Alaska: a climate of change

SEWARD, Alaska — Alaska makes you want to fill your lungs.

From this small and booming seaside town to the purple and gray expanse of summer on the North Slope, Alaska makes Montana look small. Halibut the size of cellos come out of these seas, gaffed into charter boats for a thousand visitors pouring out of cruise ships or streaming down the highway from Anchorage in fleets of RVs. Those motor coaches, by the way, most likely have Germans in them. One reliable estimate says German-speaking tourists account for 75 percent of summer rental of motor homes in Anchorage. The RV lots spout German like a mother tongue.

Seward, once Alaska's premier city, but with a winter population of only 2,500, has the prosperity other towns in Alaska would like — and has the problems of a city in a political and social climate of change.

Seward Mayor Vanta Shafer is facing a sputtering recall campaign over whether a downtown street should be vacated. Since everyone knows everyone in town, it becomes personal, but doesn't seem to dim the feistiness of Shafer's view of her fellow citizens. She sits in the gleaming log-interior home of Tom Tougas, formerly of West Seattle, where they chew over local politics along with fresh-caught halibut and salmon.

Tougas worked as an executive for Holland American Line but shifted to Alaska after 12 years in Seattle, just like a lot of other entrepreneurs — every day is another improvised solution to problems unique to Alaska.

"I could never get used to the traffic in Seattle," Tougas said later by phone. "In Seward, I can't spend more than 10 minutes in my car, but going to the post office takes almost an hour because you know everyone in line. Knowing each other's business is a great thing about small-town Alaska, but it has its downsides, as well.

"There is an intimacy here because Alaska has a developing economy," he said.

Joined by bone and sinew, Alaska is mutually dependent on Seattle and the Puget Sound. Of bulk cargo leaving the Port of Tacoma, fully 60 to 70 percent is destined for Alaska, according to Port Commissioner Constance Bacon. Commerce in the form of direct and indirect earnings from Alaska-Puget Sound trade exceeded $4 billion in 2003. That same report by two chamber organizations showed the shift in Alaska and Seattle economies. Like Seattle, Alaska is shifting to service industries, accounting for 30 percent of all jobs.

Beyond resources, Alaskans have a place people like to visit and the cruise industry is getting prepared. "The baby boomers are just now entering the time of life when a cruise is attractive and affordable," Tougas said. "They start traveling at 55 years plus, and there are a lot of baby boomers."

At Seward and Skagway and all along the timbered coast, Alaska is the recreation destination for hundreds of thousands of people each summer. Alaskans will vote on Aug. 22 whether to place more taxes on the cruise industry, and even add environmental spotters on the ships as they cruise the fjords. The cruise industry is fighting the ballot measure with lots of money. But nothing is going to stop a vigorous tourist industry that is transforming coastal Alaska into a kind of Gore-Tex Disneyland.

At the Ted Stevens International Airport, FedEx operates one of the largest hubs in its system. The FedEx shippers say Anchorage is within nine hours flying time, or less, of 90 percent of the world's industrialized population. The next big FedEx hub, scheduled for a 2008 opening in Guangzhou, China, will come on line as the Anchorage hub ties North America to Asia. In Anchorage, they sort 60,000 packages a day.

That is the asymmetry of Alaska at its most stark, the difference between the vast land and sky and the growing urban areas near the coast. I saw a suburbanization of parts of Anchorage I didn't expect to see, the gentrification of shackdom to yuppiedom. Anchorage, with a population approaching 275,000 in the greater municipal area, is far from an outpost — "Los Anchorage" to many who see it simply as the commercial center of the North.

Paula Easley arrived in Anchorage in the early 1960s. She now is principal of Easley Associates, public-policy consultants.

"There's been lots of good change," Easley said, "but also things that didn't change that are good, too. Alaska doesn't have a country club. It is as close to a classless society as is possible anywhere."

Just as Tom Tougas related to small-town Seward, Easley said Anchorage has changed, but largely for the better. "We have more paved roads and fewer muddy streets. In Anchorage, they've planted thousands of trees so the city is greener than ever. Gasoline in the bush communities can cost $8 a gallon, but on the other side, we have much better medical facilities now and people don't have to go outside as much," she said.

Politics can still divide Alaska and Washington state, but not at all levels, and maybe not in the long term. Mayor Greg Nickels has partnered with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich on issues such as global warming — both are Democrats in nonpartisan seats. The upcoming fall election for governor may ease the tensions between Seattle and Alaska if former Gov. Tony Knowles is elected again — he's also a Democrat.

But all electable Democrats in Alaska favor more drilling on the North Slope, and favor the kind of resource development Greens in Seattle can't condone. Relations remain spotty. Anchorage under Mayor Begich has signed on to Mayor Nickels' group of cities trying to reduce global warming, a major theme of Nickels' recent visit to the state.

"These are the pieces we have been looking for," Nickels told an audience in Anchorage, referring to more cooperation between Seattle and Alaska.

That visit, organized by the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle (MIC), brought a Seattle mayor as head of a delegation to Anchorage for the first time. Nickels likes to point out that one of his predecessors left his post to join the Yukon Gold Rush, and telegraphed his resignation.

That's the beauty of it: The two places are locked together in history, misery and prosperity.

Years ago, in Kotzebue just a few miles north of the Arctic Circle, I felt as if I were on the set of a movie. Alaskan natives came into town on their ATVs and the only video store was a cold walk in November. Bears were abroad, the hotel was a mess of missed reservations and the bleak, winter light was like an oilskin draped across a window. Newborn children were rubbed with seal oil. It was wonderful. That's one side of Alaska. Here's another:

In Seward, there is now a computerized reservation center for charter fishing that looks like the deck of the Starship Enterprise. The cruise ships disgorge so many people, the charter captains have to coordinate the fishing ballet online. There was a small sign at the coffee window that said, "Friends don't let their friends go to Starbucks," but in fact that fight is over. Since Alaska is about 90-percent government lands, the density of growth has to concentrate on the cities and towns that are reachable and available.

Even the drive from Seward to Anchorage is different. Still the same majestic Chugatch Mountains, but a few more pit stops for gasoline and pizza, a few more elegant homes perched along the hillsides.

There will always be the Alaska that people once knew, but this new Alaska is changing. Take a deep breath.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com