If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name.

June 22 - Haines

Three years ago when we were cruising Alaska, we did not have the chance to visit Haines with our boat. Nonetheless, we feel like we know Haines and its colorful residents intimately as a result of a book we picked up in Petersburg entitled If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name.

It was written by Heather Lende, one of Haines many authors. She also is the obituary writer for the Haines Chilkat Valley News, an NPR commentator, a contributor to the Christian Science Monitor, and a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News.

She has an amazing talent for giving you an upfront and personal glimpse of small town Alaska ... connecting life, death, neighbors and God in her narratives about this remote community that is bound together not just by the harshness of mother nature but the quirky personalities of the people who choose to live such a life.

Heather (we’re on a first name basis because I feel like we’ve been friends for years after reading her book) came to Alaska from the New York/New England area as a newlywed with her husband Chip and together they decided to make it their home.

In planning our trip this year, we decided to put Haines on our agenda, largely because of her book. And we were not disappointed. We met many of the personalities she’d written about, including Pizza Joe, our assistant harbor master, who greeted us at the harbor office right after we tied up the boat. He was quick to inform us that Heather is not the only author in town, and sold us his book.

And as luck would have it, our first night in town we had dinner in the Commander’s Room at the Hotel Halsingland, overlooking the parade oval of Fort William Seward where a wedding was taking place. Our waiter encouraged us to head down to the wedding reception after dinner and explained it was common in Haines that weddings are pretty much an open house. In a town with 2,300 residents, I guess that’s a nice tradition ... unless everyone shows up!

Crashing Heather's daughter's wedding ... in the parade oval of Fort William Seward.

In any event, much to Roland’s chagrin, I decided to crash the wedding. OK, not really. But I did walk into the area where the reception was taking place in hopes of seeing Heather. Instead, I saw the bride, her eldest daughter Eliza, walking around in a long white wedding dress with a bright green sweater over her shoulders ... surrounded by friends and beaming.