Letters to the Editor

Volume VI Number 2
January 15-21, 1998

Did Burton Jog When He Should Have Jigged?

Dear New Bay Times:

Bill Burton's column "You Catch Them While You Can" (Jan. 8-14) was good news for anglers looking for fish this mild winter.

But the rest of his story about Alaska - "Frozen Out in the 49th" - seemed more like pipe dreams. I too lived in Alaska, though not back during the Ice Age when Bill lived there. Shee fish and other Arctic species are regularly caught by jigging through holes cut in the Bering Sea. I was taught by a master, Myrtle Johnson of Nome, of Eskimo and Norwegian heritage. Maybe Bill just jogged when he should have jigged.

As to eulachon (also known as hooligan or olligan by natives), no one in Alaska would ever fry these oily little fish. Also called candlefish, they are so oily they can be burned like candles.

But Bill's right about bears standing side by side with anglers. Maybe that's why they call it combat fishing in the Last Frontier.

-D.C. Bourne, Churchton

Friends Need Your Help to Keep Calvert Cliffs Open

Dear New Bay Times:

The Friends of Calvert Cliffs State Park would like park visitors to know that all service charges collected at the park are used by the Friends for the park.

No charges leave the park. All are used in such everyday maintenance as keeping up roads and trails; cutting grass; building benches, boardwalks and marsh overlooks; maintaining playgrounds, the youth camp site, tractors and lawnmowers; hiring seasonal staff and supporting such park activities as the annual pre-historic egg hunt and Junior Ranger program.

Fees are also spent for such major projects as purchasing and installing drinking fountains, purchasing two lawnmowers (one for trail cutting and another for finish mowing), building a workshop with electricity and offices for Department of Natural Resources and the Friends; emergency telephones; and a five-wheel vehicle for trail maintenance and rescues.

At a time when continued budget cuts within the state leave parks like Calvert Cliffs with locked gates and closed signs, service charges you pay generate the funds needed to ensure that you are able to continue to enjoy nature at its best and maybe leave the park with a Miocene fossil or two.

Six years have passed since the Friends were formed and the gates unlocked and closed signs taken down. We've come a long way with your help and support, but we hope to do much more in the future. We rely on the service charges and your tax deductible donations to help keep Calvert Cliffs State Park open for many years to come. We hope you will visit us soon and often.

-Connie Darago, Huntingtown

Department of Corrections

In last week's Bay Reflection "All You Need Is Love" (Jun. 8-14), the lunar landing was incorrectly cited as having occurred during the turbulent year 1968. In fact, that giant step for humankind was taken in 1969.

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