Trial Day 9: Skagway Explains Their Close SEI With Downtown Juneau

Judge Matthews, Mayor Cremata, Attorney Brena

The judge hadn't ruled on the East Anchorage petition and said he'd do so today.  It's now up and he's denied the East Anchorage amendments, but with some wiggle room.

We're onto the Skagway case now.  They don't like that their house district pairs them with the Mendenhall Valley part of Juneau instead of downtown as they are now in their present district.

We heard the Mayor of Skagway, Andrew Cremata, Brad Ryan, Borough Manager Municipality of Skagway Borough, and John Walsh, lobbyist for Skagway.  

Basically they all made the same argument:

Skagway's interests are very closely tied to downtown Juneau with whom they've shared a district these last ten years.  Those interests are most strongly connected by the fact that the cruise line industry has a huge economic impact on both communities.  Mayor Cremata pointed out that the long term lease of Skagway's port ends in March and Skagway will soon own and control the port.  He emphasized how important it has been to be able to work closely with the port people in Juneau in planning funding for expanding the port and dealing with the infrastructure needs of having so many passengers disembark downtown.  He mentioned they had to build Skagway's first crosswalk. Skagway's all year round population is about 1000 and it triples when a ship comes in.  

In addition to the socio-economic relationship with downtown Juneau because of the port, the witnesses testified that all the services Skagway government, businesses, and citizens use are in downtown Juneau -engineers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, shopping, government offices, and on and on.  

The Board's attorney, Singer, eventually gave up asking about connections the Mendenhall Valley Skagway (and Haines and Gustavus) residents have - hammering on the fact that the ferry terminal is in their new district.  They replied that the terminal is just a stop on the way to Juneau and pointed out that the airport is part of the downtown district.  

His next tack was to keep saying that all of Juneau borough is socio-economically integral because it's all in the same borough.  

It went on and on with examples of what specific things Skagway and downtown Juneau have in common and how little sense it makes to split the Valley in half to put Skagway there instead.  

Skagway is up against the ruling that every place within Borough boundaries is socio-economically integrated.  On the other hand, Skagway is outside the Borough boundaries.  The issue is to convince the judge and then the Supreme Court that they are more SEI with one part of Juneau than the other.  

Judge Matthews at one point asked John Walsh, the lobbyist, if the downtown Juneau legislator was already an enthusiastic supporter of Skagway's interest, wouldn't it be better to have two legislators instead of just one.  

Skagway lobbyist Walsh and
Board Attorney Singer on right

Walsh said that it was a presumption the Valley legislator would work hard for Skagway's interests, but it might work out.  If not they would have to find support elsewhere, like Ketchikan (also a cruise line port of call.) He was worried a Mendhall legislator would have maritime interests and wouldn't have the urgency a committed legislator would have.

Then Matthews followed up asking if the Mendenhall legislator would be opposed to Skagway's interests or just less interested in them?  The latter, was the response

Skagway's argument is similar to Valdez' argument that being paired with downtown means they have more clout in the legislature.  Except in the Valdez case, they didn't just argue they'd have more clout with communities along the pipeline corridor.  They also showed that they were actually in competition with Mat-Su on some very significant issues.  

While Skagway said a Mendenhall Valley rep wouldn't know their issues as well and thus wouldn't represent them as well, they didn't show any actual competing interests with the Valley.  I'd note that Brena is the attorney for Valdez and for Skagway.  

Singer, the Board's attorney, might point out that in the Valdez case, they argued that the Valdez port was in competition with the Mat-Su port, but in this case he's saying both having ports gives them a common interest.  I imagine Brena's response would be that it's a very different situation.  Mat-Su would be competing for the cargo shipping to the interior that Valdez currently has, and can put that cargo on a train rather than the road.  

But in the case of Skagway and Juneau, they are on the same cruise ship tour route so they aren't in competition.  They can work together as Alaskan ports for better port management and to learn from each other.  What wasn't mentioned was teaming up to get better terms from the cruise lines.  

Though no one made that argument and my suspicion is they are all very cosy with the cruise lines and that Skagway is making enough revenue from the cruises they are willing to give up the small town quaintness that makes Skagway a good place to live (and for cruise lines.)  While the mayor talked about all the impacts of the cruise line passengers - need for more infrastructure to handle them, more police, more fire fighters, more roads, more health care, more housing - he didn't say anything negative about that kind of growth. Only that they needed to work with Juneau to learn how to handle it.  

Tomorrow Board member Budd Simpson will be testifying.  He's from Juneau and drew the map.  Brena said he'll need a lot of time with Simpson.  

Unexpectedly In Cordova Airport

When we checked in for our 8am flight home from Seattle, they asked for volunteers because the flight was full.  I had been looking forward to a quick return to Anchorage, but we had nothing urgent, so we figured we'd see what they had to offer if we took a later flight.

It turns out they had an earlier flight (7:30am), but with stops in Juneau, Yakutat, and Cordova.  But for $400 vouchers for future flights it seemed like we could go sightseeing.  Not sure how much time I have left with this wifi - I'm on the plane getting it from the Cordova airport - so I'll put up the pictures, in the order of the trip, but the best ones are at near the end.

From the plane at the Juneau airport.

It was snowing in Yakutat and the visibility was below the standards for landing, so after circling a while, we continued on to Cordova.  The image above was while we were waiting for Yakutat to clear.  

Flying into Cordova was pretty spectacular.  

Almost there as we fly past the glacier.


And this last photo is for my friend Jeremy who likes towers that do radio and other electronic things.

This is at the Cordova airport.














For non-Alaskans who have no idea where these places are, here's a map.  (I'm going to post this now  and I'll add the map. UPDATE 3:30pm:  There's the map.)

Chattng With Guterson, Brunelle, And Hinman At Bainbridge Island Bookstore

We wandered into downtown Winslow and stopped at the bookstore (Eagle Harbor Book Co.) where we ran into three local Bainbridge Island authors on display with their books.  I guess this can be anywhere from author hell to heaven, trying to get people to buy your books.  And for me it was a chance to talk to three writers.

Gutterson with Problems With People and Cedars

I had read David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars long ago - it won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.  It weaves in Bainbridge Island's complicated history of Japanese-Americans' relationship to the white population on the island through a murder trial.   It deals with the essential topic of this blog - how do we know what's true?  Did Kabuo kill Carl over old family feuds?  There's also a pivotal role for a journalist who has his own history with the families involved.  

David's new book is short stories titled, Problems with People.  We talked a bit about the difficulties of writing about people you know.  He offered that when it's fictionalized, no one really knows what is true and what is not.  Except, I suggested, those involved, and they might not agree with the writer's view of events.  Personal experiences are critical fodder for a serious writer.  It's a dilemma.   





Lynn Brunelle, was enjoying the opportunity to talk about her book Mama Gone Geek.  As I understood her,  it's about figuring out ways to talk to her kids about big questions - like why Grandma was forgetting things, but really was into Santa Claus when her son was starting to question Santa Claus.  Using science.

She used DNA to help explain where babies come from.

My daughter told me when we got home that Lynne was one of the writers for the Bill Nye The Science Guy television show.





The third author was Wendy Hinman.  From the title of her book, Tightwads On The Loose, I thought this was going to be about how to live cheap.  It is, in a way, but it's really about her seven years of sailing adventures with her husband on a 31 foot sailboat.  The route our discussion focused on was from Japan to Seattle - a 49 day trip that was a little south of the northern route that freighters take.  I asked if she seen the Pacific Gyre - the continent of floating plastic in the north Pacific - and she said no.  It tends not to have good winds and they were sailing.  Their radio went out fairly quickly, so all they had in case of trouble was an emergency beacon.

Since I'm from Alaska, she mentioned her friend's book, Treadwell Gold.  We had been to the mine back in 2010 when Dennis, a Juneau local with long family ties to the mine, took us around.


Here, from the Hinman's book, is a map of their travels.  Sorry it's not a little clearer, but you make it bigger and clearer by clicking on the image.

[Update Nov. 30, 2015:  I once told an ADN reporter it would be nice to have an editor to catch my typos.  He told me, no, I was better off without one.  He was talking more bout choice of what I wrote and and how I wrote, not about typos.   That's all a preface to a mea culpa to Wendy and David for misspelling your names.  Wendy's caught while I was posting, but left it wrong in the title.  I put an extra t in David's.  But I think I've got it right now.]

University of Alaska Southeast Gets New Chancellor With PhD

It may not seem to be notable for a university to have a head with a doctorate, but for a number of years the University of Alaska system hasn't had any PhD's in any of the top positions.  Neither the president of the system nor the chancellors of the three main campuses - Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Southeast (Juneau) -  have doctoral degrees.

There are times when someone without a doctoral degree can head a university and even bring some fresh new ideas and administrative intelligence.  But to have all the positions devoid of a strong academic background is problematic.

So, it's good to see that we're finally getting some academic depth into a position of leadership at the University.  Maybe when the new chancellor at Fairbanks and the new president of the system are selected, we'll be up to three out of the four top positions with doctorates.

All that said, with the current budget cutting, Dr. Caulfield has a daunting task before him.  I wish him well.  And perhaps we will start seeing strong advocacy for the university again, as we saw when Mark Hamilton was president.  Rather than passive acceptance of cuts.

Here's the part of the bio the university released with the announcement.

"Dr. Caulfield has been a part of the University of Alaska for more than 30 years. He began his higher education teaching career in 1985 at the university’s Bristol Bay Campus. He became a full professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks as part of the Department of Alaska Native and Rural Development. His research interests took him to Greenland, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, and Russia. He has published two books and numerous other professional publications and served on national and international science steering committees and boards, including the NSF Oceans-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions Scientific Committee, the International Arctic Social Sciences Association, and the University of the Arctic.

A 40-year Alaska resident, Dr. Caulfield has combined academic and professional interests with experiences in commercial fishing, flying, sailing, home construction, dog mushing, hunting, recreational fishing, and other outdoor pursuits.

Dr. Caulfield earned a PhD in Development Studies from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and BA and BS degrees in Political Science and Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley."

AIFF 2014: Powerful Alaska Film On Juneau Japanese-Americans And WW II

Imagine the high school newspaper editor's father being arrested by his best friend's father and sent out of state for the crime of being of Japanese.

The Empty Chair in the title of the film refers to a chair on the stage of the 1942 graduating class at Juneau High School.  The valedictorian, John Tanaka, wasn't there.  He'd been relocated with his family to an internment camp after Pearl Harbor was attacked.  John's best friend's dad was the highest ranking military officer in Juneau at the time and was ordered to arrest John's father, and later to round up all the Japanese-American residents and ship them south to an internment camp.

I got to see The Empty Chair Sunday morning - at its world premiere on the  73rd  anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Heres a bit of video I took during the Q&A after the Sunday showing.



This film is a testament to how a dedicated film maker can preserve a small but significant part of history with his camera.  Greg Chaney interviewed Juneau residents who experienced those events.  Japanese-Americans who were kids back then and were sent to camps during the war.  Their white classmates, and a few others alive at the time like Katie Hurley.

Chaney chronicles a small Alaskan town - the film estimates Juneau had about 5000 residents then - where the Japanese residents were well integrated into the community and how some key members of the white community struggled when they were required to deport these citizens to the camps.

The film also takes advantage of vintage film and photos from any number of archives and from some family film that includes footage of playing in the snow on Dec. 7, 1941.

This is a huge contribution to Alaska's history and because it focuses on high school (and younger) kids, it would be a terrific addition to Alaskan history curriculum in high schools throughout the state.

It plays again tonight (Tuesday) at the Alaska Experience Theater at 7pm.

The programming is tight this year, but if you're seeing The Ambassador to Bern at 5:30 at the Bear Tooth, which I also recommend, there will be time enough to get downtown to see The Empty Chair.    It's ok if you're a few minutes late, though you might want to reserve a ticket in advance if you can.

The movie is quite well done, even on the minuscule budget they had.

Comparing The Five Southeast Alaska Configurations From The Board

Since I didn't do close ups of Southeast Alaska in the previous post, here they are - plus the two extra maps I didn't get up in the last post.  Again, all five maps - A, B, D, E, and F (yes, no C, for now at least - they are still working on it and it may return) - are scheduled to be up in much better resolution on the Redistricting Board Website in the Draft Plans tab.

Board Draft Option A - Southeast

Board Draft Option B - Southeast

Board Draft Option D - Southeast

Board Draft Option E - Southeast

Board Draft Option F - Southeast

Reminder, Option C was removed, but may return.  They're still working on it. 

Taking the Dogs Up Perseverance Trail

Paul goes for regular runs and hikes and picks up his friends' dogs to go with him.  It's nice to be able to walk into the woods - no car - from your house in downtown Juneau.  The evening (last Thursday) was warm - mid to high 50s - and soon we'd passed all the houses and were at the wooden planking part of the road.  But the road was closed to vehicles while they were completely redoing it.  Two years ago when we spent the legislative session here, they'd replaced some of the planks, but it was nothing this extensive. Here's a March 2010 post  about the trail.  

There was a huge avalanche across the trail.  I'd been warned about avalanches in 2010, but there was a lot less snow that year. 

Paul seemed to think we were more likely to be killed by falling rocks than snow sliding down the mountain.

The sign says bikes should yield to runners and hikers.  We didn't see any bikes.


The video shows the second avalanche area and Paul and the dogs coming back from the trail to the waterfall. Apollo, the young black dog, has so much energy which you can see as a carries a stick longer than he is.











And here we are on the way back, climbing down from the first avalanche.

And here we're back in town, almost home. 

Juneau To Anchorage - Great Wild Adventure Out The Window

People spend good money to go into Imax theaters to see huge images of the natural world. But even people sitting in window seats often ignore the spectacular sights outside their windows. Juneau to Anchorage on a clear day like today makes a regular airline passenger into a northern explorer.

Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska

My favorite Juneau cab driver called Suwanna Cafe in a mall near the airport to order two Pad Thais which were ready for pick up when we arrived a few minutes later.  And I had my lunch for the flight. (And Dennis had his.)

On the plane, my 'small screen', unlike my computer screen, got bigger as I moved my face closer.  It wasn't edited and there was no dramatic music (though I guess that would be easy to provide with an  iPod or computer) and no narrator dramatically telling me what I was looking at.  I simply had to look and observe without someone telling me what to think or what it all meant.






And it was so amazing - even after having made this trip many, many times - that you're just going to have to bear with me and these shots from my pocket camera. 

All this incredible geography was below, outside the plane and most people were reading, sleeping, playing video games.

All that white in the water is ice floating from the huge glaciers all around.  You can see it closer in the next picture.

And then we were flying into Anchorage.  Flattop is at the end of this ridge below.  Powerline Pass on its right.  Denali and Foraker showing dimly (too dimly for my camera) on the horizon.  From this view, you can't even tell you're looking down on a town of 370,000 people. 

I Get A Taste of the Alaska Folk Festival

Wednesday evening I got to slip into Centennial Hall to catch a bit of the Alaska Folk Festival in downtown Juneau. 

The Empty Oil Barrel Band played and sang politically themed satires.

The festival program remembers Buddy Tabor and Barbara Kalen.

From Tom Begich's blog  we get a more personal reflection on Tabor.  Here's a short excerpt.

February 6, 2012 - Last night, perhaps around 8 PM, Buddy Tabor quietly passed away. A singer/songwriter with a direct link to the soul.  Alternately irreverent and loving, apolitical and revolutionary, album after album cut through to your heart and your head in simple tones and a gravel voice. Weary without giving in, spiritual without putting it on. Aware. Conscious. The words of a poet, the soul of a dreamer, the hands of a housepainter. Buddy Tabor was complex in his thoughts, simple in how he executed them. His body of work pearls worth holding and remembering, just as he is.

 This festival has a lot the feel of the Anchorage Folk Festival and the man sitting in the aisle seat of my row on the flight home today had played at the festival. 

It's Already Spring In Juneau

There's no reason I should be surprised.  It's 90 minutes south via jet from Anchorage to Juneau.  Downtown Juneau is snow free and here and there flowers are blooming, while in Anchorage there's still a lot of snow - though it is evaporating in the sunshine.  So here are a few glimpses of Juneau spring. 

These are chionodoxa growing in Morgan's yard.  Paul and I were just getting back from a hike up Perseverance Trail and he knows most of the people we ran into, including Morgan. 













She also had these eerie light blue iris blooming.  Here's a picture of these same iris two years ago.








And here's Morgan, interrupted from her gardening.

And up on Perseverance trail, where we walked through snow, we saw some purple mountain saxifrage blooming in a crack in the rocks. 

Anchorage to Juneau

When the weather is so spectatular, I have no choice but to post a couple of pictures.  A little out of Anchorage, Girdwood Valley and Turnagain Arm in the upper middle. 

And then we flew into Juneau from the south, looping down and around and over downtown on the way to the airport.  Below is the northern, upper part of downtown and a view up Basin Road to the Perseverance Trail.  On the ground there was no snow and temps in the 50s. 

Why Kokayi Is Going To Lose A Lot Of Weight In Juneau

A friend of mine has decided that kids going hungry here in Anchorage isn't right. He's working to End Child Hunger by 2015. He's been pushing a bill that would put $2million into feeding kids at school.   The legislative website tells you this:

BILL: SB 3	SHORT TITLE: FUNDING FOR SCHOOL MEALS
BILL VERSION: CSSB 3(FIN)
CURRENT STATUS: (H) FIN	STATUS DATE: 03/07/11
SPONSOR(s): SENATOR(S) WIELECHOWSKI, ELLIS, DAVIS, EGAN, FRENCH, KOOKESH, MCGUIRE, MENARD, PASKVAN, THOMAS REPRESENTATIVE(S)Kawasaki, Petersen, Kerttula, Munoz

TITLE: "An Act providing for funding for school lunch and breakfast; and providing for an effective date."


See where it says "Current Status" above?  The (H) means House (of Representatives) and FIN means Finance Committee.  It passed the Senate last year pretty quickly.  And then it went to the House Finance Committee on March 3, 2011.  It's been there ever since.   Since the Legislature is on a two year cycle, and this is the second year, it's still there.  

Note that the first sponsor is Wielechowski.  He's an Anchorage Democrat who has also been a strong opponent of HB 110.  That's the bill the Governor wants that will give the oil companies a $2 billion a year break on their taxes.  Each year.  In exchange for vague words about more jobs and investment.  Words.  Not even written down.  No commitments.  

Kokayi is planning to wait until Feb. 6 to see if the Finance Committee co-chairs will let the bill out on to the House floor for a vote.  If they don't, he's pledged to fast until they do.  





I'm betting he's going to lose a lot of weight.  

HB 110 is the highest priority of the House Republicans and the Governor.  Now that all the politicians that went to prison for corruption are out, it seems like things are getting back to how they were.  

I'm guessing that as long as Wielechowski is going to fight to block HB100 in the Senate (and he's not alone on that - Republicans and Democrats defeated it last year) S3 isn't moving.  That's how they play the game in Juneau.  Wielechowski's bill to fund school breakfasts and lunches (we're one of the few states that doesn't provide state money for that even though most other states are in a financial pinch and we've got $2 billion a year to give back to the oil companies).  I doubt that co-chairs Stolze (Chugiak/South Matsu) or Thomas (Haines) will move the bill until HB 110 is passed through the Senate.  And even then chairs have been known to just let a bill die as a form of punishment.  I don't know for sure that's what's happening.  Maybe they just think $2 million to feed hungry kids is a waste of money as opposed to getting $2 billion back into the oil company coffers.  

What are you going to do to help Kokayi End Child Hunger in Alaska by 2015?   He's got links at his site to write a letter and to join the peanut butter drive.

Walking Home - Takes the long way home

I just finished Lynn Schooler's Walking Home - in time for tonight's book club meeting.  It's not a book I would have picked and now that I've finished it, I'm trying to figure out my lack of satisfaction.  And should I evaluate Alaska related books differently from other books? 

Middle-aged Juneau outdoorsman, while building a house for himself and his new bride, decides to complete the last leg of a trek that would have him circumnavigate Mr. Fairweather.  There's already problems with the marriage.  Will leaving for a solo wilderness adventure save it?

As I tried, without much success due to the reflective library cover - to photograph the book, it seemed to me the book cover was a good metaphor for my dissatisfaction.

I looked at the photo, and reflected that Schooler is described as an 'award winning wildlife photographer" and though - "Ok, there are a lot of subtle and interesting parts to this photograph, and it reflects the darkness in this story, the coast, the clouds that provided lots of rain, but for a book cover, it's not really that striking.  Intellectually, it's a good photo for the book, but it doesn't quite work as a book cover."

And that's how I felt about the whole book.  There are a lot of interesting parts.  The interweaving of his present trip with the historical accounts of those who preceded Schooler to these parts.  The moving from what he sees as he walks the wilderness, and his discussions of the habits of the birds he's learned through experience and books.  Or plants, or boats, or weather.  And how members of his island community watched after each other.

"The Ulrichs and the Swansons all stood watching as the wave ripped the timber off the ridge above Gilbert Inlet to a height of 1,700 feet with a force that was later calculated as twenty-five million pounds per-square-foot, which was sufficient to instantly strip all the bark off the tumbling treetrunks and tear away their branches.  Then it rebounded to the eastern shore below Crillon Inlet, flaying the mountainside up to 500 feet above sea level;  it struck so hard that every tree, shrub, tuft of grass, and bit of vegetation was wiped away down to naked bedrock.  It was only after the wave lashed over 320-foot-high Cenotaph Island and tore a swatch through its middle that Ulrich came to his senses.  Seeing the wave rolling down the eastern shore toward them, he said, 'I began to move and I moved fast.'"(p. 81)

Interweaving different times and ideas is tricky business and for the most part it works, but we can see the edges where he moves from now to then, from specific to general.  Schooler was in Lituya Bay and recounting the records he'd found of the 1959 earthquake. 

Sonny (Howard Jr.) was eight and the boat with his dad Howard Ulrich Sr.  He'd be 60 or 61 today.  Juneau folks - does anyone know him?  In the book, they're described as 'from Pelican.' 

Generally, I liked the prose. 

"On a map it looked easy.  I could plant my thumb on Lituya Bay and cover the sixty miles to Dry Bay with an outstretched pinkie."

Some chapters are page turners - the 1958 earthquake and the Lituya Bay tidal wave, being stalked by an injured, hungry bear - others are merely interesting.

I'm sure a lot of folks will really like this book.  Ultimately, while it had interesting background on Alaska history and geography, I just didn't get any new insights.  The personal relationship that was woven into all the other threads was mundane.  There were no real insights into what happened.   If he had them, he didn't share them. 



 Oh yeah.  I didn't even notice, until I started this post, that the rest of the picture is on the back of the cover.  And with both parts it's a better photo.  But the cover is what people see.  And the contents, for me, were like the cover.  Not quite good enough on the whole, though with lots of good parts.

I'm not sorry I read it.  I noted in an earlier post I got to read some history of Mt. Fairweather as I saw it out my Seattle bound flight window. 

I'll hold off until I hear what the other book club members say about the book.

Later:  The book club guys seemed to like the book better than I did.  They like his prose, the liked the history and nature accounts interwoven into the other tales.  They liked the sailing and tidal details and how he described them.  They didn't think much about the relationship thread and some felt it could have done without.  I know I have problems at times about not wanting to leave things out that are important to me, but not to the story I'm telling.  As the person telling the story about his trek in the wild, he probably felt it would have been dishonest to leave his dissolving relationship with his new wife out of the book.  But as good literature, he needed to either make that part of the book more insightful or leave it out. 

It's not a bad book by any means.  I never considered abandoning it.  But for me it didn't quite reach its potential. 

Good Lord, Friday in Anchorage Beats Thursday in Juneau

The mountains look small and distant in Anchorage, compared to Juneau's in-your-face vertical walls.  But the weather on Friday in Anchorage, as I escaped to Campbell Airstrip for some great March cross-country skiing, was perfect.  Low 30s, bright blue sky, warm sun, and, unlike Juneau, no wind at all. (This is not completely fair  since I'm comparing downtown Juneau to Anchorage in the woods.)






It hasn't snowed for a while and the ground was hard, packed snow, almost icy, until I got over the bridge.  Then the main trails were beautifully groomed for both skate skiers and people like me who use the Nordic tracks.

I realized that I'm usually here when there's lots of snow on the trees and they looked almost naked without gobs of whipped cream snow.  (You can see some winter shots here.   And you can see summer views here.)

Off the main trails, it was trickier for Nordic skiing - no tracks and smooth to icy.  Great for fat tire bikes.  (I tried to get the picture as he came toward me, but it took time to get my gloves off and camera out of my pocket.)

But while in Juneau you're likely to see posters for Peace on Earth, Anchorage folks take it a little further.

The New Testament is not one of my areas of expertise, but something told me to google the phrase "Blessed is the nation whose god is the Lord Jesus."  There are only seven entries.

A broader search found a website called biblos which offers 15 parallel translations:

New International Version (©1984) Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.New Living Translation (©2007) What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance. English Standard Version (©2001) Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage! New American Standard Bible (©1995) Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance. GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995) Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD. Blessed are the people he has chosen as his own. King James Bible Blessed [is] the nation whose God [is] the LORD; [and] the people [whom] he hath chosen for his own inheritance. American King James Version Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance. American Standard Version Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah, The people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. Bible in Basic English Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he has taken for his heritage. Douay-Rheims Bible Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord: the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance. Darby Bible Translation Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah, the people that he hath chosen for his inheritance! English Revised Version Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. Webster's Bible Translation Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. World English Bible Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance. Young's Literal Translation O the happiness of the nation whose God is Jehovah, Of the people He did choose, For an inheritance to Him.

I know I'm walking on shaky ground (for me) when I write about the New Testament, so I'll leave this for readers to clarify.

[OK, before you all shoot me down, I began to think, wait, the Psalms are in the Old Testament.  But since the Old Testament doesn't mention Jesus, I assumed this was from the New Testament at first, before I saw the Psalms part.  Here's a poetry website that rewrites the Psalms for the New Testament on the grounds that:

As beautiful as the Psalms of the Old Testament are, the refrain of nearly every song is the idea that the God of the Israelites will not only protect them from their enemies, but they actually pray that their god will destroy the persons they hate. Personally, I could not repeat such words in my daily devotions. So, with prayers and supplications to the best within myself, I have transposed these marvelous poems, back into their old genre of parallelism with the thinking as revealed by Christ.

Her version of this line (I think this is the one) comes out this way:

Happy is the nation who believes in the Beloved
Happy are the people who have chosen this way]