and in an effort to heal that scar, generously give that property to the Skagway Traditional Council, half of it, where the mission is buried. And then we agree as part of an agreement between the Skagway Traditional Council and the municipality of Skagway to erect a monument that spans both pieces of property,” said Cremata.
The RV park was purchased in 2013 from the Catholic Church and is currently awaiting an archeological study to determine what lies underground. There has been added scrutiny lately of former residential boarding schools like the Pius X Mission School, especially since hundreds of bodies of Native schoolchildren have been found buried at similar schools in Canada in recent years.
For its part, the Skagway Traditional Council has stated that it wants to wait to see the results of the study that’s scheduled for later this year before determining how much of the land they think is appropriate to receive.
Monday’s meeting was also about developing a long-term plan for the park’s future. Some residents want it to remain a viable option for low-cost employee housing, others want the revenue and economic diversity it offers as an RV park, and still, others want the land to be sectioned off and sold for development.
Assemblyperson Dustin Stone argued that creating lots for sale won’t solve Skagway’s longstanding seasonal housing shortage.
“There is, I guess for lack of a better term, a crisis for people who are looking to buy their first home who’ve been here year-round. But the real housing crisis in this town is we don’t have anywhere to house people that come here to work and support our economy all summer,” said Stone.
As for making the park accessible for seasonal housing, Assemblyperson Orion Hanson agreed that shouldn’t be part of Garden City’s future.
“I don’t think an RV park ever should have been our band-aid for employee housing what’s far more appropriate is we develop a trailer court if you’re looking for cheap, affordable housing, and the only place really to do that properly is across the bridge,” said Hanson.
The municipality does own about five acres of land near the intersection of the Dyea Road and the Klondike Highway north of downtown that is set aside for the development of either a trailer park or an RV park. Borough Manager Brad Ryan said the municipality has received an estimate for the cost of extending utilities to that area.
“We have a pretty recent estimate it’s about $10 million. We actually have a grant application in for it as well,” said Ryan.
Assemblyperson Reba Hylton says she wants to keep a portion of Garden City as an RV park as a way to diversify Skagway’s tourism-based economy instead of strictly relying on cruise ships. She also wants the Catholic Church to take some responsibility for the Mission School which it sold to Skagway’s local government for $1.5 million.
“I do support RV traffic. I think it’s an important part of our economy, and we really need to invest all we can. And I would love to see half of Garden City RV park continue to be an RV park. I think having green space and having nice facilities, especially close to a school is really, really important. I think the minimum we should give back is half of it. And I think we should ask the Catholic Church to give us half of that money back too. They should be paying for that. We wrote them a $25,000 check in the last check,run. Give that back, please. We want to do what’s right, they should do what’s right as well,” said Hylton.
Assemblyperson Bass was committed to making lots available for sale where the park sits. Other ideas presented included building dormitories or even a vocational school at the site.
After the nearly two-hour meeting, the mayor asked for the discussion to continue at the committee level.
