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

My name is Ryland Bell and the Chilkat Valley is my home. This valley, this perfect cleft in the world, means nearly everything to me and to hundreds of families. It is the source of my livelihood both as a salmon fisherman and as a professional snowboarder. The intersection of river and mountains, of coastal and interior climates make this place unique and beautiful. The Chilkat Valley is special and the Chilkat Valley is in danger. The Palmer mine’s 2021 work program is being fully funded by the Japanese company DOWA to the tune of $8.8 million, with 6,000 meters of drilling planned for 2021 alone. DOWA has been sent over 20,000 letters by Chilkat Valley residents, and people beyond the valley who see and feel the same endless damage the Palmer mine will inflict on the salmon, the water, the land, and the people. DOWA is ignoring the people they’re poised to poison, and we are howling for them to divest this reckless, greedy venture and leave the Chilkat Valley now. We see them tabulating the profits they imagine they might find in our mountains and nowhere in their calculations is there a red line counting the infinite costs this mine will inflict on my home forever, in acid-waste clean up, salmon habitat restoration, and the future fallout of feeding further into a boom-bust economic mode that leaves towns like Haines hobbled for generations. DOWA, get out of the Chilkat Valley now.

You’re not welcome here.

Ryland Bell