I worked in Skagway, Alaska, where its first railroad station and stone built building is, about 90 miles north by ferry from the state capital of Juneau for the US National Park Service one summer in historical archaeology there. An American, Captain Moore, married to a native Tlingit woman and his son working on what was a Canadian homestead claim, found the trails through the mountains that started the Klondike Goldrush, bypassing the long sea voyage around the Aleutians and the long Yukon River upriver trek to the gold deposits near Whitehorse, Canada. That was before the US negotiated the "Panhandle" from international claims of 5 other nations, and not Russia which sold us the big part, our lead negotiator, from Watertown, NY near Fort Drum, Robert Lansing I seem to recall. Mrs. Sarah Palin, I believe, from what was then 3 time zones away from the state capital, now only two so that business can go on better, is no negotiator, which I would have hoped she was.
She seems more of that part of Alaska that wants the capital moved to Anchorage. She seems oblivious to the facts that we were assisted by a Russian oil skimmer, where we had none, when the Exxon Valdez was put up on the Bligh Reef by the fourth mate on a then recently reduced ship crew by "bean counters", whose captain was once honored in Huntington, NY during "Op-Sail" a number of years ago. At least Senator Joe "six-pack" Biden seems to be a good negotiator. I hope the governor is good at negotiating the Alaskan Supreme Court and the other charges she has since been cited for in the press.
Mon Oct 6, 2008 8:36 AM EDT
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