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Looking North

Snow's over ?

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?Looking North?

Sunday April 27, 2008


Our snow has stopped with a total accumulation of eight inches. The sun has returned and is electrifying in it?s intensity on the newly fallen snow. It hurts to look across the Lake.

We have some open water about the edges of our chain of four lakes, but right off the dock-end it?s still a foot deep and easily supports my weight. Fly fishing here would still involve cutting a sixty foot channel with the old ice saw that hangs in the barn, and that?s just too much effort, I can wait a bit longer.

Historically we?ve had snow here every month of the year. All our old timers can recount horror stories of ?opening day? blizzards, frozen lines and guides, and of course monster blizzard-fish. Personally I tend to discount these reminiscences as ?bottle-bass.? All I ever caught in those fiascos was a hellva cold.

Got a nice thank you e-mail from Scott Hed of the Sportsman?s? Alliance of Alaska thanking me for signing the petition to stop the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay. He has some local connections to some small towns near me in Northern MN. He?s running an online auction to raise dollars for the cause and he?s up against outfit with really deep pockets.

In a recent article in the Alaska Journal of Commerce by Margaret Bauman she writes:

?Backers of the proposed Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska said April 21 that they have budgeted $140.1 million for 2008, about $15 million more than previously estimated.

Planned activities include a $61.6 million drilling program, $30.2 million in engineering work, $24.9 million in environmental work and $14.8 million for community engagement and public affairs.?

The italics are mine. The public affairs referred to are at most just spreading dollars around small isolated communities in the form of make work jobs that require a new pick up truck to accomplish. $14.8 million goes along way spent like that. Fortunately a lot of the locals up there understand how the game is played and consider the potential for decimating the largest Salmon fishing ecosystem in the northwest more important than the few jobs and large profits for offshore owners.

IF you want sign Scott?s petition you can go to;

http://www.sportsmansalliance4ak.org/index.html

I?m sure he?ll send you a nice thank you letter too.

Later,

Corvus
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Comments

  1. Steve Molcsan's Avatar
    Thanks for the link and report...