The House Finance subcommittee on the University of Alaska budget, chaired by Rep. Cathy Muñoz, R-Juneau, unveiled an operating budget proposal for the university system that is $2.4 million leaner than Gov. Sean Parnell’s amended proposal Tuesday afternoon.

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After some discussion about broadening a bill before the House Fisheries Committee that would create an endowment fund to support research into Chinook salmon, legislators decided Tuesday to keep the proposed fund focused on Alaska’s state fish.

Bethel Democratic Rep. Bob Herron, the sponsor of House Bill 49, described Chinook salmon — often known, especially outside Alaska, as “king salmon” — as “a canary in the coal mine” for impacts to wild salmon stocks.

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Pam Houston, author of the best-seller Cowboys Are My Weakness, has just published a new novel called, Contents May Have Shifted. It’s a compilation of 144 short adventure stories of all different lengths — one only a sentence long. Houston says each story can stand alone, but together, they connect to tell a larger story. Every adventure is based on her experiences, several of which are in Alaska.

Houston recently visited Kettleson Library in Sitka and read from her new book. She also stopped by KCAW’s Library Show and talked about how she became a writer and how writing has shaped her life.

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When Pam Houston is looking for good material to write about, she says she takes 19th century author Henry James’ advice: A writer should strive to be a person on whom nothing is lost.

“Which just basically means: Pay attention,” said Houston. “So I pay attention all the time. I pay attention when I’m in nature. I pay attention when i’m overhearing conversations in a restaurant. I pay attention at the grocery store. I pay attention if I’m lucky enough to find myself in Tibet or Bhutan or Turkey. I’m an attention payer. I’m collecting details. I’m collecting small, or sometimes large, but mostly momentary things that I feel some sort of resonance with.”

An only child to older parents, Houston spent most of her younger years with her babysitter Martha, who taught her to read.

“They would pull me out of nursery school on Wednesdays to read to the second and third graders,” she said.

Houston wrote stories throughout her childhood, majored in English in college and went to grad school for writing. She wrote books, Cowboys Are My Weakness, Waltzing the Cat, A Little More About Me, and Sight Hound. And now her fifth book, a series of adventures that span the across the globe, Contents May Have Shifted.

The series of adventure stories highlight poignant moments of hers during her travels. She says she got her love of adventure from her parents.

“Travel and writing has always gone together for me,” said Houston. My parents were travelers. We never saved money as a family. Every time we got 100 dollars ahead, we went on a trip. Those trips turned out to be adventures because we’d go out farther than we had money to go.”

Here is an excerpt from one of her stories that’s set in Alaska:

“When I left on this month-long adventure, Ethan gave me a Mike Schmidt baseball card and dangling poet earrings. Black on black. Now, the woman who lives in his cell phone says, ‘Ethan is not available,’ with just a hint of impatience in her voice. I am up front next to the pilot, a woman from Juneau next to him. Our three packs taking up every inch of space in the tail. The pilot turns the plane in a tight circle. We accelerate and lift off, and before he has even pulled in the flaps, the first glacier is in front of us. Huge and dirty and violent with stretch marks. Plunging out of the cloud cover and into the shimmering sun. Instantly I feel that old surge come back. That seizing of my own life on my own terms. It is such a physical thing. Like the time I had my forearm shattered and the nurse came in every four hours on the dot to give me a shot of morphine. That’s how physical. And I look down at the glacier and the ice-ridged peaks that go on forever behind it and say, ‘remember this, remember this, remember this, the next time you think it’s over because some man or some hope or some life takes away instead of gives. Remember this and get on an airplane, a small one if possible, because it always works.”

Eighty-five billion dollars in federal budget cuts are set to begin Friday.

The U.S. Senate will debate competing measures to replace the cuts on Wednesday, but neither will become law.

The National Park Service is slated to lose 5 percent of its budget, and that would trickle down to every park in Alaska.

On a conference call Monday afternoon, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar laid out what a 5 percent cut to national park spending would look like.

“Reduced hours of operation for visitors centers, shorter seasons, closing of campgrounds, hiking trails and other recreational areas when there is insufficient staff to ensure the protection of visitors, the staff and resources,” Salazar said.

Salazar was joined by director of the National Park Service, John Jarvis.

Jarvis says a 5 percent cut means fewer seasonal workers, highly skilled workers who fight forest fires and perform search and rescues.

“As a consequence we may be reducing access to some areas because of that concern, if we can’t respond, and we don’t really want the public getting into trouble,” Jarvis said.

To some in Washington, the cuts seem a bit draconian. U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski says the White House is selecting cuts that people note.

“Is it a Washington Monument syndrome? Yes it absolutely is,” Murkowski said.

The Washington Monument syndrome – the DC term for cutting tourist attractions and popular government services so people take notice.

It may as well be called the Denali National Park syndrome in Alaska, but it’s unclear whether a 5 percent cut to Denali would affect the day-to-day operations just yet.

“This didn’t sneak up on us by any stretch of the imagination,” Don Striker, the superintendent of Denali, said.

Striker has been on the job about a month, coming north from the New River Gorge in West Virginia. But he’s been with the National Park Service for decades.

“The sequestration planning exercises started early last year,” Striker said.

Though it wasn’t formal, Striker says the Park Service warned him last month he’ll need to present a plan on how to operate at 95 percent.

He was prepared. Striker says Denali is operating at about 80 percent employment now. He hasn’t wanted to fill those positions, fearing the new hires would soon be laid off, or furloughed.

Striker’s 5 percent cut will be absorbed by the vacancies – meaning he won’t hire to full capacity. But he won’t need to furlough anyone either. NPS officials say that’s the case for the entire state.

If furloughs eventually come, they’ll need a 30-day advance notice.

Striker says Denali pumps at least $150 million into the state economy through vendors and seasonal companies – like the buses that take people to see Wonder Lake.

“We can’t get the road open unless we have the seasonal employees we need to plow it open, and because of the nature of the hiring process I need to be deciding by next week which positions I’m going to be hiring,” Striker said. “And I need to be making those job offers in order to get the people here in time to start plowing the roads.”

But there’s a hiring freeze. He says he needs to know which seasonal positions he’ll be able to fill in two weeks, otherwise the May 15 opening date is in jeopardy.

It’s unclear whether Secretary Salazar required other Interior agencies to detail a 5 percent reduction in operating expenses.

Jim Stratton is the regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

“You’re not going to fix America’s budget problems on the backs of the National Park Service,” Stratton said. “It’s 1/14th of 1 percent of the discretionary money in the budget.”

But if the cuts happen, and Congress delays a solution, that small sliver of the budget could help Congress to act.

In the meantime, Denali Superintendent Don Striker says he’s prepared to plow the roads if he has to. But he really doesn’t want to.

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State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, 24, quickly puts his tie on before heading to a committee meeting on Feb. 14, 2013. The freshman Democrat from Sitka was elected by 32 votes. (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

When he ran for the Alaska House last year, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins visited each community in his district, knocking on almost every door. The strategy paid off. The 24-year-old Democrat won a seat in the Legislature by just 32 votes.

And now that he’s been on the job six weeks, it’s becoming clear that Kreiss-Tomkins’ busy campaign schedule wasn’t a sprint, so much as the start of a marathon.

The early morning hours in state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins’ office, on the fourth floor of the Alaska Capitol, are actually pretty calm. Coffee is dripping into a pot near the door, and classical music plays softly from a speaker as staffers Nancy Barnes, Tully McLoughlin and Holly Smith pore over calendars and answer e-mails. The calm does not last long.

Kreiss-Tomkins arrives out of breath and wearing most of his suit — the jacket and tie are waiting for him in his office. There’s a strap around his right ankle to keep his pants free from the chain on the bicycle he rides to work every morning.

Kreiss-Tomkins represents Alaska’s 34th district — a collection of communities in Southeast that include Sitka, Haines, Angoon, Kake, Craig, Kalwock, Metlakatla and more.

Today, the 24-year-old freshman Democrat gets to the Capitol at 7:55 a.m. with two meetings already under his belt: one at 6 a.m., the other at 7:30. Next on the schedule is a committee meeting.

Kreiss-Tomkins puts on his tie and jacket, and dashes down the hall to the staircase. He says the frenetic pace of today is typical.

“Well, there’s not enough time in the building during the business day, so I’ve taken to scheduling 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. morning meetings,” Kreiss-Tomkins says as he walks down the Capitol’s main staircase.

He ducks into the State Affairs committee. Today, it’s a presentation on the health care system for state employees. The rest of the day includes a Fisheries committee meeting on derelict vessels, a minority caucus meeting, a flash mob protesting violence against women, a Transportation Committee meeting, and then a variety of visits with an official from BP, and local elected leaders from Anaktuvik Pass, Haines, Pelican and Sitka, all of whom are in the building today to lobby their lawmakers.

About eight hours later, after running down to the legislator’s lounge for his first food of the day, and then running back up to his office, holding some food he calls “breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he finally has time to sit down and talk.

KCAW: How is having the job different than running for the job?
Kreiss-Tomkins: If I closed my eyes when I was a candidate, I couldn’t picture that I’d be waking up at 5:45 to get down to the 6 a.m. meeting, to get to this, to get to that. Going to the lounge to scrounge some leftovers… none of that would have been in my mind. I never could have pictured that, unless I worked here as a staffer, which I never did.
KCAW: What’s the bigger challenge to the way you’re doing your job? Being a freshman, or being in the minority?
Kreiss-Tomkins: Freshman.
KCAW: Why?
Kreiss-Tomkins: Everything is a learning curve. The biggest divide in this building, from what I’ve seen, is not party affiliation, it’s geography. It’s coastal versus rail belt. Juneau is not Washington, D.C. The biggest surprise I’ve had since coming here — and I very consciously tried not to have expectations before coming here — is how collegial this place is. It’s surprisingly bipartisan. There are very meaningful working relationships.
KCAW: During the campaign, one of the primary arguments not to vote for you was that Southeast would be giving up a lot of power if you were elected. Do you feel that’s happened? How’s that shaken out?
Kreiss-Tomkins: Yeah. Southeast, and coastal Alaska — we think in terms of Southeast Alaska, but really, our compatriots from Kodiak and Bristol Bay and the Y-K Delta are just as important to our cause as we are to theirs — lost a tremendous amount of power. And I would argue, and I think almost everybody in this building would agree, that the biggest powershift was not the defeat of Bill Thomas, who I ran against, but the loss of the Senate coalition.

The Senate’s bipartisan coalition was disbanded after Republicans won more seats in November. Kreiss-Tomkins says that the bipartisan coalition was also the Legislature’s coastal caucus. The three most powerful senators in the last session came from coastal communities: Kodiak, Sitka and Bethel.

In this session, he worries those coastal voices are diminished. And as a freshman in the minority, Kreiss-Tomkins doesn’t have a lot of power in the halls of the Capitol. But he says for now, he’s just focusing on doing his job well.

KCAW: Assuming you do want re-election, what do you hope you can tell people in 2014 at the end of your first term, and how are you going to get there?
Kreiss-Tomkins: I’m running for re-election. I believe good government is good politics. So performing in this job to the fullest extent of my ability and working absolutely as hard and as smart and as effective as I can, is the best way in which I can make a bid to have my job for two more years — another two year lease.
KCAW: This job seems very personal to you.
Kreiss-Tomkins: Deeply personal. You’re representing people. People’s lives. The legislation we pass affects people’s lives. I can’t imagine more heady stuff day-to-day to consider.

Our interview ended around 6 p.m., after which Kreiss-Tomkins went to a budget hearing before boarding a ferry for an overnight sailing to Kake. After that, it was back to Juneau, for the start of another week running through the halls of the Capitol, sometimes literally.

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Last year, chinook salmon runs were so weak that the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, along with Cook Inlet, were designated federal disaster zones. Now, a group of legislators from those regions want to create a permanent endowment that would fund research on the fish.

Rep. Bob Herron of Bethel is the lead sponsor of the endowment bill, and he introduced it before the House fisheries committee on Tuesday. He says that long-term research of chinook is needed to better understand their decline — and the decline of other salmon stocks as well.

“The chinook salmon is a trend species,” says Herron. “In other words, it’s the canary in the coal mine. If there’s things affecting chinook, usually it’s the species that tells us that there are issues within its life environment, and the other salmon species may follow unless we do something about it.”

The endowment fund would be governed by six representatives from different regions of state, along with the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That board would be responsible for awarding grants to organizations like non-profits and universities studying chinook salmon. The bill doesn’t mandate that any money be put into the endowment, with the idea that it could be funded down the road.

Herron sees the bill as being different from a research plan back by Gov. Sean Parnell. Parnell’s initiative would give Fish and Game a total of $30 million over the next five years to examine and monitor Alaska’s chinook stocks. Herron says he wants to see partnerships with outside organizations, and for the chinook decline to be studied for a longer amount of time than one salmon life cycle.

“That’s where the governor and I part ways, because I’m not so sure that we want to just dump $10 million over the next three years,” says Herron.

This isn’t the first time the legislature has considered creating a chinook research fund. Herron introduced a similar bill last year before the disaster, but it ultimately stalled.

According to state estimates, fishermen suffered over $10 million in damages as a result of the Chinook disaster.

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Studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Government Accounting Office show increasing numbers of Alaskans will be affected by floods and erosion in coming years due to rising waters and extreme weather events. And the studies predict some communities are likely to be destroyed by 2017.

Of those, Newtok is the furthest along in relocating. But an Anchorage human rights attorney says changes are needed so agencies can more effectively help people being dislocated due to the impacts of climate change.

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A 727 Fed Ex plane landed at Merrill Field near downtown Anchorage at about 2 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. The cargo company donated the plane to the University of Alaska Anchorage’s aviation maintenance program. It will be housed at Merrill Field.

The spectacle of seeing such a big jet land at a small plane airport in the middle of the city drew dozens of people to the nearby Northway Mall. The mall parking lot was directly under the flight path of the approaching jet.

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Nick Golodoff, author of the book Attu Boy, passed away earlier this month at the age of 77. His memoir about the World War II internment of the Aleut village by the Japanese brought attention to one of the most obscure corners of American history.

As he told KUCB in an interview last year, he was born on the western Aleutian island of Agattu in December 1935, while his parents were fox trapping.

“But I was really from Attu, so I grew up to the age of six in Attu, and never once lived there ever again, because Japanese took me to Japan when I was six years old.”

Nick Golodoff

Golodoff remembered the day the Japanese landed. He was following an older boy toward the beach when he heard unfamiliar sounds.

“Alex Prossoff is the one I was following, and he started running and I ran after him. And I see pieces of mud flying in front of me. I didn’t know why the piece of mud was flying, until later, so much later, I found out it was bullets that were hitting the ground.”

The Japanese occupied the village for nearly three months before putting the Attuans on a freighter. They spent the whole journey in the cargo hold.

“I don’t know how long we’ve been in the hatch, but when we got to Tokyo, they let us out and look around. And then put us back down and took us to Hokkaido, and that’s where they left us.”

The villagers spent three years teetering on the edge of starvation. Although Golodoff was among the 25 Attuans who survived the internment, he never returned to the island. The U.S. government forced families to resettle in Atka, 600 miles to the east. Golodoff went to school there, and spent lots of time outdoors.

“I used to hunt every day, I used to walk all day,” Golodoff said. “Pack a whole reindeer home from miles away. I used to leave in the morning and home at dark. Until I got a boat. I built my own wooden boat, bought the oars and used to oar, row and hunt like that until I got a motor. I used to hunt all the time.”

In his teens, Golodoff started working seasonally in the Pribilof Islands, harvesting fur seals. Later on he worked at the Atka airport, and for the last 30 years was a maintenance worker at the school.

“NG:They don’t want to fire me because they can’t find my replacement. [laughs]
SJ: Do you ever talk to the kids in the school about your experiences?
NG: No, no. Some teachers want me to do that, but I cannot speak in public, I’m not used to that. I never did that in my life, so I don’t know how to do it.”

Instead, Golodoff wrote down his story with the help of his granddaughter, Brenda Maly, and National Park Service anthropologist Rachel Mason.

Mason says the Attuans’ story never would have been told otherwise, because the older survivors didn’t talk about it.

“And his perspective was different.For example, he had very warm feelings towards Japanese people. And he’s pictured on the cover of Attu Boy as a small child riding on the back of a Japanese soldier. So the eyes of a child were really unique.”

Mason also credits Golodoff with bringing together the descendants of Attu survivors during a reunion organized by the National Park Service last year.

“At one of the events at the Attu reunion, he was signing his book. And it was just such a symbol of their pride in being from Attu, in the fact that Nick, the oldest person that had actually lived on Attu, had produced this memoir that told the story of their community. So, I think it’s a big loss, and yet I’m happy that he was able to be there and to be that symbol of unity for them.”

Golodoff will be laid to rest in Atka.

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Individual news stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn.

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Sequester Would Cut NPS Budget By 5 Percent

Peter Granitz, APRN – Washington DC

Eighty five billion dollars in federal budget cuts are set to begin Friday.

The U.S. Senate will debate competing measures to replace the cuts on Wednesday, but neither will become law.

The National Park Service is slated to lose 5 percent of its budget, and that would trickle down to every park in Alaska.

JKT: Representing District Is ‘Deeply Personal’

Ed Ronco, KCAW – Sitka

When he ran for the Alaska House last year, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins visited each community in his district, knocking on almost every door. The strategy paid off. The 24-year-old Democrat won a seat in the Legislature by just 32 votes.

And now that he’s been on the job six weeks, it’s becoming clear that Kreiss-Tomkins’ busy campaign schedule wasn’t a sprint, so much as the start of a marathon.

Legislature Considering Chinook Research Fund

Alexandra Gutierrez, APRN – Juneau

Last year, Chinook salmon runs were so weak that the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, along with Cook Inlet, were designated federal disaster zones. Now, a group of legislators from those regions want to create a permanent endowment that would fund research on the fish.

Rising Number Of Alaskans Predicted To Be Affected By Future Flooding

Joaqlin Estus, KNBA – Anchorage

Studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Government Accounting Office show increasing numbers of Alaskans will be affected by floods and erosion in coming years due to rising waters and extreme weather events. And the studies predict some communities are likely to be destroyed by 2017.

Of those, Newtok is the furthest along in relocating. But an Anchorage human rights attorney says changes are needed so agencies can more effectively help people being dislocated due to the impacts of climate change.

727 Lands At Merrill Field In Anchorage

Alex Duerre, APRN – Anchorage

A 727 Fed Ex plane landed at Merrill Field near downtown Anchorage at about 2 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. The cargo company donated the plane to the University of Alaska Anchorage’s aviation maintenance program. It will be housed at Merrill Field.

The spectacle of seeing such a big jet land at a small plane airport in the middle of the city drew dozens of people to the nearby Northway Mall. The mall parking lot was directly under the flight path of the approaching jet.

Nick Golodoff, Author Of “Attu Boy,” Dies At 77

Stephanie Joyce, KUCB – Unalaska

Nick Golodoff, author of the book “Attu Boy,” passed away earlier this month at the age of 77. His memoir about the World War II internment of the Aleut village by the Japanese brought attention to one of the most obscure corners of American history. KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce interviewed him last year, and has this remembrance.

During its regular meeting Wednesday, the Ketchikan School Board will consider whether to purchase 60 MacBook Air laptop computers to be used for elementary and middle school physical education.

According to a memo from Curriculum Director Linda Hardin, the computers will help students participate in the nationwide “Be Fit” program.

The purchase will cost an estimated $62,000.

Also Wednesday, the School Board has an executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss its evaluation of Superintendent Robert Boyle.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in Borough Assembly chambers. Public comment will be heard at the start and end of the meeting.