Fionn, I've forgotten the rule of camping in the woods. I think one has to be so many yards from a roadway, right? So as to not be visible. I think. However, on Basin Road downtown I've seen a number of tents- you probably just got unlucky.

Bears- we've got a lot of them. The police are not quite as trigger-happy as they were a few years ago. Killed only 4 of them in town this year as opposed to 14 in 95 or '96. The problem is when people don't secure their garbage- once a critter is a 'garbage-bear', its chances of survival go down dramatically.

You can try to do things right- keep your garbage can inside, or freeze odorous things, etc- but a bear can come 'round even on garbage pickup day and create havoc. This fall, I put my can out- a Rubbermaid snap-handle model- and a bear tried its best to get into it. There are holes chewed and punched all over that lid. But he didn't get in. I'd like to send a photo of that lid to the Rubbermaid company!

I didn't mention eagles, Fionn- but we do have a great many of them. I enjoy ravens more, actually.

Since the state legislature is in Juneau, it's fairly natural that that's where the state jobs are. However, a lot of the positions are filled for the session with people from out of town.

A lot of Alaskans feel about Juneau the way a large part of the US feels about Washington DC- it's out of touch, different priorities, doesn't understand other communities' problems, influence-peddlers are rampant- and our airport approach is too dangerous due to mountains and periodically inaccessible due to weather (but they don't mention the whiteouts up north or the many bitter winter days that you take your life in your hands venturing out of doors), it's not where the bulk of the people are, and they'd like all that money to come to their own town...Nowadays, we have legislative creep- where a lot of state offices and commissioners are being set up in Anchorage. So it could be that Juneau will eventually become somewhat of a figurehead.

Yes, Sheila N. is a prolific poet who used to be a neighbor. I think she's moved out of town. Did I mention there's a lot of poetry in this town? :)

Ebbie