18 



went on to college, taking a course I liked, but when I came off the 

 plane, we got off at the turn-around. That is end of Marine Street 

 a little ways, and that was the end of the town. That was our air- 

 port. 



After the fishing season there was no — the town closed up for the 

 winter. And we had Mt. Edgecumbe High School and we had Shel- 

 don Jackson and we had Sitka High. Sitka High was just this side 

 of Market, I believe it is. That was the high school, and I believe 

 that is where Gary Paxon (ph) graduated from. I do not know. But 

 you look at the growth of this town, I think the people, a lot of new 

 people in this town do not realize what has happened. They got the 

 mill for a reason. They got the mill for year-round jobs. 



I used to fish for a living. I used to work in the cannery, but the 

 canneries are no longer in Alaska. All the Native villages used to 

 be empty because they went to the fish canneries, and that is 

 where my dad worked and that is where I worked. Now those are 

 gone, and now the timber is gone and mining is gone, and if they 

 move the State capital and Ketchikan closes down like ALP, we 

 have nothing. We are right back to ground zero, and I do not see 

 people here in Alaska anymore with the vision to make things 

 move and grow. I am concerned for my grand-kids. I can retire. To 

 me, it is not an issue. 



So I think the best move, and I am not going to say my point 

 until at the end whether I agree with you or not, but we had no 

 airport as we know it. We had no bridge as we can see. We had 

 no library. We had no Centennial Building. 



We did not have Crescent Harbor or the park. We did not have 

 Shee Atika. We did not have the Sheffield House that Shee Atika 

 bought. We did not have the Potlatch Motel, the Super 8. No Al's 

 Credit Union, no Sea Mart out the road. We had very little of 

 any — and you did not need it. The town was very small. 



Now we have water treatment, sewer treatment, well-controlled 

 dum^p. We have a port development. We have Texaco. But I would 

 like to have the people drive by the mill. I hear these horror stories 

 all the time. I do not believe it, but a lot of people do. 



Get back to one person that spoke from New York. 



We had a person that went to high school with my wife, and also 

 nursing schools, that were here last week, and he is from rural 

 New York, and he says, "God, look at all these trees." He could not 

 believe it. He was taken aback by all the trees we had. He said, 

 "From what I heard, it was all denuded. There was no trees in 

 Alaska." So this is perpetuated as a lie to the American people, and 

 I have also heard a person from New Hampshire speaking at a 

 round-table in Oregon saying, "The Tongass is mine, and it is 

 denuded right now," and if you folks want to get that tape, it is 

 still available, I imagine. 



Drive by the mill, most of you, the new people. That place was 

 logged by Nelson Logging not too long ago, and you can count every 

 stump in that area, and there is 15, 20 new trees by each stump. 

 They will have to thin it out; otherwise, it is going to be covered 

 over with new trees. And, let us face it, it is perpetuated as a lie. 

 I will say we have so much emphysema and lung problems because 

 the national old growth is depleting our oxygen. New growth, we 

 need it. That is questionable. But people like to do stuff like that. 



