They expect to haul some before snowfall. Which is just across the border. Mr. SISK. What about lumber, pulp mill, and so forth, is there a potential in that area? Mr. KING. Whether that would be large enough is a question, but I believe the timber itself would be valuable to an operation here. The timber we are talking about on unsurveyed land and the timber on the land the university already owns would be valuable to an operation in Juneau. I do not think there is any question about that. It would bring this money to the university to the fund in stumpage. Mr. SISK. Where does this road go, to what particular area of the Canadian side? You spoke of a gravel road. Where does that go? Mr. KING. It meets the Alaska Highway at mile 1016, and then goes both ways to the States and to the interior, to Fairbanks and Anchorage and Valdez and connects with the arterial road system. Mr. BARTLETT. Dr. Taylor? Mr. TAYLOR. You mentioned that the present year was not a good one for fishing in the Haines area. Is this a usual occurrence, or was there something particular this year that caused a decline in the salmon pack? Mr. KING. Of course, Doctor, you are getting into the problems of the fisheries. As an expert, I would not testify on that, only that we believe one thing we do know, we have too many boats in the area for the amount of fish. We have these boats coming from the States which, of course, is tough on our economy as it does not allow the native fishermen and people who fish locally for their living in the area, including this area, to get the amount of fish they ordinarily would. Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much. (Discusion off the record.) Mr. SISK. Mr. King, I have just one question. How do you feel about statehood for Alaska? Mr. KING. Of course, I am for statehood. I do not have all the figures, as these distinguished gentlemen who appeared on the stand, as to the economy and how much it costs, but I have been here for 34 years in the Territory of Alaska, and of course, I am definitely in favor of statehood. Mr. SISK. That is all. Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. King. Mr. KING. Could I have another minute on one more subject? Mr. KING. It has probably been brought to you this morning by Mayor Coyne of Skagway about our boat harbor. Of course, going into this thing, we took it up with the Army engineers. For many years it appeared we were not getting any place so this bill was introduced in the legislature appropriating $300,000 for the towns of Skagway, Homer, and Haines for a small-boat harbor. This in our case was based on economy, with these fishing boats we have told you about, probably over 100 there alone, without the sport-fishing boats and so forth, with no harbor whatsoever. They pulled the boats up on the beach in the winter, and the corking freezes out and the boats deteriorate. The economy of the district warrants the boat harbor. The only thing, evidently, holding this up is the $100,000 matching fund for public works. 71196-56-pt. 4- -3 Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. King, in that connection, both Mayor Coyne and you spoke about an appropriation by the Territorial legislature to supplement Federal funds when and if appropriated. Is it not true that it is very unusual for a State or Territorial government to appropriate money for that activity because historically the Federal Government is supposed to do the job? Mr. KING. I never heard of it before. Mr. O'BRIEN. That impressed me. If I get your figures correctly, the Territory is willing to put up 75 percent of the cost of this; is that correct? Mr. KING. No, these are matching funds. I do not know— Mr. O'BRIEN. How much does the Federal Government put up? Mr. O'BRIEN. I see what we are working on now. You supplement the costs of doing that? Mr. KING. Fifty-fifty. Mr. O'BRIEN. Our experience in the States, my own experience, the Federal Government puts up the great majority, if you can use “majority" in connection with money of the funds. Mr. KING. That is right. Mr. BARTLETT. Puts up the construction and the local interests only maintain. Mr. KING. We have had many hearing on the subject with the Army engineers, and saw we were a long ways down on the list. Mr. O'BRIEN. All we were required to install at our port at home were the facilities, I am sure, warehouses and things of that sort, because it was to be an inland port, but the cost of dredging and all of that business was the Federal Government's. Mr. KING. This is particularly important at this time because we have a new road going into this Government dock now, connecting with the Haines Highway going into this new Government tank farm being built at this time. The rock for this breakwater can be obtained because they are taking this rock out at $2.75 a yard delivered to this breakwater, where normally it would at least cost twice as much for the rock. It is the economy of the thing that is very important at this time. Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. King. Mr. KING. Thank you. Mr. BARTLETT. Let it be noted we are running somewhat behind schedule and that always happens and it is always the case that the witnesses are precise and brief but we keep on asking questions and consuming too much time. But we hope to have at least 2 more witnesses this morning, and perhaps 3. Joseph McLean, representing the Juneau Chamber of Commerce. Mr. MCLEAN. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett. I will try to stay within the time limits. Mr. BARTLETT. I am sure you will but I am sure we won't. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH MCLEAN, JUNEAU CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Mr. McLEAN. For the record my name is Joseph McLean. I live in Juneau. I am a lawyer in the insurance business. I am a member of the road committee of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, and in this same regard we have as a group disscussed roads with other chambers of southeastern Alaska. It is on that particular subject that I want to present what we think is a peculiar problem in southeastern. I also would like to mention I had the privilege of serving in the Territorial legislature, and we will recognize some of the problems, I think, that confront men who do attempt to represent their district. I think, too, in that I am the first member of the Juneau chamber to speak, I would like to welcome you as a group to Juneau. We consider it a great opportunity to be able to present our problems, and we hope that you will have a favorable impression, particularly of southeastern Alaska. Mr. O'BRIEN. We are very grateful for those kind words, and I would just like to add that it is not hot in Washington now. [Laughter.] Mr. MCLEAN. In any event, we fortunately see a little sunshine here today, and we hope we can turn on a little heat after the rainstorm yesterday. Mr. Coyne and Mr. King both referred to some roads of southeastern Alaska. Very briefly, I refer you to this chart that indicates this was prepared by the Alaska Road Commission-that southeastern Alaska extends along the coastline about 500 miles. To the east of us lies the Province of British Columbia. Through Canada was constructed what was formerly known as the Alcan Highway, a dirt road running from Dawson Creek in Alberta, across British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and into the Territory of Alaska. The road is shown here. In each of the towns of Alaska we are confined to just a few miles of road extending to the north and to the south of the city. In Juneau, for example, we have 27 miles north and 3 miles to the south. Ketchikan is somewhat the same. Petersburg has lesser mileage. So does Wrangell. Skagway has about 6 miles. And Mr. Coyne spoke of a need for a road paralleling the railroad to some extent, as to White Horse. And Mr. King spoke of the only road connection in southeastern Alaska to a highway called the Haines Cutoff, running to mile 1,016 of the Alaska Highway. That one, incidentally, runs north, north to serve the interior. The highway Mr. Coyne spoke of also runs north, north to serve the interior. And that brings me into the subject that I want to talk about today. Before really launching into it, I think that you gentlemen do have a pretty good idea of what southeastern Alaska is like. Fortunately the clouds have moved up a little on the mountains and we can see the timber resources that do exist. This prevails over the entire region of southeastern Alaska. Moreover, you could see the mountains themselves. They are almost unique geologically in that they are all turned up on end and in mining lingo the whole area here is referred to as a contact region. What I mean by that, it is rich from a mineral standpoint. The timber itself, as you heard about, has some great potential, together with the mining. We feel it does constitute a vast natural resource. And to add to that, I would like to say there is a tremendous hydroelectric potential here also. It is not my province here to go into what we have to offer particularly, but I would like to mention that because I am going to refer to it again. I would also like to say that contrary to many statements one hears in the States, these resources are not treasure houses in themselves. They are just good working properties, just average or above average. There is nothing spectacular about them but they do represent a vast asset, I think, to the United States. I think, too, that the byproducts from these natural resources are those that are needed in the United States itself today. Pulp, for example, if one studies the market in the United States, they will find that a great deal of it is purchased from abroad, from Canada. Metal: Everyone knows the copper situation today. It became critical, and I think the Congress had to release 100,000 tons of it. The same goes to a number of other metals. If you glance outside, you can see Alaska with its potential here is largely dormant, it is dead. Industrial progress in southeastern Alaska, particularly, is at a standstill. While I think the United States is buying much of the material we have to offer from foreign markets. There are all numbers of reasons for that. And I wish now to turn this chart around and refer you to British Columbia. This is a recently issued one, a relief map printed in 1955. It just came to our section of the Territory recently, and I am very surprised to see it, not only from its design, but the way it was written up. It struck me just right between the eyes. For example, look at southeastern Alaska. See that sharp red line drawn over the 500-mile boundary. That struck me like a barrier that exists between our Territory and the United States. An that is exactly what it is. On this map the highways, particularly those in Canada, are set out very clearly. And it does not take a blind man to see what the Canadians are doing. They are developing their own country. For example, the network of roads in Vancouver in the populated area, the British Columbia area, are pretty well built up. They have the Alaska Highway coming along here and we see cutoffs taking down through the somewhat rich Province of British Columbia and back. The first one, of course, starts at the bank of Lake Louise. Another one at Caspar crosses over. The next one, a recently built one, a highway and transmission gasline was recently constructed to serve the Pacific Northwest, takes it from the interior, turns off Dawson Creek down into the new John Hart Highway, and again back into the United States. We see now under construction another road from Lower Post Washington Lake to the rich mining area, the Kaspi area down to Telegraph Creek and again down to the States. All of which points up one thing. They specifically omit any access roads to southeastern Alaska. I have worked on a highway problem for not only the Juneau Chamber of Commerce but other areas. I spoke before congressional committees on the need to keep the Haines Highway open for military purposes, the need for a military preparedness committee to consult with the Canadians to maintain the portion of the highway that was actually in Canada, and I feel it was only recently that we were able to see a situation develop and point up as this one has recently. Mr. O'BRIEN. May I say at that point that I, too, am impressed by that map because it brings out rather emphatically a conclusion which has been growing in my mind since we have been up here, and I think it is a conclusion in the minds of other members of the committee that Canada is doing far more to develop British Columbia in every way, roads, minerals, fisheries, than the United States is doing for Alaska. Would that be a fair statement! Mr. MCLEAN. I think it would. But I think we ought to go into the reason why they are doing that. They know that they have a good market for their products in the United States. I recently came back from a trip through a portion of northern British Columbia, and I was impressed with the mining activity going on there, activating old mines that had been dead for years to some extent, but the market for all of that was in the United States. I think, too, that the Canadians themselves realize that is the situation, that they in turn must have a market and they realize in southeastern Alaska there does exist what you might say are competing products. In other words, it boils down to this: It would be against their business interests, against political interests, too, because why should they spend money building an access road to southeastern Alaska when no Canadians live along the road? Again I refer to these resources we hear about, the vast natural resources of the Territory. If they are to be developed, do we have to have roads? Well, I have heard many people say, "Haven't you got adequate water transportation?" We have these inland waterways here which are protected, and certainly we know and have heard that water transportation is by far the most economical. But I only wish to say-I have lived here all my life, was born in the Territory, and I can remember as a child seeing as many as six combination passenger and freight vessels tied up to the local docks at one time. Now we only get one measly freighter a week, and during the summertime an occasional foreign passenger boat. The only other transportation service we have in the Territory is by air. And I do not think anything can construct-any heavy industries can build-upon just air transportation. To some extent now we have analyzed what the problem is. But it would not be any good to leave it there. We have to go into what might be a solution to this problem. What we need are better communications and more accessibility to the Territory. Now I am put in mind of a story, and I would precede it with the remark that I am not interested in promoting any railroads or roads for any particular company, but I remember well the story of Collis Huntington, who was the promoter to a large extent for the Central Pacific Railroad when it was built. He went back to Washington seeking some Government support to the first transcontinental railroad, and he has reported in a meeting he had with a certain Congressman and the Secretary of the Treasury, who, I believe, was Salmon Chase, after relating his story, the need for development of the west coast, immediately after the Civil War, that the Secretary of the Treasury said: That was a fine presentation, young man, but don't you know you have adequate water transportation out there in California? Don't you know that the ships are leaving the west coast every day? And furthermore, I understand that the French are digging away at a canal through Panama. What do you expect us to do? To finance, back, and guarantee bonds for your railroad across the big deserts of Nevada and Colorado and through the Rocky Mountains, just to provide California with a railroad? Does that sound like good business? |