<\/a>Like many remote communities in Alaska, Angoon runs on diesel at a cost of about $0.50 per kilowatt-hour. The state’s Power Cost Equalization program brings down residential electricity rates to $0.39\/kWh — still double the rates in many nearby communities — but it doesn’t apply to businesses or facilities like the school or clinic. Without affordable local electricity generation, Angoon’s energy security and economic opportunity has suffered from a reliance on the fluctuating prices of yearly fuel deliveries. Angoon’s energy economy is on the precipice of big changes, however. Kootznoowoo Inc., Angoon’s Alaska Native Village Corporation, was awarded $26.9 million in February 2024 to build a run-of-river hydroelectric facility and transmission line at Thayer Creek, or Watkesate’. (Photo by Lee House)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Three miles down the road, on a narrow peninsula between Chatham Strait and Kootznoowoo Inlet, is most of Angoon proper. The only community on Admiralty Island — in Tlingit, Kootznoowoo, meaning the fortress of the bears — Angoon, or Xutsnoowú Kwáan, is surrounded by nearly 1 million acres of protected wilderness. Angoon’s first people chose a townsite with access to strong tides, fresh kelp, bountiful creeks and thick forests. But the clan houses that stand tall in the center of town, looking out toward the mountains across the strait, are more recent. In 1882, the U.S. Navy destroyed the entire village of Angoon over disagreements about a Tlingit shaman’s death aboard a whaling ship. Left with only one canoe, many Tlingit died in the months following the attack. Those who survived rebuilt the community in the decades afterwards, without assistance or apologies from the U.S. government.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Nearly 150 years later, Angoon’s residents carry forward their rich cultural traditions and communal values while holding tight to their history. From harvesting regionally renowned black seaweed and holding generous potlatches to playing packed basketball tournaments and reviving Lingít language use, Angoon is shoring up their resilience once again. The village’s year-round population declined to 350 residents in 2020, almost half of what it was in 2000, reflecting similar trends around the state. A history of residential boarding schools removing young generations from communities was replaced with underfunded local schools. Chronic state budget shortfalls led to disinvestment in rural infrastructure. This deficit, visible in the ferry system’s slashed schedule, has also pushed up the price of energy in Angoon and many other villages throughout the state.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The precipice of change<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Like many remote communities in Alaska, Angoon runs on diesel. Its powerplant and fuel tanks sit near the middle of town, humming along to power residents’ lights and appliances, the school’s hydroponics and smart boards, and the clinic’s medical equipment at a cost of about $0.50 per kilowatt-hour. The state’s Power Cost Equalization program brings down residential electricity rates to $0.39\/kWh — double the rates in many nearby communities — but it doesn’t apply to businesses or facilities like the school or clinic. Without affordable local electricity generation, Angoon’s energy security and economic opportunity has suffered from a reliance on the fluctuating prices of yearly fuel deliveries.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Residents of Angoon pay nearly double for energy costs when compared with Sitka and Juneau. Renewable energy, including the freshly funded hydroelectric project, brings promise of a brighter and more affordable future for this community. (Photo by Jenny Starrs)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t Angoon’s energy economy is on the precipice of big changes, however. Kootznoowoo Inc., Angoon’s Alaska Native Village Corporation, was awarded $26.9 million in February 2024 to build a run-of-river hydroelectric facility and transmission line at Thayer Creek, or Watkesate’, meaning stream with rock in its mouth. The funding came more than 40 years after the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act preserved the community’s right to develop the project, without the funds to build it. Thayer Creek holds the key to a more resilient and sustainable economy in Angoon: Legacy hydropower facilities in Southeast Alaska produce the cheapest electricity in the state, at about $0.14\/kWh in Juneau.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t When Kootznoowoo Inc. and its contractor DeerStone Consulting secured the permits for the project in 2023, they contacted educator and Regional Energy Catalyst Clay Good. With a beach landing site that needed heritage mapping and an access road that needed flagging, they wondered: Could students in the area get involved?<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Soon a diverse group of individuals and institutions from Angoon to Anchorage began to wooch.een, or work together, for the community’s cultural, economic, and ecological resilience. Good’s role straddles both the nonprofit organization Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP) and the collective impact network Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP). Through his work, he connected with regional and local education leaders, including Principal Demmert, counselor Frank Coenraad, superintendent Ralph Watkins, Alaska Youth Stewards crew lead Eric Benedict, SSP Workforce Catalyst Michael Mausbach, SSP Youth Catalyst Gabe Sjoberg, University of Alaska horticulture agent Darren Snyder, U.S. Forest Service program administrator Josh Orem, and culture bearers Victoria Johnson, Tommy Jimmy Jr., and John Smith III.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Planning calls became regular and a wide-ranging committee formed, thinking beyond current job needs and more expansively of pathways to sustainable careers in Angoon. The school held a job fair in the spring of 2023, leading to 20 students landing summer jobs in Angoon with organizations like Alaska Youth Stewards and Southeast Alaska Expeditions. Next up was a community career fair to show all the possibilities beyond summer jobs.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Supporting Angoon’s youth: basketball and resume building<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t In true Southeast Alaska fashion, Angoon’s first annual community career fair was a meld of collaborative planning, scrappy resourcefulness and good fortune. Just like many aspects of life in the region, the ferry dictated the scheduling. With so few winter trips to Angoon, that led to the first stroke of luck: The village’s first annual Senator Kookesh Invitational basketball tournament, organized in honor of former state legislator Albert Kookesh by his daughter, Angoon School’s Tlingit language teacher Chenara Johnson, was slated for the same time.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Regional, statewide, and local partners collaborate to host a career fair for Angoon Youth exposing them to many different professional opportunities including in the growing renewable energy economy. (Photo by Jenny Starrs)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t The tournament brought in teams from Hoonah and Kake, tripling the high schoolers who could attend the career fair and creating an extra draw for the community to attend. Before the other teams arrived, and before low temperatures canceled flights for the week, SSP’s Workforce Catalyst Michael Mausbach caught one of the last floatplanes to Angoon. Mausbach helped Angoon’s students prepare for the career fair with resume coaching and a career readiness workshop.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t After the ferry arrived, regular season games pitted the Angoon Eagles against the defending state champion Kake Thunderbirds. Well past midnight, the games wrapped up and the out-of-town teenagers transformed the high school gym into their dormitory. Adults fanned out to a Tribal fourplex, a wilderness lodge, a Salvation Army inn, friends’ houses, and a U.S. Forest Service bunkhouse.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The community career fair and tournament kicked off in full force the next day. Key participating organizations included Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, University of Alaska, Hecla Greens Creek Mine, Sealaska Heritage Institute, Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Kootznoowoo Inc., and Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. Their representatives discussed career pathways within Angoon and Southeast Alaska in education, construction, agriculture, forestry, wilderness guiding, and, of course, energy.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Good and myself, network coordinator for REAP’s Alaska Network for Energy Education and Employment, presented opportunities throughout the region and for the Thayer Creek hydropower project. It will create 30 construction jobs over the next decade, which can give residents hands-on experience to launch them into a host of energy careers. Electricians, heavy equipment operators and many other energy construction positions are integral to build the access road, transmission line and powerhouse for Angoon, and infrastructure investments regionwide. Then, once built, the plant will hire a full-time operator from Angoon and catalyze careers in beneficial electrification and a host of new economic opportunities.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t A community comes together<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t During an evening break in the tournament schedule, the community gathered for a potlatch. The canceled seaplanes left organizers short 30 pizzas, lending an anxious air to the final flurries of cooking. But pots and platters piled up as culture bearers drummed and community members arrived. Delicacies saved from summer’s bounty, including fish head soup and black seaweed fried rice, joined containers of fruit casserole and homemade spaghetti to feed the crowd.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/a>