Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Kenelm “Ken” Philip, known to residents as “The Butterfly Man of Alaska,” died March 13 at age 82.

Philip was a summertime visitor to Haines, profiled in feature stories of the Alaska Lepidoptera Survey, an effort he founded. He drove a pickup with the license plate “INSECT” and came through town every few years stalking his prey.

Resident Margaret Piggott said she met Philip a decade or so ago, when he was parked near her house at 8 Mile Haines Highway, looking for butterflies. “He parked in my driveway every other year. He’d mow my lawn.”

Piggott said Philip was a determined scientist, whose zeal was hardly diminished by his advancing years. “I was hoping he’d find (a rare butterfly) in my driveway, so the road (expansion) couldn’t come in here, but no luck.”

According to a tribute published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Kenelm “collected and classified more than 83,000 butterfly specimens from across the northern regions of the globe.” His collection, part of which is held by the Smithsonian Institution, is the second-largest array of arctic butterflies in the world, the News-Miner reported.

A subspecies of a butterfly named “Rosov’s Arctic,” which flies in spruce bogs, was named “philipi” in his honor, with the common name of “Philip’s Arctic,” according to the article.