Ketchikan: Pioneers of Southeast: Bakerman Bill Nickey a feature story By LOUISE BRINCK HARRINGTON - When walking down Mission Street in the 1930s, you could catch a whiff of fresh bread baking at all hours of the day and night. Following your nose you'd smell coffee and cinnamon, feel warmth from the oven and bright lights through the window. You'd go in for a pastry and a "mug-up" laced with cream and sugar and served with a smile.

Federal Market & Bakery, Mission Street Photograph courtesy Ketchikan Museums

Just think how enticing that could be on a cold winter morning, afternoon or night!

This would be in Ketchikan near the corner of Mission and Bawden next door to Sully's Planing Mill & Cabinet Shop. Here old Bill Nickey's Federal Market & Bakery put out aromas that warmed even the coldest downtown soul.

Born in 1889 Nickey probably learned the baking trade while growing up in Illinois. By 1910, according to the U.S. Census, he was working as a baker in San Francisco.

In 1915 at the age of 26 he married his 18-year-old sweetheart, Helen, and they made their way to Alaska. Once in Ketchikan, Nickey got a job at Mike Heneghan's OK Bakery. He and Helen rented an apartment at Charcoal Point, where the Alaska Marine Highway terminal sits now.

By 1917 the Nickeys had purchased their own piece of property located on Ketchikan Creek near today's Harris Street-which back then was not a street at all but a narrow wooden tramway that followed the creek to an abandoned gold mine owned by John Schoenbar. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

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Petersburg: Revised Environmental Analysis and 2nd Decision for the Overlook Project Area Timber Sale Issued - Petersburg District Ranger Patricia Grantham announced today that about 4.1 million board feet of Tongass National Forest timber would be made available from approximately 190 acres in the Overlook Project Area, located in the central portion of Mitkof Island about 15 miles south of Petersburg, Alaska. The Overlook Project contributes to the overall Tongass timber program and is responsive to the goals and objectives outlined in the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan (also known as the Forest Plan). Economic timber sale offerings such as this one can help contribute to community stability throughout Southeast Alaska by providing a variety of opportunities for employment.

This decision, issued by Tongass National Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole, comes as a result of extensive analysis carried out by an interdisciplinary team of Forest Service natural resource professionals based in Petersburg. In designing the timber sale project, the team emphasized partial cut harvest prescriptions to minimize potential effects to wildlife and to scenery in the area. The team also worked to concentrate harvest activities away from popular recreation areas.

The sale is responsive to input provided by subsistence users, as it avoids harvest in the Big (Bear) Creek Watershed-a watershed identified as a valuable subsistence area. In addition, the decision includes adjustment of the size, location and configuration of two small old-growth habitat reserves in the project area so that they better meet the criteria specified for such areas in the Forest Plan. The Forest's system of old-growth reserves is an important part of the Forest Plan's overall wildlife conservation strategy. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

Alaska: 3-D computer models aid research of Earth's core - The work of a University of Alaska Fairbanks post-doctoral fellow will be included in an article appearing in the upcoming issue of the journal, Science.

he molten metal of Earth's core into a region at the base of the mantle, a boundary located halfway to Earth's center, about 1,740
miles deep. Measuring heat deep inside the earth is important because the intense temperatures drive processes like the movement of tectonic plates.

For his contribution to the research, Michael S. Thorne, who holds a dual appointment with the Geophysical Institute and the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, created 3-dimensional simulations of earthquakes, allowing scientists to see how seismic waves travel through the earth. These simulations are able to predict ground motion on earth's surface producing what is known as
synthetic seismograms. The simulations of wave behavior assist scientists as they identify how material is moving inside the earth, specifically at the core-mantle boundary deep beneath the Pacific plate. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

Fish Factor: Icebreaker's mission is to get them in and out By MAGGIE WALL - What is it about the cold Arctic regions that resonates so much with us here in Alaska? We could move somewhere warmer, but we stay here and even fantasize about going to someplace colder and whiter-the Antarctic.

I'm vicariously living my fantasy by following the story of the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea, an icebreaker that departed for the southern continent Nov. 18. It's mission: to boldly go where few have gone before... sorry, I couldn't resist. Actually the Polar Sea is leading two other ships in an annual trek to refuel and replenish McMurdo Station, the primary U.S. science and logistic hub for Antarctic research efforts.

The ship was in Alaska this past summer, stopping in Kodiak for several days in August. A major overhaul necessitated an arctic shake-down tour before its five-month mission at the southern end of the planet. They also performed scientific research and arctic training, which is part and parcel of what the ice breaker is designed to do.

The Polar Sea's skipper is Capt. Bruce Toney, who's been to Antarctica several times on both the Sea and its sister ship the Polar Star. The Star is parked at a dock in Seattle in what's called "caretaker status," which is another way of say that this past June the ship was put into semi-retirement while the Coast Guard figures out what to do with the old, outdated ship.

"In Antarctica our current primary mission is to create a channel through the fast ice to the large scientific station at McMurdp so that two large supply ships-one container ship and one oil tanker-can do the once-a-year re-supply of that station," said Toney during his visit to Kodiak.

"They deliver anywhere from 6 to 8 million gallons of diesel fuel and jet fuel, and 720 20-foot containers. It's a self-un-loading container ship with its own cranes. We create that channel and we escort them, possibly tow them part of the way."

The Coast Guard ship also does tug duty as needed, towing the re-supply ships off the pier or out of frozen ice as need.

"Our main job is to get them in there and out," says Toney. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

Political Cartoonists  Dems in Power By: Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons Read Today's Political Cartoons, Click Here Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Basic Rules Thanks to all By Joan "Trixie" Hurliman - Tuesday AM Rural Residents Soaked Again By James Anderson - Tuesday AM Bridges in Alaska are just as important as elsewhere By Ed Brown - Tuesday AM Bridge!! By Forrest Mackie - Tuesday AM Federal Budget and Pay for Performance By Alan Lidstone - Tuesday AM RE: It may not be to 'nowhere'... By Karen Pitcher - Monday PM Giving During the Season of Hope. By Richard Zellmer - Monday PM Re: President Bush Fails to Learn the Lessons of Vietnam By Ken Bylund - Monday PM Build a cheaper bridge, roads By Robert McRoberts - Monday PM "Cabals" By Al Johnson - Friday PM KHRA Toy Run Dance By Dan Hart - Thursday PM Thanksgiving Thanks By Valerie Cooper - Thursday PM Middle of Winter - Newtown Parking still an issue! By Bobbie McCreary - Thursday PM It may not be to 'nowhere', but it's still an outrageous waste. By Peter Stanton - Thursday PM Elections: Consolidation and Otherwise By Dave Kiffer - Thursday PM Who pays for your bridge? By Rob Glenn- Thursday PM No Bridge in Ketchikan By Don Hoff Jr. - Thursday PM President Bush Fails to Learn the Lessons of Vietnam! By Robert Freedland - Thursday PM Open Sign Policy By Dave Price, Rick Ruaro & Dennis Pope - Wednesday AM Same sex Schoenbar By Anita Hales - Wednesday AM Ketchikan's Bridge Needed By Forrest Mackie - Wednesday AM Consolidation Ballot By Dayle Amundson - Wednesday AM Consolidation By Glen Thompson - Sunday PM Consolidation By Al Johnson - Sunday PM Clear the Air, then Solve Pension Crisis By Sen. Bert Stedman & Sen. Lyda Green - Sunday PM Sharing the land By Craig Moen - Sunday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Ketchikan Ketchikan Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Today's Forecast Satellite Today's Weather Images Marine Forecasts Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map CLASSIFIEDS Auto-post your ad in the proper category, or email your ad & photos to ads@sitnews.us  CLASSIFIEDS' CATEGORIES Announcements For Sale / Free Stuff Garage Sales Homes / Apts/ Property Pets Wanted Lost & Found Local Services SitNews Archives November 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S       01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30     More Front Page Archives

Bob Morgan: Two Seeds - Deep in the forest, a long time ago, two seeds fell to the ground. One was an acorn and one was a pine.

Rain started to fall, and as the seeds got wet, they began to grow. Then the sun came out and warmed them and they grew even faster. The acorn was growing faster than the pine.

As they grew older, the acorn had grown into a mighty oak tree with branches reaching as far as you could see and way up into the sky. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

Karen MacPherson: Some new picture books make great choices for kids - A new crop of picture books offers some great reading choices:

- Author/artist Denise Fleming tells a delightful, gorgeously illustrated tale of bovine confusion in "The Cow Who Clucked" (Henry Holt, $16.95). The story is simple: Cow wakes up one morning to find that she has lost her "moo," and checks with all the other farm animals to see if they've found it. Young readers will love the silliness of Fleming's story as well as the fact that they know who's got Cow's moo well before she discovers the culprit. Fleming's illustrations, done in her unique pulp paper style, were inspired by the art of Vincent Van Gogh, and are filled with the wonderfully bright colors and swirling shapes found in his paintings. (Ages 2-5). - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

Dan K. Thomasson: USDA once again proves it is 'sensitivity challenged' - With one brilliant decision, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has wiped out hunger in America. In the eyes of the USDA, folks are no longer "hungry." The solution was so simple that people should have thought about it generations ago.

It has been obvious for decades that the good people at the USDA, tens of thousands of them, have too much time on their hands. But few things have brought that home more forcefully than the decision to strike the word "hunger" from its annual report on the state of . . . well . . . "food security" in the nation. That's right. The feel-good euphemism police have struck down another age-old description used to portray the obvious in plain English.

First there were no long those who are deaf or blind or short or crippled. They are now "hearing or sight impaired" and "height disadvantaged," and "physically restricted." In my case, it is "hair deprived," so as not to hurt my feelings as used to happen when someone would point out, "Hey, do you know you're getting bald?" - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

John M. Crisp: Effects of ill-advised CIA plot in Iran still haunts U.S. - Now that Iran looms on our horizon, here's a story that every American should know. Journalist Sandra Mackey tells it in "The Iranians," as does Daniel Yergin in "The Prize," his monumental history of oil. But the best extended version of the story that I've read is in "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer. Although other historians have told this story as well, I suspect that the average American has never heard of Mohammad Mossadegh and Operation Ajax. To make a long story short:

Kinzer says that democracy dawned in Iran in 1891 when the shah's wives - he had a harem of around 1,600 - gave up smoking in protest of the shah's sale of the tobacco concession to the British. In fact, the shah, Nasir al-Din, sold concessions of all sorts - mineral rights, railroads, banks - to foreigners in order to support his extravagant tastes. But the shah's son committed an even greater treachery on his own country by selling the oil concession to William Knox D'Arcy in 1901, granting exclusive rights to Iranian petroleum to the British for a period of 60 years.

The unfavorable terms of this concession, as well as many other abuses of monarchial power, led to the Iranian Revolution of 1905, the diminishment of the shah's power, the establishment of a parliament and the beginnings of a democratic tradition in Iran. In the meantime, D'Arcy discovered oil, a resource that suddenly became enormously valuable when Britain converted its coal-burning warships to oil just before World War I. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006

Thomas P. M. Barnett: Will empowered Democrats build fences or walls - Globalization is more domestic policy than foreign policy because when America connects to the world outside, that outside world inevitably penetrates our communities, our workplaces, our homes. This recent election had a lot to do with modulating America's connectivity to the world, whether we're talking immigration, trade or Iraq.

The question for son-to-be ruling Democrats is, Will they build bridges or will they build walls?

There are really two types of people in this world - those who believe there are two types of people in this world and those who do not. I fall into the former category.

I believe everyone's either an extrovert or an introvert. You're either energized by spending time with other people or you're exhausted by them and require solitude. - More...
Monday - November 27, 2006