| August 18, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth
Today's word: E-X-P-L-O-I-T-A-T-I-O-N
He had run out of answers. He owns a small business in Ketchikan and was taking a moment between tours to have a burger at the fast food joint, Rosa's. Traffic whirred by on the busy North Tongass highway. "How did Ketchikan get to have so many tourists come in without any infrastructure," I asked, "I mean there's few public restrooms, the roads are decaying, there are people walking around in the middle of the streets." “Since a lot of the shops are secretly owned by the cruise ship companies, and will close up and go away in a few weeks, there's no money that comes from them to support the town … is that right?" "Yeah. They even board up the windows and get right outta here. It's amazing," he said, looking through an open window at a woman beside a grill. "Yeah, extra cheese on that!" "But you know, there used to be a logging industry and a fishing industry and a small tourism industry here," he went on. "But logging and fishing went away and now tourism is everything. Everybody wants to cash in." "What happened to the other industries?" I asked, feigning ignorance. "Believe it or not, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club." "Really? How did they have any say in Ketchikan?" "Well, you see … they start all these lawsuits against the government." "Why'd they want to do that? I thought commercial fishing is going well." "No. No. Commercial fishing is done for. Because Greenpeace and Sierra Club want them to do all these studies." "Studies? But shouldn't they do studies?" He looked at me with a far-away stare. Then he moved to window, grabbed a sack with his food and walked off. A few days ago, I met with a few locals concerned about the rest of the animals on the green earth. One woman told me, a decade ago, she had to pull down the blinds when they met. Another man had to tuck a .44 below in shirt because he received so many death threats. It's not so bad anymore in Ketchikan now, however, according to most of the people I spoke with. The really angry ones have left with the closure of the Ketchikan Pulp Mill (it went bankrupt even though taxpayers were helping to finance its clearcutting). And the rest of the misinformed? They're too busy making money off the tourists. Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist, and is the winner of the Alaska Press Club's 2006 'Best Columnist' award. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com. |
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2005
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Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
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