Alaska gubernatorial candidates: JKT and Click Bishop
On Step Alaska — Interview with Jonathan Kriess-Tompkins
On Step Alaska: Jonathan, thanks for being on the podcast. Nice to meet you.
Kriess-Tompkins: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jeff.
On Step Alaska: So, grew up in Sitka. You graduated from Sitka High School in 2007. You got right into public policy. What was it that got you interested in state politics?
Kriess-Tompkins: I first got interested when I was an eighth grader at Blatchley Middle School. So it dials back the clock to when it all sort of got going, and I can’t quite explain it, but I was young and I guess kind of curious, and the internet was starting to unlock a lot of access to information at that time. You know, 2002 — early days of the internet. And I just discovered electoral politics, became very, very interested and learned everything I possibly could. And so I had gotten involved in some campaigns and volunteered through my time in Sitka and stayed involved when I was out in college, and ultimately got a couple of recruitment calls when I was a senior in college about running for the legislature. And that’s kind of what catalyzed this whole thing.
On Step Alaska: Yeah, it’s kind of the sweet spot because the internet was a great tool and it was before social media, so it was like social media kind of eroded all the gains that we may have made by being able to be informed and educate yourself.
Kriess-Tompkins: Yeah, there was a lot of sort of tech utopian talk and thought in that time in the early and mid-2000s, because it’s like it opens up the world to you. And it certainly opened up the world to me — learning about all sorts of things and developing this interest, which has totally changed my life. But yeah, obviously some negative dynamics have also presented themselves through the same technology.
On Step Alaska: You were involved in coordinating a TEDx in Sitka — did I find that correctly?
Kriess-Tompkins: Oh wow, yeah — deep cut. Hopefully it’s not a bad memory. No, not a bad memory, it was a great event. I haven’t thought about that in a long time. Yeah, I helped coordinate TEDx Sitka. Gosh, I can’t even remember what year that would have been. Was I in college still? Or maybe I was out of college. I can’t remember. But yeah, I’ve always been a curious person, interested in learning. It was sort of a format to bring together different speakers and presenters on all sorts of subjects. I was just excited about the idea. So I pulled together some people, we pulled together some money, we made it happen. It was just a great one-off project way back when.
On Step Alaska: 2012.
Kriess-Tompkins: Wow, that’s crazy because that’s the year I ran for the legislature. I guess I forgot about that. So I was doing TEDx Sitka while I was campaigning, which in hindsight is insane. But I think I had gotten TEDx Sitka going before I even thought about running for the legislature. So I was already committed to that project. And then the whole legislative thing kind of fell out of the sky.
On Step Alaska: That’s funny. When I look back on my teaching career, I would think there’s no way I could forget kids’ names or when certain events happened. But I look back and after a while, it’s like, yeah, that was a decade ago. So, you’re running for governor now. And I got some questions for you regarding that. Because you’ve been in Sitka, you grew up in Sitka. Southeast Alaska has shifted from timber to tourism. Sitka lost its mill. Ketchikan lost its mill. You’ve seen the transition from timber to tourism. Sitka has been pretty cautious and purposeful in its relationship with tourism. So as governor, what could you do to help support local economies without overwhelming the infrastructure or eroding the local experience?
Kriess-Tompkins: I think local voice is really important. And people who live in tourism communities should have a seat at the table at all times. I mean, overall, I feel like Southeast Alaska has navigated tourism reasonably well. Sitka certainly made some choices, but I think has ultimately found a compromise that by and large is working. I mean, there have been some growing pains in recent years. But I think it’s a positive industry for Southeast Alaska and for Alaska. The pulp mill closed when I was five years old, and I think it was kind of like a sky-is-falling moment for Sitka way back then. But tourism has in a big way filled the void. And I think there’s a good argument that there’s more prosperity in Sitka because of the tourism industry than there might have been in some alternate reality. Not to say there aren’t problems — cost of living, housing, all sorts of things. But I just think it’s really important that local residents have a seat at the table in terms of how the industry shows up in a community. There’s a lot of outside interests, a lot of outside businesses. Everybody kind of wants to get their hand on it because it’s a pretty good growing sector. And so it can be really tempting to just try to get as many tourists as possible, and then the local experience gets put on the back burner. So there’s a good balance that needs to be struck.
On Step Alaska: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s well summarized. So when you look back at the 70s and 80s with the oil going, there were 2 million barrels a day — now the pipeline is at about 500,000 barrels a day. But increasing production is not a matter of turning on the knob. So as far as state finances, what’s a realistic financial path forward? At the state level, it’s mostly oil production and the Permanent Fund interest. What can we do going forward? As governor, what are you going to try to accomplish to get us on financially responsible ground?
Kriess-Tompkins: I think it’s really important we close some tax loopholes that currently exist on the books right now. One of the things that really jumps out to me is that right now, one of our two major oil and gas producers — Hilcorp — doesn’t contribute to Alaska through corporate income tax the way every other large corporation in Alaska, including notably ConocoPhillips, contributes to the state. And so I think it’s just a matter of basic fairness. If you have two coffee shops on Main Street and one is paying sales tax and the other isn’t, even though they’re doing the exact same thing, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And it’s not just an academic objection — the amount of money you’re talking about is between $100 and $200 million a year, which is multiples of what the ferry system budget costs every year. So it’s real money.
I think there are some other aspects of our oil tax system that we should look at to make sure the state is getting its fair share. The North Slope is a resource that the state of Alaska owns. We are the owners and we should be looking out for a maximum return. In fact, the Constitution tells us that is our fiduciary obligation. On the Permanent Fund, I have really supported managing it for the long term and making sure the principal is protected and the fund can continue to grow. Because in the long term, the Permanent Fund is going to be a huge piece of balancing the budget. The fact that it’s $85-86 billion right now is because we have conservatively managed the fund and let it grow. I think it’s incredibly important we continue to do that, and that will set up the state in the medium and long-term future in a really good way.
On Step Alaska: There’s a huge windup for this question. Along that same thread, the Permanent Fund was created in 1976. The first deposit went in in 1977. Alaska got rid of its income tax in 1980. Governor Jay Hammond didn’t like the idea, but didn’t veto it — I was looking at an old transcript where he said he regretted that later. The dividend check started in 1982. Alaskans really liked the Permanent Fund Dividend checks, and there’s no sales tax, no income tax. The financial strains have really hurt infrastructure and education pretty much everywhere. I’m a teacher, so obviously I see the education part very closely, but families in all sectors face a lot of uncertainty. Some legislators say we’ve been right-sizing with a lot of the cuts that have been made over the last decade. But with inflation, many Alaskans also think we have gone past right-sizing and are cutting really deeply. So taxes are obviously not popular, and the Permanent Fund is really popular. How do you navigate that? And how can you get bipartisan give and take? Is bipartisan cooperation possible on these state financial issues?
Kriess-Tompkins: Yeah, I think these big questions all have this sort of tension — revenues, budget cuts, Permanent Fund dividend. It’s not just a simple two-dimensional question. There are multiple dimensions to the state budget, which in many ways makes Alaska’s budget a more complicated beast to tackle than other state budgets. Basically, you have to broker a multi-way compromise in order to sustainably and durably balance the Alaska budget. But in my last term in office in 2021 and 2022, the governor and legislative leadership were in an impasse. We were on the precipice of a government shutdown. And there was a bipartisan group of legislators from the House and Senate who were tasked with figuring out a grand compromise of sorts. I was the co-chair of that task force on the House side. We worked really hard. It was a very ideologically diverse group with very different perspectives on what right-size government looks like, what kinds of taxes do or don’t make sense, how big or small the Permanent Fund dividend should be. But ultimately, the eight of us — from Mike Shower and Shelley Hughes on the right to Jesse Kiehl in Juneau on the left, about as big an ideological spectrum as you’ll find among legislators — agreed on a consensus set of recommendations that would have balanced the budget. I’m not saying that exact set of recommendations is the be-all, end-all skeleton key to the state budget. But I do think through reasoned conversation and a deliberate process where all parties feel like they can trust the process, we actually can answer these big questions and get to compromise and consensus.
On Step Alaska: You were a representative from 2013 to 2022. How long did it take you to kind of find your place at the table? Is there a table? Are there different tables? How were you accepted and how did you get involved in some of these bigger conversations?
Kriess-Tompkins: I think it takes a term or two in the legislature — two to four years — to really get up to speed, generally speaking. Sometimes people enter the legislature having worked there as a staffer before, so the learning curve is a bit more accelerated for those folks. But yeah, I was starting from scratch. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d even set foot inside the Capitol before I was elected, even though I grew up in Sitka and it’s right there. So I was in sponge mode for the first couple of years, really just trying to listen and learn and develop trust-based relationships. I didn’t want to come in throwing bombs and grenades and making bombastic declarations — that just wasn’t my style. After that first term or two, then you start to really make moves and try to get things done. I did actually pass some legislation in my freshman term, but my mindset was mostly listen and learn. And then over the last six years, I was maybe a bit more purposeful in trying to accomplish some objectives in the legislature.
On Step Alaska: Do you still have good relationships with some of the current serving members? And do you think it would be pretty easy to re-engage in those negotiations?
Kriess-Tompkins: I do. Yeah, I keep up with a lot of the current legislators, including folks who’ve gotten elected after I left in 2022. And I mean, I think that’s incredibly important. The current administration, I think, has fallen short for Alaska in so many ways. Arguably the biggest way is just the almost non-existent relationship between the governor and the legislature. Non-existent is maybe even a gentle way of phrasing it — it’s a negative relationship. There’s active distrust. And so when you have two branches of government that can’t work together to solve problems, bad stuff happens. And lo and behold, a lot of bad stuff has happened in Alaska over the last five to eight years.
On Step Alaska: The arguments about preservation, conservation, and use have been going on for decades. Do you think the modern iteration of that — because of social media and the internet — has made things more difficult, more volatile? Are people more performative for social media? Has that lower-48 political divisiveness come up here and impacted the legislature, or do you think Alaska has been able to keep that at bay a little bit?
Kriess-Tompkins: I would give two answers. In a relative sense, I think Alaska is probably doing better than most of the rest of the country. There’s still an Alaska factor that comes into play in the legislature and our political process. It’s sort of like there’s a set of Alaska issues — people will approach politics here as Alaskans rather than as members of a political party or some other affiliation. And that’s good. But the second answer is, looking at how Alaska politics has changed over time, there has totally been this sort of backsliding or devolution towards a more cats-and-dogs kind of politics. As you put it, the internet and social media in particular has made the world smaller, which in many ways is incredible. But it’s also kind of blurred a lot of the lines that make different communities unique and created a more cookie-cutter, uniform kind of politics — nationalized politics, in other words. I think broadly speaking, that’s kind of a negative thing. And we have totally felt that and experienced that, even if we’re still better off than most other parts of the country.
On Step Alaska: Yeah, it’s a tough thing. Obviously when it comes to taxes and trying to create more revenue, that’s been a discussion that’s happened for a long time. But now with being so completely dependent on oil — what is it, about 95% of our revenue is either from production itself or from earnings on the Permanent Fund — tourism, while incredibly important for local communities, doesn’t provide much at all for the state to fund education or infrastructure. We built so much in the 80s and 90s and now we have buildings in rough shape. But if you start mentioning taking away part of the Permanent Fund, that gets around on social media fast. Or an income tax or a sales tax — Anchorage doesn’t have a sales tax, but Ketchikan already has 6.5%. It’s got to be a tough thing when you’re trying to take all these variables and come up with a solution, but anything you say can be used against you. So how do you campaign and be honest without making a misstep?
Kriess-Tompkins: I mean, there’s a part of your mind that’s always just kind of aware of how stuff can get distorted, clipped and chopped up and put on repeat on the internet. I think the biggest defense against that is you just develop your own reputation and people sort of trust you and know that you take a thoughtful, reasonable approach — which is something you have to build over time, over many years. And if you’re successful in doing that, I think that provides some Teflon and some defense against getting attacked in 140 characters or whatever the flavor of social media attack happens to be. I think ultimately your word, your reputation — in Alaska it’s small enough that people know their elected officials. That was always the way I approached it in my time in the legislature.
On Step Alaska: What’s something that you wish people would know about that financial situation that would really help conversations going forward?
Kriess-Tompkins: Ooh. I mean, this is my soapbox issue — although maybe sandbox works too. The Permanent Fund. And I don’t think Alaskans realize that the Permanent Fund is not really permanent, as the name would suggest. What I mean by that is because of this sort of seemingly obscure account structure, when the Permanent Fund was originally set up, a pretty major chunk of the fund — anywhere between 10 and 25% — and 10 or 25% of $86 billion is a lot of money — is vulnerable to appropriation at any moment in time from a simple majority of the legislature. So I think when Alaskans think about the Permanent Fund, they think, oh, it’s all locked up, it’s a nest egg, it’s an endowment. You couldn’t spend it down for whatever flavor-of-the-day project or idea might be popular. But it’s not as invulnerable as I think a lot of people believe. Because there’s such a major chunk of money in the fund that could be spent by the legislature — again, simple majority, at any time — there’s just a lot of risk there. And as the state’s finances have gotten more fraught and it’s been harder to make ends meet year to year, I think there’s greater and greater vulnerability that those tens of billions of dollars will get spent by the legislature. Because it’s easier to grab that money out of the Permanent Fund than it is to cut education, which people definitely don’t like right now in Alaska, or raise taxes, which people also don’t like. If you could just go into the Permanent Fund and grab a couple hundred million dollars to bail you out of an imbalanced budget, that’s a tempting option. I’m very, very worried — it hasn’t happened yet, mind you — but the legislature, including while I was there, came very, very close to doing that multiple times. And I think it’s just a matter of time before that does happen. And once it happens the first time, it just gets so much easier, and then next thing you know you’ve spent down the fund. That is the absolute worst long-term thing that could happen to Alaska.
On Step Alaska: Yeah. That’s a pretty basic financial principle — if you don’t have as much money in the bank, you won’t earn as much interest. If you’re going to retire, you can’t be spending down your retirement. I think another big fear would be if you go down the tax road, where does the income tax stop? Once there is one, even if it’s very small to start, can we trust people down the road to not increase it? And people are very wary of how taxes are spent — they look at the federal government and the amount of waste and corruption that people cite there and assume it’s the same at every level in every state. But that might not be true. It doesn’t seem like there are extra billions of dollars being wasted somewhere in Alaska. Things seem pretty lean as it is.
Kriess-Tompkins: Yeah, I agree entirely.
On Step Alaska: Moving to another hot topic issue, especially here in Southeast Alaska — fishing is a critical part of local economies and people are worried about populations. People often point to trawlers for at least a share of the responsibility. Where do you stand on helping ensure salmon populations? It’s obviously a very complex issue with a lot of variables, but what would you do to support the fishing industry?
Kriess-Tompkins: Supporting fishing was a through line of my 10 years in the legislature. I’m pretty hardcore when it comes to supporting fishing communities. There were more limited entry fishing permits in my district than any district in Alaska. And the island communities I represented were totally dependent on fishing. I spent a couple summers deckhanding on trollers out of Sitka — trollers, not trawlers. I just want to differentiate since it’s a subtle vowel difference, and because the power troll fleet is only in Southeast Alaska, the rest of the state is less familiar with that gear group.
So, very familiar with the industry and how important it is to Alaska. I served on the fisheries committee for all 10 years I was in the legislature. I was very active on Board of Fish nominations and confirmation votes and really advocated hard for what I felt was balanced representation on the Board of Fish. I feel like we’ve lost balance on the Board of Fish. It’s now really dominated by — to put it bluntly — the Kenai River Sportfishing Association. They should absolutely have a voice in the process, but I don’t think the process should be dominated by any one interest group or sector. And southeast Alaska doesn’t have a seat on the Board of Fish — that’s screwed up. Going back through statehood, I’m not sure there has been another time in history where Southeast Alaska has not had a seat on the Board of Fish, for a region with as much population and as much dependence on fisheries as ours. That needs to be changed.
When you talk about balance on the Board of Fish, it means all user groups should have a say — thoughtful, independent-minded people making tough decisions, with diversity in terms of geography. There’s a lot of local knowledge in each of these regions about how fisheries work. If you have regions like Southeast that are shut out because they don’t have a member, I think that’s pretty wrong and it needs to be fixed.
I also really worry about the out-migration of fishing permits out of Alaska and going to Seattle, going to the lower 48. That was something I was really active on in the legislature. Every permit that leaves Alaska is a small business leaving the state. It’s GDP leaving the state. It’s employment and deckhand jobs that leave the state. The economic multiplier effects are powerful. It should be a state priority to get as many Alaska fishing permits in the hands of and fished by Alaskans, full stop. Having a more aggressive approach to getting permits — and also federal quota for black cod and halibut — in the hands of Alaskans is just a no-brainer economic development priority.
And then on federal fisheries and bycatch and the trawl fleet — I organized a sign-on letter to support more conservative Chinook salmon bycatch caps in the Bering Sea two months after I was sworn in in February 2013, and was active through all my 10 years in the legislature on bycatch and fisheries issues. The crash in salmon runs is complex and there are a lot of factors at play. I’ve always supported taking a more conservation-oriented approach toward bycatch and reducing habitat impacts. And also, I don’t think we can say it’s all because of one thing when we look at the crashed salmon stocks in the Yukon and the Kuskokwim. Both are true. I support and have worked very hard to reduce bycatch and the impacts of trawling. And when thinking about these stocks that have crashed, we also have to look at all possible factors. So it’s an and-both kind of equation. Reducing bycatch and habitat impact from bottom trawling is incredibly important, and I’ve been very active on that all 10 years I was in the legislature and actually since as well.
On Step Alaska: You mentioned this earlier, but housing and cost of living is something that is very important to Alaska. It’s very expensive to live here, especially in some of these rural communities where you can’t drive somewhere else and there’s no road connection. That’s also not something the legislature or governor can just magically change. So what ideas do you have to help with cost of living and home availability?
Kriess-Tompkins: We need to get more homes built, period. Build baby build — I guess that’s the slogan. From a policy perspective, that’s the high-level goal. More homes. Now, there’s a lot of things the state can do.
One, the state should make state land available, especially if it’s right in communities — communities like Ketchikan, communities like Sitka. The state is a large landowner. It varies region by region, city by city. But there are large parcels and tracts of state land that are very developable and in the heart or very proximate to population centers in Alaska. I think the state should look at making that land available for housing development to add more supply to the market.
Number two, the state has very powerful financing instruments in Alaska Housing Finance Corporation and also AIDEA, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. I think the full force and power of the state should be focused on tackling the housing problem — getting more housing built and using the financing strength of those state corporations to be part of the solution. That is a super high priority and a real no-brainer.
Lastly, there are regulatory barriers to building lower-cost and affordable housing. Modular housing, trailers — a lot of that has for a long time been a source of low-cost housing. There’s a certain social stigma around trailers, but if you look at the housing market, they’re an incredibly important source of affordable housing. For people who need a roof over their heads, that is a super obvious choice. But as a country, and to some extent as a state, we have made it very hard for modular and manufactured housing to get built and put into communities. If you look around any community in Alaska, I challenge you to find new trailers or new manufactured housing that has been put into service in the last 20 years. We’re just slowly winnowing down this really important part of the housing equation. As trailers, manufactured housing, or tiny homes are made so difficult to build, we’re reducing the supply of lower-income affordable housing. It shouldn’t be a shock when that forces some people onto the streets.
So I think the state should make manufactured housing legal again, as it were — I know that’s a little glib, but there are just so many regulatory barriers. I own two tiny houses myself in Sitka and I can attest what a nightmare they are to get legally permitted. It is insane how difficult it is to create a legal structure that is small. It’s all well-intentioned regulation, but it totally backfires.
On Step Alaska: When my parents moved up in 1986, we lived in teacher housing and the teacher housing in Klawock were trailers. And the whole idea was that this is where you started. After a couple of years, you’d have enough money to move up. Like you get your condo first, you’re young, you have your career, you start off with a condo, then you leverage that, make a little equity, and trade up to a larger home. But without that intermediate or beginner home, you have a career and then you’re staring at really expensive rent with no equity being built. The starter house is $450,000 or $270,000 but needs $200,000 of maintenance on top of that. It’s just unaffordable for so many people.
Kriess-Tompkins: Yeah. It’s a huge problem. Every community in Alaska is facing it right now. It’s got to get solved. I think that stigma — I didn’t really consider it before — became much more prevalent in the last 20 or so years. People didn’t want to be seen as living in a trailer. But if you have good trailers, good modular homes, condos available — there’s absolute dignity in that, and you can use it as a stepping stone. I think that’d be a great thing going forward. But again, it takes a lot of pieces to get there.
Kriess-Tompkins: Totally. I couldn’t agree more.
On Step Alaska: So Tony Knowles was the last Democrat governor of Alaska. His term ended in 2002. Does that represent a challenge, or is that just simply a fact?
Kriess-Tompkins: Well, I mean, I think Governor Knowles was an amazing governor. That’s a great eight-year legacy that still lives on in Alaska in all sorts of ways. Governor Walker was an independent, elected in 2014. He beat a Republican incumbent. So from the perspective of can people besides Republicans get elected — I think the answer is yes. And Governor Walker is proof positive of that. Congresswoman Peltola got elected two different times statewide as a Democrat. Alaska is just a more competitive state statewide than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It’s an open seat — there’s no incumbent. If anything, it’s kind of an anti-incumbent-party situation because Governor Dunleavy, per the polling data, is among the most unpopular governors in the nation right now. So I think there’s a bit of a cloud because people are not very happy with how things have gone under his tenure. I think it’s a changed election and there’s a lot of opportunity, and we’re excited to realize it.
On Step Alaska: Where’s Alaska in 10 years?
Kriess-Tompkins: I think Alaska in 10 years is a politically mixed state where all elections are going to be pretty competitive. And I’m really hoping on a state level that we’ve solved some of these big questions — gotten education back on track, reinvested in our schools, rebuilt the university so it can be an engine for young people and talent and entrepreneurship and innovation. That we have a diversified economy. And I think there are a lot of ways that can look: year-round tourism including winter tourism, international tourism, growing the logistics sector in Anchorage and Fairbanks with all the international cargo, value-added fisheries, getting the maximum value out of our $5 to $6 billion fishery sector, and continuing to responsibly develop the mineral and oil and gas resources we currently have. So doing what we’re already doing well and getting the maximum value out of it, and then continuing to push in new directions that set the state up in a sustainable way long-term. That’s the Alaska I would like to see in 10 years.
On Step Alaska: What excites you most about the potential to be governor?
Kriess-Tompkins: To solve problems. I’m so excited to solve things that I think have really clear, tractable solutions and just require that kind of problem-solving energy. It’s like all these problems are nails and I’m totally a hammer mentality. I want to get education forward-funded. I want schools to get reinvested. I want the Permanent Fund to be permanent and constitutionally protected from overspending. I want to see the veto override threshold lowered to two-thirds so that there’s balance between the executive and legislature. And on and on, big and small — I want to see more public use cabins built so you don’t have to stay up till midnight six months before the reservation window opens to get one. Things big and small in our communities, there are just so many things that we can get done that I think there is political consensus and alignment to accomplish with the legislature. It just requires some problem-solving energy. And I just love getting things done. I think being governor is the ultimate position to try to solve problems and get things done.
On Step Alaska: So you think there’s a viable way forward so that we can address the education and infrastructure issues and we’re not in dire straits? You see some hope?
Kriess-Tompkins: Absolutely. Absolutely.
On Step Alaska: What else would you want to add? What have I missed? What do you want to pitch?
Kriess-Tompkins: No, great questions. I’m really happy with how the campaign is going. We’re sort of running on rocket fuel. We’ve been in the race now for two and a half months — we’re one of the last candidates to get in — but we’ve raised $1.3 million. We’ve raised more from donors than any other candidate by a long measure. We have more donors — I’m quite confident — than any other campaign, 2,000-plus donors. And I’m just excited about the vibe that we’re putting out, this kind of high-energy, be-everywhere-all-the-time approach. We’re having fun while we’re doing it, but we’re super focused on winning in August and November. Yeah, excited for the opportunity to share a little more on the podcast.
On Step Alaska: Well, thanks a lot for being on here. Really appreciate your time.
Kriess-Tompkins: Yeah, thanks so much, Jeff.
On Step Alaska — Interview with Click Bishop
On Step Alaska: Click Bishop, thanks for taking some time out of your day and being on here.
Bishop: Greatly appreciated. Thank you for having us on, Jeff.
On Step Alaska: So you’ve been in Alaska since statehood. You’re a third generation gold miner. You helped build the pipeline. Those are some serious Alaska check marks. Why did you get into politics?
Bishop: I didn’t. It got into me. I ran my union’s apprenticeship program for 20 years, the operating engineers and had the best job in Alaska, I thought, and without a doubt. And then a woman by the name of Sarah Palin got elected governor and called and left a message on our answering machine for me to call her. So I did. And long story short, I, with some soul searching and some prayer, I got, took her up on her offer. She said, you need to do your public service. And so went to Juneau in 06 in December. Anyway, got on the payroll 07 January. And the rest is history. Worked for her and Governor Parnell. And so almost six years in the Department of Labor. And as commissioner, put together the pipeline training plan, the gas line training plan, and it’s subsequently been updated through the Walker administration. But, you know, I had worked for two other governors, pro bono, Tony Knowles and Governor Murkowski, on both of their gas line plans, if you will. And why is that? That’s because, you know, I know the labor side of the street. So, yeah, there you go. That’s how I got into politics. And then I retired as commissioner and I was asked by some senators to run for the Senate, you know, redistricting 2010 decennial census. And they come out with a new set of maps in 12 and ran for the Senate. And so 12 years in the Senate and some people had been after me over the years to take a shot at running for governor. And hardest decision I ever made because my Senate district is a lot of family and a lot of friends and I loved it. And hopefully I’ve got an opportunity to serve them again and the rest of Alaskans.
On Step Alaska: You represented a large swath of interior Alaska, Canada, almost to Norton Sound. How did that experience help prepare you to address the myriad issues of both city and rural life?
Bishop: Well, I’ve got a, I think I’ve got a, without a doubt, I’ve got a good, deep understanding of rural Alaska. My wife’s people, you know, they come from over on the Yukon and, you know, as a working person, well, let me go back to, you know, how did I go to school and catch a can? My dad was a superintendent for Green Construction Company, and we worked all over Alaska. They had a southeast division that was headquartered in Juneau. And so there was a lot of work in southeast in the 60s. So I got to see the panhandle, if you will, as a child. And then the Alaska Highway and rural Alaska, did rural airports down on the lower Yukon and worked all over the state, you know, following my dad. And then I did the same thing in a lot of the same communities 20 years later as an adult. So that’s, I’m very well versed urban versus rural. And you’re right, my Senate district, my old Senate district that I was fortunate to represent, if it was a state, it was the third largest state in the union.
On Step Alaska: And you are correct. So you’ve been in, you’ve seen a lot of Alaska. I kind of, I guess, romanticize — a lot of us romanticize — that Alaska, we’ve always had these arguments about what to do with resources and how much we should extract. But it seems like now the proliferation of the internet and social media has kind of changed the dynamics. You mentioned that you worked for Palin and you worked for the last Democratic governor, Tony Knowles. Were things a little bit more cordial between the Republicans and Democrats back then? Is it more divisive now or what’s the general feeling like?
Bishop: Oh, so I just want to be clear. I worked for Tony Knowles pro bono for his administration because his gas line was my way or the highway. That was their theme in 99. And so that was pro bono work. But I did help his administration form what was now the Alaska Workforce Investment Board. Then it was called the Alaska Human Resource Investment Council, then spun off the AWIB board. But to answer your question, the social media — in my opinion, you know, I grew up watching Neil Armstrong take the first step on the moon in Tongass apartments on the 11th floor on a black and white TV. And, you know, I’m a student of history. My mother always said I was born a hundred years too late. I’d been better served coming over the Chilkoot Pass in 1898 with the rest of the Stampeders. I really believe that. I grew up with Walter Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley, that genre of news. A quote I like to use is a Lyndon Johnson quote, and you’ll remember he didn’t run for re-election. And it was because of a Walter Cronkite broadcast one night, and he famously said, when I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost the electorate. So, consequently, he didn’t run for a second term, and Richard Nixon was president. So I believe it has definitely changed. You know, we were doing polling in the Senate majority over the years, and we put these survey questions together. And our IT resident expert, if you will, said, Click, people got the attention span of nine seconds. You know, a goldfish has got more attention span than a human does now. And then I heard another term — Shannon and I were putting together a film and a guy used a term called doom scrolling. You know, they just sit up and doom scroll. I really believe that the internet and social media, it’s done a lot of good things, but I think it’s had a negative effect on politics. It disincentivizes working together. And it seems like there are members who have been a part of bipartisan cooperation and they haven’t seen it as a negative. And that’s kind of unfortunate because Alaska is so diverse and we need conversations. We need bipartisan support and agreement. But if it’s not incentivized, then people are going to go with what works.
On Step Alaska: So how, when you were working with people across the aisle, like, was that received well? Was that just kind of how things were done? And how do you think that would work going forward?
Bishop: Well, I think, you know, the one man crusades went out in the 12th century and, like I said, I’m 68 years old, be 69 in July. And I go back and I’ve studied history. I go back to the Constitution and the Constitutional Convention at Sinner’s Hall in Fairbanks — 1955. And in some of the broad sweeps, if you will, Fairbanks got the university, the capital stayed in Juneau, the Bush and Fairbanks and Southeast always stuck together. And I’m still subscribed to that kind of methodology, that mentality. There wasn’t but 165,000 people in the state, I don’t believe, in 1964. So, yeah, I have seen the state grow. People had to work together because nobody had a clear, dominant majority. And, you know, John Butrovich — his name’s on a building here in Fairbanks at the campus. Before Lyman Hoffman’s tenure of now upholding the record, he was the longest serving Republican senator at that time. And Senator Butrovich, he caucused with bipartisan coalitions. So I work well with you from the other side where I can work with you, and where I can’t work with you, I respectfully can’t work with you. I don’t go scorched earth, you know, like it is so much today. Because politics in Juneau, that building revolves around relationships. And my memory’s pretty long. What’s the purpose of going scorched earth on individuals? Because you don’t know in the next organization how it’s going to look. I’ll use the analogy I used to use with my apprentices. I would say, always treat people with respect. Just because you’re standing on top of the ditch and you’re the supervisor this week on this job, treat your crew with respect. Because when you get this job completed and you go back to the hall and sign up and you go out on the next job, you might be in the bottom of the ditch. That’s just how the mop flops in the construction business. So treat people with respect. I’ve always done that. I don’t make anybody’s cornflakes soggy, because you could need somebody in a future organization to move your legislation.
On Step Alaska: One of the most contentious issues, if not the most contentious issue, is about revenue. In 1988, there were 2 million barrels going through the pipeline. Today, it’s about 500,000. Increasing production is not just a matter of turning a knob so that more oil flows. So what can we do about production to help generate revenue so it’s not just from our investments in the Permanent Fund?
Bishop: Good question. And I’m glad you jumped right on that one. You’re right, and you’ve got to have a full understanding of the oil and gas business. I went to work right out of high school on TAPS and the North Slope. If you’ve never been there, it’s not West Texas. There’s not a road through every quarter section. In West Texas, you can pull in with a rig — just watch Landman, that’s exactly how it rolls down there. It takes days to move a rig on the North Slope. It takes years to make a discovery through to first production, if you don’t get challenged getting all your permits and getting final investment decisions from your investors. It takes about, on a good field, 10 years from discovery to first production. Because it’s expensive and the Arctic is a challenging environment. We’ve lost 40-plus field days since I started working up there in the 70s because of climate change, and it’s real. We used to get tundra permits into November 1st of December. Now you’re not getting tundra permits until January. So when you’ve made a discovery and you’ve got to build a pipeline, you’ve got to have a foot of frost, a foot of cover to be able to get over the tundra. You’ve got to build your ice roads, mine your gravel, put it into your infrastructure. So you’ve compressed your timeline, and it takes more people faster to get the same amount of work done that we did 40 years ago.
So the good news is for Alaska — and February 28th should be a wake-up call to everybody. Two exciting discoveries: you’ve got PICA, which is a Santos project, and you’ve got Quokka, another lease on state land. And then Willow, that’s a ConocoPhillips play. When those fields are in full development and production, there are estimates that we’ll be back up to 750,000 barrels a day. And with the president’s executive order 14153 to expand lease sales in the NPRA, we saw a good one here a month and a half ago.
I want to go to February 28th when the events started taking place in Iran. I look at the oil price in the morning. I look at it at night. There’s a website I look at and read the oil and gas news globally. The oil supply is choked to the tune of about 25% right now, and it’s really hurting Southeast Asia. I had a friend of mine that was going to go to Korea, and they said, don’t come right now. We’re in a bind with our fuel. We’re asking people to stay home, use public transportation. Closer to home, we are really suffering out west. The Yukon River’s in good shape for fuel deliveries, but out west, up to Kobuk and other areas, fuel has been quoted at $12 a gallon. We had a refinery here in Fairbanks and it closed — over 10 years ago now. And something I want to get back to is energy security. We talk a lot about food security, very important here in Alaska, but I want to talk about energy security for Alaska, the United States, and Southeast Asia. We have the rule of law here in Alaska and in the United States. I want to fully engage in taking care of ourselves. I wish that refinery would have never left. And then Western Alaska wouldn’t have been in a bind.
If I was president of the United States, I’d bring all assets to bear to streamline and expedite, under national security, our development of our North Slope assets. We’ve got a heavy oil formation on the North Slope called UGNU. There’s 22 billion barrels in place. Now that sounds like a big number and it is, but the key number when you’re hearing forecasts from the United States Geological Survey and others is what is economically recoverable. Right now that UGNU formation, with the technology we have — and we’ve got an oil research center here at the university that’s been working with the North Slope producers — they’ve developed what I call the secret sauce. It’s a polymer that helps unlock that heavy oil and make it easier to pump. Right now they think they can recover a billion-plus barrels, and as technology improves, hopefully that number goes up. And there’s a very aggressive drilling season in that same formation that Santos and Conoco have hit at 5,000 feet. All that Prudhoe Bay first discovery oil was at 12,000 feet. They went all the way to the basement of the reservoir — that was an elephant field. But now they drilled right through that, and at 5,000 feet is where this formation sits, with a 180- to 190-foot pay zone. They drilled right through it and missed it. But we had a geologist from one of the majors come back as a wildcatter and made this discovery, and it’s been a game-changer on the North Slope. That trend line looks to run back east towards Point Thompson, and that would be good news. So there is aggressive exploration going to happen next winter, both east and west. You’ve got to put a drill bit in a reservoir to make a discovery.
On Step Alaska: Natural gas, and there’s some news about a gas pipeline. So what about that as a viable option for more revenue? And how do we incentivize this sort of production or even pipeline building without too much in the form of subsidies or tax breaks for the corporations that are drilling?
Bishop: Now that’s another good question. I’ll say that just to give a little background on gas on the North Slope, people say we’ve been trying to develop it since 1977. But it goes back further than that. I’ve got a document on the first gas off the North Slope — a proposed project from 1955 from the Umiat oil field, that’s 100 miles south of Prudhoe Bay. The Navy did a lot of work out there during World War II and subsequent years up until the 50s, and they wanted to bring natural gas to Fairbanks and down to the rail belt out of the Umiat field. So that’s how long we’ve been talking about getting gas off the North Slope, just to frame the conversation.
I worked in the pipeyard after TAPS construction, and we were sending all the equipment back to Moses Lake, Washington for a big auction. And my superintendent came to us after lunch and says, Click, you guys are going to be here for another two and a half years because the gas line pipe’s coming in six months. In 1977. So there’s been one, two — we’ve tried to get gas off the slope starting in 1977. And really, it’s a good thing that we didn’t back then, because if you would have started selling gas off the North Slope in ‘77, you would have stood a good chance to blow down your gas cap. We’re cycling eight and a half billion cubic feet every day, every 24 hours. And that keeps that reservoir pressure up, and oil is way more valuable than natural gas. It’s a good fuel source, there’s no doubt, but TAPS was built and when we built it, they were looking at getting about 9 billion barrels. And we just hit a milestone a couple months ago — we’re at 19 billion barrels produced. So there’s a lot more to get.
I’ve been gone for what, a year and a half, and Shannon’s had me stretched out all over the state going, going, going. I follow it, but I’m not into the details like I was. But I can tell you it’s got to be economic. Do I want a gas line? Absolutely. Just to frame it in a nutshell — who doesn’t, especially for in-state use and export? But I want to make sure that it’s economic for Alaska. I want it to be an asset to the treasury, not a liability.
On Step Alaska: It seems like if we look back in history — and it could be a romanticized view — there were some incredibly ambitious projects that were done, innovations that really helped our lives. But now it seems like with overruns that are expected, misappropriation of funds, infrastructure failures, states and the federal government just aren’t good at big projects. You pointed to California and the high-speed rail project or the EV charging stations. Do you think that it would be economical to put in a gas pipeline at this point? It seems like something we probably could have done in the 70s or 80s. Maybe I’m being cynical. What do you got?
Bishop: You’re not off. Major mega projects overrun, period. TAPS — the initial contract estimate was a billion to $2 billion. What was the final bill? Nine billion. So I asked a question in Senate Finance — it’s on the record, there’s a slide in the record. As a legislature, you have a fiduciary responsibility to the treasury and to the people of Alaska. Pipeline construction is part of my background. So I asked the question one day at Senate Finance to the consultants. I said, I need you to bring me a slide that shows the percentage of cost overrun on every LNG project on the planet that’s a billion dollars and above. About a week and a half later, they brought the slide to the Senate Finance table. And the bigger the project costs, the larger the percentage of overrun. The largest project on that slide overran 45%. Big projects overrun — that’s just the reality. There’s an article in the Alaska Beacon that cites estimates of between $46 billion and $57 billion for the gas line project. So as far as the economics go, in order to get Alaska out of its financial problems, there are ideas on both sides — cut or tax — but it’s got to be way more nuanced than that.
On Step Alaska: Alaskans like the Permanent Fund Dividend, we like not having a state sales tax, we like not having a state income tax, but the financial strains have hurt infrastructure and education pretty much everywhere. So how do we address our financial challenges?
Bishop: I’m going to talk about capital spending for education — deferred maintenance. It’s over $300 million. And to be fair, Senators Stedman and Hoffman, when they were co-chairs back in the 2007, 8, 9 timeframe — I was in the administration — that list was pretty high then too, over several hundred million. And we had a surplus and I believe they took that list to zero in one year, cleaned it off. And it wasn’t but several years later and boom, here you are, that list is growing again. So how do you address that?
There’s a line item, there’s an account called the Public School Trust Fund. Something I want to do is work with the legislature and our administration, if we’re fortunate enough to get there. It’s a half of a percent of rents and royalties on oil and gas and mining and minerals. The fund balance in there is not quite a billion dollars, but I want to work with lawmakers to increase that. I don’t know what the number is yet — is it another half a percent? Is it a percent and a half off of royalties? Because as we’re coming into the next phase, what I call an increase in production coming, I want to try to increase that multiplier to help with education funding, both the capital and the operating side inside the classroom.
We definitely need more money into the career and tech ed side of the education system. I’m a voc ed guy — CTE is the correct verbiage today. But back when I was working it hard, 75% of the kids that graduated high school needed to go on to a two-year AA degree or an apprenticeship route. The other 25% needed to go to college. And personally, I’d like to see more engineers going to college. I was able to help the university double the number of undergraduates when I was at the Department of Labor by putting RSA money into the mining, engineering, and civil program here in the UA system.
So there are a couple of ideas on how to raise more funds for education and then live within our means and keep growing the Permanent Fund. We’re at 86, 87 billion — get it up to 100, and then your POMV draw, you’re drawing four and a half to five billion a year. Your operating budget is north of five of general fund monies. And be efficient. There’s not a lot left to cut. There are some areas where we can be more efficient, but we’ve cut that thing to the bone. There’s not $800 million of waste, fraud, and abuse in the budget anywhere. I can tell you that.
On Step Alaska: Yeah, that’s the thing we’ve been talking about down here. Our financial issues are made worse by some local financial decisions. But then when you look statewide, it’s not just a Ketchikan school district issue — all across the state, you have school closures. The term “right sizing” had been thrown around for a bit and that was in the process of happening. And then you have enrollments down, but then you have inflation. It seems like we’re cutting down to the bone and we’re losing a lot of teachers. Class sizes are going to go up and our offerings might suffer. And that’s the problem when you can’t offer a robust curriculum for kids. I have some outstanding students that are seniors this year, and some of their favorite classes are also the trades. They’re going to go to college, they want to be engineers or doctors or nurses or whatever, but they really enjoy shop class. They really enjoy the auto tech classes. It just prepares kids for adult living across the board, rather than just for college. To have that cut or reduced — that’s a pretty tough thing.
Bishop: Yeah. And shop classes aren’t cheap. Your consumables are expensive — oxyacetylene, welding rod, all your gas supplies, your metals, the same for lumber. And I’m glad to hear your students who are wanting to go to a four-year degree are still interested in the trades. Because a trades person, and I tell kids this all the time, especially when I was doing outreach and recruitment for our apprenticeship program statewide — I always encouraged higher education. I grew up in this state before oil in my trade. It was a hundred-day construction season in the interior, and we made good wages, but you didn’t have a Prudhoe Bay to go to in the winter. My dad said something to me years and years ago as a young person. He says, in this state, pre-oil — and I think it’s just as true today — you’ve got to be a jack of all trades and master at none. Meaning, your four-year degree engineer with a shop class in high school can change a doorknob or change the oil in his automobile. You’re not going to get AI to do that for you. You still have to have somebody to be able to do the hands-on work, and trades people — you’re never out of a job. And I always encouraged people to learn how to weld. Mechanics and welding, you could pick up a newspaper in any community and there’s always a help wanted for a welder.
On Step Alaska: Yeah, having it so close — I lived in California out of college for a little bit, and there was such a detachment between the trades and the different economies, the different levels. Whereas here, kids grow up around logging families, people in the trades, someone who works at Vigor — you see how close it is and the value of it. It’s super important. It’s not that one is better than the other, it’s that they all complement each other and you have to have all those elements in order to have a good, functional community.
Bishop: You hit the nail on the head, took the words right out of my mouth. It takes all kinds to make the world go round.
On Step Alaska: What about fishing? Interior Alaska — for subsistence living, fishing is critical. Here in Southeast Alaska, it’s a massive industry. So what are your plans to support fisheries?
Bishop: Oh man, can we do another podcast on fish? I can’t cover this in 30 minutes. I’ll be brief, and I would like to come back and do another podcast on fish to really get into that conversation with you. When there’s a salmon steak or a halibut steak or a moose steak in every skillet, everybody’s happy. But then you come up here in the interior where we’re on a seven-year moratorium on king salmon — that’s a full life cycle — and that’s ingrained, that’s cultural. It goes back generationally here, going to fish camp and whatnot. We can’t fish. We’re trying to rebuild the run so we can have a subsistence season. It’s a deep subject.
I’m a firm believer in following the science. I’m also a firm believer in traditional knowledge. My mother-in-law used to tell me when I was a young man, Click, the cotton’s blowing off the trees — the king salmon are coming. Those kinds of things, that traditional knowledge, it’s important. You can’t snub the traditional knowledge of people who’ve been living on the land for 10,000 years here. But I’m a firm believer in following the science. I’m very pragmatic on this issue. A nine-second Facebook post isn’t going to solve the problem. And if there was an easy button, somebody would have pushed it a long time ago. If you want to have a deeper conversation about fish, I’d love that conversation.
On Step Alaska: I’ll move on to another topic. What about cost of living and home availability?
Bishop: Oh man, it’s expensive. Cost of living — energy prices are killing everybody right now. That’s probably the biggest driving factor. Can I ask you, Jeff, what’s your kilowatt hour at your meter for your home?
On Step Alaska: It costs me about $250 a month, and it’s been a little bit more expensive because we have a greenhouse and we’ve been raising some chicks and there’s some other things. But we have a heat pump and it’s about $100 a month usually when we’re not in high energy season.
Bishop: Come to Fairbanks. In the dead of winter it’s anywhere from $450 to $600. That’s what I want to solve. Are we going to do it overnight? No. But energy is another whole conversation. Energy is the biggest driver here in the interior and in the bush. It’s expensive to build. Four years ago we were in Nome and it was about $750 a square foot. What’s your barge window in Nome? Your barge window is from June-ish, and your last barge used to have to be headed south by October 15th. So barge freight’s expensive. But affordability is an issue as well, you know. These fuel prices are hurting everybody’s food bills right now.
On Step Alaska: What are you most proud of from the time that you’ve served, and what do you want to take into the governor’s mansion if you get elected?
Bishop: I want to take 20 years worth of experience and personal relationships, knowing where I can bring a cabinet together. I’m a very humble person, but I can bring an all-star cabinet to that administration. I know how the third floor should be run. I said this the other day — you’ve got to have five solid people joined at the hip in your administration if you want to get kicked off on the right foot with the legislature: a good chief of staff, a good deputy chief of staff, a good legislative director, an outstanding OMB director, and lastly an outstanding boards and commissions person. Those five people have to be joined at the hip. I had a governor call me one time and ask, Click, what do you look for in a commissioner of labor? And I told them — what you don’t want is the person who’s wanting the job. You want the person you’ve got to go chase and do your best sales pitch to get them on board.
I like the story of Jay Hammond and how he didn’t even think he would win. He was just able to be himself, going against some of these big figures, and he ends up being a pretty popular governor. I voted for him twice. I happen to know a friend of mine who was a deputy chief of staff and one of his chiefs of staff, and I think I’m a lot like Hammond. They had to almost hogtie him to get him in a suit for a press conference because he’d be in his office in just his wool pants and a sweater. And I had a chance to visit with the governor on several occasions after he was out of office. I really enjoyed visiting with him.
On Step Alaska: Where is Alaska in 10 years? It’s hard not to look at diminishing fish and our education and infrastructure challenges and not be somewhat pessimistic. Maybe four years — where’s Alaska at?
Bishop: I’m the eternal optimist. I can be standing in it clear up to my nose and it’s still a good day. That’s my psyche, that’s how I was raised. With the oil discoveries on the slope and production coming any day from PICA, and then Quokka will be the next one, and Willow coming online — those are positives. From a mining industry standpoint, we’ve got six major producing mines in the state and we need six more. Our Lieutenant Governor, Greta, she comes from a resource development background, and I want to tag team that. We just don’t need six more — we need six more at minimum. Alaska is the most underdiscovered, underexplored province in the United States. I want to work towards expanding that.
On Step Alaska: What excites you most about your team and your staff right now?
Bishop: Just the caliber of people on staff and volunteers that are standing at the ready, getting them harnessed and pulling in the right direction. I’m a policy geek, believe it or not. I get pretty focused on policy, and I guess that’s from my years in the legislature — but I was that way in my old job too. When I ran the apprenticeship program, I started my succession planning on leaving my old job at the training trust about three years before I knew I was going to execute. I started putting the pieces together. I’m a long-range thinker in that respect. I’m bullish on Alaska. I think you get the right administration in place that can work with the legislature.
I’d just like to say something about vetoes. Nobody’s asked us about vetoes on any of these. The veto is a tool, but to me I look at the veto pen kind of like you’ve been in a hotel and it says, in case of fire, break glass. I’m somebody that will work with you as hard as I can to find some compromise that we can both agree on, the administration and the legislature, so we don’t have to break the glass.
On Step Alaska: Yeah, I read a transcript from an interview with Governor Hammond and he didn’t want to sign the legislation that was getting rid of the income tax, but because it was so popular, he didn’t veto it. That was the self-awareness of what the people wanted. You can debate whether or not that was a good decision. There was so much money from the oil at that point it didn’t look like we needed that extra revenue, but to be self-aware and see what other people are doing — that’s leadership, not just doing what you feel like doing.
Bishop: Yeah, well, sometimes when you’re a chief executive, it could be the loneliest job in town. I just re-watched Churchill the other night. Man, that was the loneliest guy on the planet for a period of time in 1940. How would you like to have been in his shoes? Or Zelensky in this day and age — that’s real leadership.
On Step Alaska: Anything else you’d like to add?
Bishop: No, I just, I’d like to say thank you.
On Step Alaska: I would say the same thing to you. I appreciate you coming on. Some of these things are so complex it would be impossible to address them without doing a bit of a series. So maybe in the summer, as we get closer, we can hammer down some more details.
Bishop: Absolutely. And we’ll be in Ketchikan for the Blueberry Festival. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
On Step Alaska: That’s the opening weekend of deer season, so we’ll see.
Bishop: I’m toast, I already — yeah, my wife really wants to get out and she didn’t get a deer last year. But there’s a long season, we’ve got time. How’s the king salmon fishing going down there right now?
On Step Alaska: We don’t have any now. It’s closed until the 15th. It’s a hatchery — the terminal run opens on the first, but it’s a very, very limited area for the terminal run. Outside waters it opens sooner and you can get your fish there. It’s all the fish going up the Unuk and those other rivers to Canada — they let them by first. I caught a 25-pound king in the Derby there in Ketchikan. I didn’t even make the board when I was a kid.
Yeah, when I first moved back here — I grew up on Prince of Wales Island and moved back to Ketchikan in 2013 — it was the last couple of years of the King Salmon Derby. Because of the populations, they don’t open the season until after the 15th. So they changed it to a Silver Salmon Derby in the late summer. It’s weird to be living through that transition. The fishing on the outside of Prince of Wales, those outside waters are still pretty good, but the fish are smaller, there are fewer of them, and you have those emergency closures sometimes or changing regulations. So all of a sudden someone who’s booked their ticket to come up can’t keep a king salmon — it’s pretty tough.
Bishop: Right. Well, Jeff, thank you.
On Step Alaska: Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Listen at:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yrpSzZTQk18m97G7a0EMD?si=eLFcAu3DQIq2NKznuS8PyA