The Way We Were

In the Sentinel 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago.

August 17, 1914: Dr. Dawes of the school board gave out the information that the following teachers have been appointed for the ensuing school term: Miss Drowatsky, Principal, Miss Pritchett, Intermediate grades, Miss Beiler, Primary; and Miss Cora Smith, High School. School will start Tuesday, Sept. 1. Rev. Corser chartered the Tonic yesterday morning, gathered up his Boy Scouts and a number of tourists visiting here, and took the trip up the Stikine to LeConte Glacier. The party of twenty-one made the trip safely but on the return the Tonic ran into a fish net off Shakes Point, the net tangled in the wheel so that the boat drifted onto a sandbar and stuck. Frank Spaulding and Carl Carlson rowed to town in the skiff and secured Fred Bronson’s and Spaulding’s gas boats which went out and brought in the stranded party. Capt. Svindseth stayed with the Tonic, cleared her wheel at low tide and brought her in safe and sound this morning.

August 18, 1939: Uncle Sam will begin an official count of noses in Alaska in October. Workers will be sent out by dog sled, boat, airplane, on snowshoes and other forms of transportation to cover the vast territory and the many islands in the Bering Sea. Secretary of Commerce Harry L. Hopkins has ordered Dwight R. Hammack, veteran of the Census Bureau at San Francisco, to proceed to Alaska and select 200 supervisors and enumerators to carry out the work. Hammack will spend approximately six weeks in various parts of Alaska lining up the census crews, giving out supplies and arranging transportation facilities. Hammack expects to leave San Francisco for Alaska in about three weeks, it is announced.

August 14, 1964: Supervisor Vincent Olson of the U.S. Forest Service announced that 194 million board feet of hemlock, spruce and cedar logs have been harvested on the North Tongass National Forest in fiscal year 1964. This is the largest cut on record for the forest. The cut is the combined production of the 34 operating logging camps within the forest. The logs harvested were used to supply raw material to all wood-using plants of Southeastern Alaska, with the major volume being used in the Alaska Lumber and Pulp mill in Sitka. A total of $478,528.71 was received by the Forest Service for the timber cut. Twenty-five percent of this amount is turned over to the state and borough governments for school and road financing.

August 17, 1989: The 65-foot vessel Christian sails the waters of Southeast Alaska as an experiment this year in Lutheran ministry. Tied up at Shoemaker Bay, the Christian’s clean, well-kept appearance reveals the hard work and dedication of the Rev. Ken and Nancy Olson. Whether the vessel will continue its floating ministry is pending now as a committee of the Lutheran synod in Alaska attempts to obtain grant funding to operate the vessel. “I like to consider what we’ve done this year as a pilot project,” Ken Olson says. “There will be a meeting in September to make plans for the future.” On loan to the Christian from his post as part-time Lutheran pastor in Wrangell, Ken has spent the summer cruising around Prince of Wales Island, visiting villages and asking residents what services they would like from the floating parsonage. Nancy, a teacher with the Wrangell school system, and Ken have offered summer Bible school to children, provided Sunday services to residents, opened the vessel for community potlucks and a sympathetic shoulder to lean on for those in need of religious guidance.

 

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