Indigenous People's Global Summit - No Evos Morales in Anchorage

The President of Bolivia Evos Morales WILL NOT speak in Anchorage today. Critical issues in Bolivia prevented his coming here and the foreign minister of Bolivia
David Choquehuanca will speak in his place.


Wikipedia says about him:

David Choquehuanca Céspedes (born May 7, 1961) has served as the Foreign Minister of Bolivia since 23 January 2006.[1] Choquehuanca, who is an Aymara Indian, is an Aymara activist. He has worked with international agencies and has been an advisor to President Evo Morales, a fellow Aymara, since before Morales's election to the Presidency.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Thursday -H.E. Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, M.M.H.EH.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M. President

I don't usually post entire articles, but this is from the official UN press kit so it is intended to be used. But, of course, read between the lines as well. As the official puff piece, it is intended to show him in his best light.

The President of the UN General Assembly is scheduled to speak after President Evo Morales today.

H.E. Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, M.M.H.EH.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M.
President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly

H.E. Mr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly since 16 September 2008.

A veteran statesman, politician, community leader and priest, Father d’Escoto served for over a decade as the Republic of Nicaragua’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post he held from July 1979 until April 1990. During his tenure, he played a key role in the Contadora and Esquipulas peace processes to end internal armed conflicts in Central America in the 1980s. Also at that time, he spearheaded his Government’s decision, in 1984, to bring to the International Court of Justice a claim against the United States for supporting military and paramilitary actions against his country, with the Court subsequently ruling in favour of Nicaragua.

Father d’Escoto is currently Senior Adviser on Foreign Affairs, with the rank of Minister, to President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, a post which he has held since 2007. He also chairs Nicaragua’s National Committee on Water, in which capacity he plays a leading role in efforts to conserve Lake Cocibolca, the largest source of water in Mesoamerica. He is a member of the Sandinista National Council and the Political Commission, the highest governing body of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Ordained a priest of the Maryknoll Missionaries in the early 1960s, Father d’Escoto has travelled extensively, visiting most of the world’s capitals, as well as many remote and less accessible areas of the globe, and has dedicated much of his life to helping the poor. In 1963, he founded the National Institute of Research and Population Action (INAP) in Chile, aimed at empowering the disadvantaged populations of the callampas or slum neighbourhoods on the periphery of Santiago and other cities, through community action in defence of labour rights. Following the earthquake that devastated the capital city of Managua (Nicaragua) in December 1972, Father d’Escoto mobilized assistance for quake victims and, in 1973, established the Nicaraguan Foundation for Integral Community Development (FUNDECI), now one of the oldest and most prestigious non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua.

In 1970, Father d’Escoto assumed responsibility for Maryknoll’s Social Communications Department at its headquarters in New York, where he founded Orbis Books. The publishing arm of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Orbis quickly became a leader in religious publishing, offering works on spirituality, theology and current affairs, often from a Third World perspective. Later, while living in New York, Father d’Escoto was one of the founders of the “Grupo de los Doce” (Group of 12), composed of progressive, democratic intellectuals and professionals who supported the FSLN in its struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. He was appointed Foreign Minister of Nicaragua shortly after Somoza’s downfall.

Inspired by the lives and works of such personalities as Leo Tolstoy, M. K. Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dorothy Day, Father d’Escoto is an advocate of multilateralism and respect for international law, and is deeply committed to the principles of active nonviolence, solidarity and social justice, which, together with a deep sense of ethics, have formed the basis of his political life.

Father d’Escoto is the recipient of numerous awards, such as: the Order of Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo (2007), the highest honour awarded by the Catholic University Redemptoris Mater (UNICA), for his work for peace; the Thomas Merton Award (1987), for his commitment to world peace; the Order of Carlos Fonseca Amador (1986), the FSLN’s highest honour, for his contributions to international law; the International Lenin Peace Prize (1985/86) awarded by the Soviet Union; the Julio Cortázar Prize for Peace and Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean (1985), awarded by Argentina’s Institute of International Relations; and the Alfonso Comín Peace Prize (first recipient, Barcelona, Spain, 1984), which he accepted on behalf of the Nicaraguan people. In June of this year, Father d’Escoto received the unanimous endorsement of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC) within the United Nations as its candidate for the Presidency of the sixty-third General Assembly of the United Nations.

Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1933, Miguel d’Escoto spent his childhood years in Nicaragua, but returned to the United States in 1947 to study. He entered the Catholic seminary at Maryknoll (New York) in 1953, and in 1961 was ordained a priest. In 1962, he obtained a Master’s of Science from Columbia University’s School of Journalism (Pulitzer Institute).

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)
Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information - DPI/2516A

Bolivian President Evo Morales To Speak Today In Anchorage

[UPDATE: President Morales did not come to Anchorage. His Foreign Ministers spoke in his place. That post is here.]

Bolivian President Evo Morales is scheduled to speak today at 10:45 am the Indigenous Peoples Summit on Climate Change here in Anchorage. The best known fact about Evo Morales around the world seems to be that he is the first indigenous President of Bolivia. Thus he brings to the office a perspective that is different from the past presidents. He sees the world through different eyes. And, of course, that is why he is due at this conference of indigenous peoples. He speaks today as both a national president AND a one of the people gathered here in Anchorage this week.

Here are a few glimpses of the way the world portrays President Morales:

From the Miami Herald, on Evo Morales in Trinidad the other day:

''Our government will not sign this document,'' he said at a midday Saturday news conference. ``Garbage is more important than human life. We should go for human life rather than the scraps of the United States.''

Morales' threat to reject the summit declaration followed a similar announcement by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez prior to Friday's opening ceremony. At a gathering in Venezuela, Chávez said he would ''veto'' the declaration because the written document appeared ``as if time had not passed.''

At the Morales press conference, the Bolivian leader used the opportunity not only to voice his concern over the summit document, but also to express his disappointment over the absence of Cuba. He said he could not understand how debates over human prosperity and the environment could take place at the summit without Cuba's presence. . .

Morales also railed against capitalism, blaming it for the global financial crisis, and he also accused Washington of previous meddling in his country's affairs. He said he wanted Obama to repudiate a recent alleged plot to assassinate him, otherwise, ``I might think it was organized through the embassy.''

Last year, Morales ejected the U.S. ambassador and Drug Enforcement Administration officials based in his country over accusations that American diplomats had supported the opposition. He said that while President Obama has promised changed, it has not reached U.S. officials in Bolivia.

''Those staff members continue to operate as if they were serving the Bush administration,'' he said. ``It's up to the U.S. government to improve our relations. If diplomatic relations have to do with investments ... and not meddling and conspiracies, they are welcomed.''

Morales said he came to the summit ``seeking a dialogue of cooperation, not relations built on conspiracies.''

''One hundred days have gone by and we in Boliva [sic] have yet to feel any changes,'' Morales said, referring to Obama's length in office. ``The policy of conspiracy continues.'' [Full article: the Miami Herald]

PBS' Wideangle has this overview of President Evo Morales. You can get the whole report at the link:

Evo Morales Speaks at Columbia

• Bolivian Constitution Approved, but Nation Still Divided
• Obama and the World
• Coca and the Congressman ~ Introduction
• Coca and the Congressman ~ Resources
• Coca and the Congressman ~ The New South America: Is the Continent Changing?
• Economic Crisis in a Globalized World
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Introduction
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Olympic Timeline
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Photo Essay: Cuban Political Posters
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Filmmaker’s Notes

Jeff Seelbach

Juan Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, spoke in New York on Tuesday as part of the Columbia University World Leaders Forum. Morales, the first indigenous president in Bolivian history, was elected in 2005. In September of this year, he kicked out the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, accusing him of conspiring against the Bolivian government, and America followed suit by expelling the Bolivian ambassador. Diplomatic relations deteriorated further this month when Morales suspended the Bolivian operations of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). (The complete article here.)

The Economist talks about his hunger strike:

Bolivia's Evo Morales

Fasting and dealing

Apr 16th 2009 | LA PAZ
From The Economist print edition

A presidential hunger strike

DURING his career as a cocaworkers’ leader, Evo Morales took part in hunger strikes on 18 occasions. Then he was elected as Bolivia’s president. So it came as a surprise when just before Easter he unrolled his mattress on the floor of an ornate state room in the presidential palace and began a five-day political fast, fortified by chewing coca leaves. This time the object of his gesture was not to change government policy but to implement it. In January Mr Morales won a referendum approving a new constitution inspired by his Movement to Socialism (MAS). This calls for a fresh election on December 6th, in which the president hopes to win a second term. But the opposition, which controls the Senate, was holding up the requisite electoral law, because the government refused to agree to a new electoral register.

And Wikipedia's bio of Morales begins like this:

Morales was born in the highlands of Orinoca, Oruro. He is of indigenous (Aymara) descent.^[6] He was one of seven children born to Dionisio Morales Choque and Maria Mamani; only Morales and two of his siblings survived past childhood.^[7] He grew up in an adobe house with a straw roof that was "no more than three by four meters."^[7] At age six, he traveled with his father to Argentina to work in the sugar cane harvest.^[7] As a result of his indigenous heritage, his parents made offerings of coca leaves and alcohol to mother earth, or Pachamama.^[7] At the age of 12, he accompanied his father in herding llamas from Oruro to the province of Independencia in Cochabamba.^[7]

When he was 14, Morales showed his organizational skills by forming a football team with other youths; he continued herding llamas to pay the bills.^[8] Three ayllus (network of families) within the community elected him technical director of selection for the canton's team when he was only 16 years old.^[8] That same year, in order to attend high school, he moved to Oruro. There he worked as a bricklayer, a baker, and a trumpet player for the Royal Imperial Band (which allowed him to travel across Bolivia).^[8][2][9] He attended Beltrán Ávila High School but was not able to finish school,^[10] and fulfilled his mandatory military service in La Paz.^[8][11]

[Morales bio continues here.]

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Elaine Abraham

Tuesday a beautiful woman whom I haven't seen for several years sat next to me and we starting talking. We knew each other at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I was asking her impressions of the summit so far. Eventually I asked if I could video tape some of what she had to say. . .



Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change(click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Wednesday 2

Actually, this is from Tuesday night's film festival. Here is a taste of the second Australian film they should where people from the film then addressed the audience. They talked about how the rising ocean tides were going further inland and the salt water was killing the plants and fouling the fresh water there. This was eating into the habitat of traditional plants and animals use for food and medicine.

After watching about ten of these short films I was struck by a couple of things:

1. How similar the stories were. The weather changes affecting the environment where indigenous people live, threatening their ability to continue their own way of life. In the case of Carderets Islands, the sea water is literally destroying all arable land on the island forcing them to leave because there was nothing left to eat except fish and coconuts.

2. There was also concern about international corporations - timber, mining, energy particularly - reaching into their environment and adversely affecting the life in that environment on which they depend.

3. In some cases problems with other people - including indigenous peoples - who had been induced to 'sell' natural resources - animals they shot for food, timber to multinational companies, etc. And so their own neighbors were causing problems.

4. A high level of historic awareness of their natural environment which enables them to document changes that otherwise would go unnoticed.

A skeptic might argue the similarities are due to the film makers who have packaged these stories from different locations to all tell the same story. Certainly this plays probably a minor role and that is inevitable. But my experiences in Thailand last year and this was replete with similar stories that I wasn't packaging. This is a universal phenomenon. And those who still believe that global warming is a myth concocted by liberals, or that it is just a natural swing like the earth has experienced forever, well, there's a link on the right for global warming skeptics.

I'm sitting out in the lobby while people are meeting closed off to media. I'm not sure I mentioned that I got in here as press, covering this on my blog. I assumed that an organization that is made up of 'marginalized people' would be inclusive for marginalized media types. And I was right. So I'm taking advantage of the time to catch up a bit and I'm waiting for the video to upload to viddler so I can embed it here. OK, it's done. This is not great video, but it gives you a sense of things.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Wednesday 1

I had a dental cleaning appointment this morning so I'm just getting to the summit this afternoon. People are reporting on their group work.

Speaker now:
"I've never before encountered a group characterized with so much honesty, righteous indignation, and a lot of commitment and determination. People shared their dreams, willingness to go to jail if necessary...I was moved... most poignant changes that have taken place in history have taken place in jail...Martin Luther King....Nelson Mandela..."

Larry Merculief just spoke with real emotion about how powerful his group prior this current speaker.

Theme Four - Energy Security



Summary of what we discussed so far. How have people been affected by traditional development in our territory.
Dams that have devasted and displaced communities
Oil development - including tar sands - displacing.
Bio fuels - devasting to some of our communities, people displaced for planting.
Nuclear power - continues to devastate people, not only in production, but extraction.
Clean coal - no such thing, no way to make it clean

In addtion to these projects being negative, also addressed carbon trading.

I'm not going to try to catch the recommendations because they are still tentative and I'm sure I won't capture them accurately. But this should give you an idea of what is going on. You can also check the podcasts which are live for many of the sessions.

Now they are going to break into regional caucuses. This is all leading up to a declaration the Summit wants to agree on by Friday.








Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Seward Highway Road Closure this Weekend!

[UPDATE, Tuesday noon: The road work was NOT completed at 5am Monday as scheduled. People were told it could be 5pm or later. The following is now up on the State site, saying the road is now open:

Open To Traffic - Seward Highway

Seward Highway: at Falls Creek Bridge road open to traffic, short delays -- look out for flaggers last updated today [Tuesday, April 28] at 11:18 AM]

One of the visitors to the Indigenous Peoples Summit told me last night he wanted to go to Seward Saturday before he left for home. Wanted to see a bit of Alaska. But the tour agency said the road was closed. After I thought about that a while, I thought, "They can't close the road all day. They can't shut the people of Seward off from the world like that." So today I emailed a friend in Seward to check. After that I thought, "Why didn't you just google?" (Cause it was an excuse to say hi to my friend probably.) So I googled and got this:

Alert - Seward Highway

Seward Highway: from Milepost 22 to Falls Creek Bridge delays, lane closed due to road construction work — until May 30 Comment: PLEASE NOTE: ROAD CLOSURE - The Seward Highway will be closed at Milepost 24.8 - Falls Creek this coming Friday, April 24th at 10:00 PM until Monday, April 27th at 5:00 AM. All construction is scheduled to be completed by Saturday, May 30th. For more information you may contact either DOT at 907-269-0450 or Tal Maxwell, the project engineer, at 907-632-2729 or the contractor at 907-288-6700.. Thank you. last updated yesterday at 4:29 PM

Read that. What does that mean to you? I see "delays, lane closed..." But then it says "will be closed at Milepost 24.8...Friday...until Monday."

Then I got this back from my friend in Seward:

Crazy as it sounds, DOT is actually closing the road on Friday at 10 pm and not re-opening it until Monday morning at 5 am. It is unbelievable. They have three bridges that need major work, and the intent is to place temporary bridges on two of them. Sadly, DOT did not include the community in planning for the closure, so it took us all by surprise. We found out about 4 weeks ago and have been scrambling to address the issue. Lots of businesses have had to cancel bookings which had been booked a year or more in advance.

OK, I know there were some serious bridge problems, and making an extra lane over water in the narrow canyon could be tricky. And I'm sure they can get more work done if they don't have to let cars go by every hour or less. It's a trade off and probably it would cost a lot more to pick an option that lets people use the road. Or maybe it would cost a lot more in terms of imagination and creativity - how about a ferry on the lake? When I was on a bus in Nepal in another lifetime, we came to a huge rock slide. We were simply told to climb over the rocks and there was the bus coming the other way. The passengers just traded buses which gingerly turned around on the narrow mountain road. Isn't there a railroad bridge there? Why not work with the railroad for some extra trains that day, or at least a shuttle car over the railroad bridge. People could arrange to swap cars or there could be shuttle busses. There are lots of options if we put our heads together. It could even be fun. But cutting off a town of about 3000 plus everyone else that lives south of Moose Pass for a whole weekend seems pretty extreme.

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Tuesday 2 PV Films

I've got a lot of video, but my computer is also full and I still don't trust my external hard drive, but I've been trashing old video so I can download new stuff. It's much easier to just write.

This evening I went back to the Denaina Center for the Summits film festival. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was really excited when I left. Basically, the films were all short films - up to about four or five minutes - made by the people in the films. There are some helpers. The UN has a whole program to help indigenous peoples make PVs (participatory videos) as a powerful way to tell their own stories. Two people who help people make such films - Citt (pronounced Kitt) Williams and Nick Lunch - were there to give some background. There were also some people who were in the films. (Nick's link goes to a video of Nick and his brother talking about making PVs.)

For this conference, the them was climate change, and most of the films showed us how climate change was affecting the lives of the people in the film. Films we saw covered a wide variety of locations:
Inuit Canada
Carterets Island - these people are being forced to move to the Papua New Guinea mainland by rising tides which is destroying their crops. The one hundred twenty families on the island are all preparing to leave their homes. Here's the video itself from Citt's blog on the site Media Studio. It's from her post yesterday from Anchorage.



Masai in Kenya - Drought is killing their livestock - you can see this film at Conversations with the Earth. Click on the video tab and the Masai.
Madagascar - drought is causing dunes to take over arable land. They are fighting back planting in the sand.
Borneo - A village where each family has ten plots. Each year they plant on one of those plots on a ten year rotation. They also protect the forests around them, while neighboring villages have had their forests cut by timber companies.
Camaroon - Looking at the loss of forest and the impacts that has on their culture. This film was their first film and made just last week!
Australia - Discusses the problems of fires.
Madagascar - Here an older woman teaches a younger woman about sorghum.
Peru - This film was different from the others. It is a more traditional documentary with a God-like narrator discussing how the glaciers are melting and other issues.
Australia - Two more Australian ones. People from both these films were in the audience and spoke to the group. Below is a bit of video I took of the first one and the woman from that movie. I'll try to add another one with the other guys who were here after the movie. But I'll do that later.



This was really good stuff. I realized that this is what I was starting to do in Thailand. But I was thinking that the videos were not really my job, just something I was doing on the side. But clearly next time I could focus on the sort of work that produced these videos of people telling their own stories. It was good to be able to talk to Nick and Citt afterward.

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Tuesday

It's lunch break at the Denaina Center in Anchorage. I got here at the tail end of the morning sessions of the Indigenous Peoples Summit. This shot of the lobby shows a bit of the crowd from all over the world.
While I know something about these topics on a general level, I really have no indepth knowledge of what's going on in the world of indigenous people and climate change. So once I got into the room, I just pulled out the computer and started typing as people were talking and taking pictures. What you get here is my somewhat overwhelmed glimpses at the last panel of the morning. The afternoon sessions are closed to media so that delegates feel comfortable talking to each other without fear their words will show up somewhere for the whole world to see. That's certainly reasonable.

John Crump from the UN was discussing various UN activities related to climate change. That's him under the overhead on Objectives (of the UN in regard to climate change and indigenous peoples as I understood it.) Again, you're getting bits and pieces here out of context - think of it as sticking your head into a restaurant and catching some of the smells from the kitchen.

Now the UNESCO presentation - Peter Bates - He said there's general agreement about climate change and it's unlikely we'll be able to stop it so the focus is now on adapation to climate change. (I can't emphasize enough that you shouldn't take anything I write here as the gospel. It's possible that I've totally misinterpreted what I heard.)

Indigenous people are the first people already to experience with climate change and have a history of adapting to climate change. So they will get a larger role in UNESCO.

Discussion of UNESCO activities:

• Internet Forum - French, English, and Spanish
• Field Projects - Funded by Denmark - small projects, money available, proposals can be made by anybody = calls for proposals will be at info desk. Looking for coordinator for these projects.
• Website - www.climatefrontlines.org peoples@climatefrontlines.org
• Other Activities - Monaco Meeting - Climate Change and Arctic Sustainable Development - interdisciplinary dynamic - scientists as well as indigenous peoples had good interchange and there will be continuing work

• www.unesco.org/links has the report and presentations online.
• Aug 2007, Canberra Australia Indigenous Knowledge and Changing Environments - publication coming soon and will be at the previous link.

Then we had Violet Ford, ICC (Inuit Circumpolar Council) Canada, The Convention on Biological Diversity and Climate Change

Parapharasing what I heard: Indigenous people were able to participate in this project. We were put on government delegations, where we try to influence the delegation, but are also forced to compromise. This forum has opened the door for indigenous peoples around the world to participate in BDCC process.

We hold traditional knowledge of these resources. The Convention recognizes the dependence of indigenous and local communities on biological diversities.

She discussed the relationships of various international conventions which require countries to conform with the agreements.
Decision iX/13 - alerts nations to keep the agreement. (All the pictures can be enlarged by double clicking them)

I don't know how the parties will take on the obligations to indigenous people. But the Inuits of N. Canada are already adapting - new travel and hunting routes as geese and caribou have shifted their migration routes. The significant role of indigenous people needs to be recognized by post Kyoto Convention. We can't wait though. What will happen to our traditional knowledge when we can no longer hunt, when there is no need to pass own our knowledge.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)


I'm going to stop here and post. I've got one more speaker to go, but I'm putting the video together for her - Vicky Tauli-Corpuz - and some of the questions.

Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary

An end of the legislative session email from my representative Berta Gardner mentioned some parks in our district. But one didn't ring any bells - Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary. We looked it up and recognized it as a park we've stumbled into a couple of times and couldn't find a couple of other times. Well, it seemed more like undeveloped property at the time, between the south side of Geneva Woods and Tudor, right up against the Seward Highway at the exit to 36th. So on the way to Yamato Ya for dinner, we rode over to find the park. We went along the St. Gotthard as we'd seen on an internet map. St. Gotthard Avenue is full of the typical Geneva Woods giant houses on disproportionately small lots. We got to the end of the street, (the red circle with the 1 on the map - modified from Google Earth and enlargeable with a double click) without seeing an entrance to a park. On our right were the pink and white houses on the bottom of the first photo above, right. On our left was the long fence below. So where's the park entrance?

Well, we looked in a hole in the fence and then saw that
there was a gate. (It's where that little beige circle is on the left)

It didn't open very wide and there weren't any signs and it all looked like private property, but once we poked our heads in we could see that this did get to the park.



Inside the gate we saw graveled area (a future parking lot?), at the end of which was the park sign in the picture below.

(As always, double click any picture to enlarge it.)

We took the trail to the right. We could have ridden our bikes from the trail right onto the Seward Highway as it adds a right lane to exit onto 36th. There's no separation except some trees.










Things started getting wet, though the trail was good until it disappeared in the snow and dead grasses.

So we rode back to the signs and took the other trail over to the view below.

A little further on we found the boardwalk we'd read about online.
It doesn't go very far yet

And ends in the mud - which was why we had turned back from the other trail. But we weren't able to see the boardwalk from there.

We ended up going out the way we came and riding
back to 36th through Geneva Woods. The view from this corner looking up a street appropriately
called Matterhorn was pretty spectacular.

On the way back from dinner we rode along Tudor and turned into Eau Claire to see if the entrance to the park on the south side was any better. The picture below is at the red circle with the 2 on the map way above.

The entrance is at the end of the street behind the dumpster.

Here's a closer view. The sign in the distance says "Municipal Park Land."
There aren't any benches yet, but there was this mattress .

The Geneva Woods side did remind me of places along the California coast like Malibu where it is very hard to find access onto the beach. Somehow, the fancy neighborhoods are good at making access to their public parks much harder than most other places. But I'm thankful that this piece of wetland got preserved and will remain relatively natural as the rest of the town gets more and more urban. And the neighborhood on the south side is pretty basic and on the map it looks like there are a couple of other access points.

And who is Helen Louise McDowell? It took a bit, but I did find the ADN obituary (you may need a password on this link I got through the UAA library) from November 24, 1999.

Longtime Anchorage resident Helen Louise Socha McDowell, 84, died Nov. 14, 1999 at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage from complications following a stroke.

No local service is planned. As she requested, her ashes will be scattered over Mount Susitna.

Mrs. McDowell was born July 2, 1915, in Glide, Ore., and arrived in Alaska in 1921. As a young girl she lived for a short while in the coal mining camps at Eska and Jonesville until her family moved to Anchorage, where she attended elementary and high school.

She has been a permanent resident of Anchorage since 1927. In 1933, she married Willie Williams of the U.S. Army Signal Corps WAMCATS, and their son was born in Anchorage at the old Railroad Hospital in 1936.

During World War II, she worked as a desk clerk at Anchorage Hotel and during the mid-1950s was co-owner of Gilman's Fountain Lunch on Fourth Avenue. Mrs. McDowell was one of the few remaining longtime residents living in downtown Anchorage, residing at her home on Sixth Avenue for the past 50 years.

Her son said: ''Helen dearly loved animals, especially dogs and an occasional cat. She enjoyed reading and playing cards and, even after being confined to a wheelchair, was a cheerful and positive inspiration to all who knew her.''

She is survived by her son, Stanley J. Williams of Anchorage, and her dear friends, Curlene Harker, Kenneth Hall and Jeanie Markley.

Family requests memorial donations may be made to Friends of Pets, P.O. Box 240981, Anchorage 99524.