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The 1500 mile Alaska-Canada Highway from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Delta Junction, Alaska, was initially constructed in 8 months in 1942. The story of the difficult conditions experienced by the 10,000 Army soldiers and 6,000 contractors is a compelling one, but the experience of the 3600 African-American soldiers who were segregated and exposed to even more challenges is a less well-known one. Christine McClure and her husband Dennis published their first book about the construction of the Al-Can called We Fought the Road in 2017. What prompted Christine to write the book was the discovery, after his death, of her father’s letters to her mother during his time with the 93rd Regiment; he had been one of the few white officers assigned to that Black regiment. Sadly, Dennis McClure passed away in September 2021. This interview took place via Zoom from Chris’s home in South Carolina in August 2022.

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Heather Lende, the Alaska State Writer Laureate for 2021, is the author of a number of best-selling memoirs about her life in Haines. Her most recent book is 2020’s Of Bears and Ballots: an Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics, which tells the story of her time serving on the Haines Borough Assembly, where shortly after her election, a recall petition was launched against her. This interview was the very first meeting of the East Anchorage Book Club, and it happened on August 9, 2021. Lende offered us great political advice that many of those in attendance took to heart. This episode marks our one year anniversary and is the final episode of Season 1. 

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KL Marshall, while working on her PhD in Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, became enthralled with the influence of oil money on Christian Fundamentalism in Alaska. She moved to the MatSu Valley to research her 2020 book, Faith & Oil: How the Alaska Pipeline  Shaped America’s Religious Right. Her doctoral thesis was on Jerry Falwell who started the Moral Majority that helped elect Ronald Reagan. Falwell founded Liberty University in 1971, the same year that his friend Jerry Prevo began leading the Anchorage Baptist Temple. Prevo led ABT until 2020 when he took over Liberty University from Jerry Falwell Jr. who resigned due to a sex scandal.   KL connects the dots between Falwell and Prevo to Palin and Trump.

KL Marshall is not her real name; for safety concerns in the MatSu, she published using  this nom de plume. She is currently working on her second book about Jerry Falwell, tentatively titled One Nation under God’s Wrath.

Note: when I refer to the clip of Dave Bronson that we played, I mean the clip we played on episode 30 with Michael Burke discussing the 2009 “Summer of Hate.”

Note: although I include a clip of US Senate Candidate Kelly Tshibaka during a discussion of the New Apostolic Reformation, I do not mean to imply that Kelly Tshibaka is part of that movement. Rather, her call from the pulpit that Christians participate in government is meant to exemplify a teaching that might be found at a NAR church. 

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Michael Wolverton did not come from a family of attorneys or judges; his parents were educators and that was what he planned to do. However, while doing his student teaching, he realized it wasn't the right path. He went to the University of Minnesota Law School and after a stint in the Peace Corp found himself in Alaska. Like so many, he had only planned to stay for a year, but never left. He started as a public defender in Anchorage and opened the Palmer Public Defender's office. He then served as a district court judge until he was appointed to the superior court by Gov. Tony Knowles in 1996. He retired from the bench in 2022 when he turned 70.

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Jason Grenn is the executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, an organization that lobbied for Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska and, now that we have it, is working to educate the electorate about it. After years as a registered Republican, he changed his registration to Independent just prior to running for the Alaska House of Representatives where he served from 2016-2018 representing the Sand Lake area of Anchorage.  We discuss how his time in the House Majority Coalition and his move away from the Republican party informed his passion for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). 

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Reverend Lise Adams Sherry was chosen to be the permanent minister of the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in March 2022. She grew up in a small town in Oregon as a regular church-goer thanks to her grandmother. As a teen, she questioned the central tenets of the Christian faith, and moved away from organized religion until stumbling into a Unitarian Church in Vancouver, Canada, thirty years ago. Today we discuss the Unitarian Universalist religion, Reverend Lise's journey to the ministry, and how she steers a politically active congregation during polarized times.

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On this special July 4th episode, Andrew interviews Jasmin Smith: lifelong Alaskan, entrepreneur, and community organizer. From her youth in Eagle River to her leadership on the Mountain View Community council; from the formation of her landmark company, Baby Vend, to her heading up the most recent Juneteenth celebrations on the Delaney Park Strip, all is discussed. Also, on the show today, former staffer to Governor Bill Walker and lifelong Alaskan, Jonathan Taylor reads an abridged version of Frederick Douglass's “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

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Michael Burke grew up in upstate New York and first moved to Anchorage in the 1980s. He has been the senior pastor of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in midtown for over 20 years. 2009 in Anchorage is colloquially known as “the summer of hate.” That year an equal rights ordinance was proposed by the Anchorage Assembly and conservatives came from near and far to testify against equal rights for the LGBTQ community. The measure passed the assembly, but was vetoed by Mayor Dan Sullivan, and there were not enough votes to override. Michael Burke  confronted a hateful angry crowd to speak in support of non-discrimination protections during a series of contentious assembly meetings. We discuss that "summer of hate," today’s divisive political climate, and how he came to be a priest in the first place.

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Jim Obergefell and John Arthur embarked upon a life together when they were in their early 20s in Cincinnati. Twenty years later, when John was dying of ALS, they began a battle with the state of Ohio to have Jim recognized on John's impending death certificate as his surviving spouse. That case made it's way to the US Supreme Court, and in the landmark decision Obergefell v Hodges brought marriage equality to the whole country. Today Jim shares that story on the podcast. 

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Caitlin Shortell was born and raised in Anchorage. She returned home after earning her law degree at Northeastern University in Boston and worked as an Assistant Public Defender at the Alaska Public Defender Agency (2003); as an Assistant Attorney General at the Alaska Attorney General's Office (2004-2008); and as Human Rights Advocate at the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights (2008-2009). Ms. Shortell, along with two other attorneys, was plaintiff's counsel in Hamby v. Parnell (2014), the case that secured same sex couples the right to marry in Alaska.  Five years after winning the lawsuit that secured equal marriage, Ms. Shortell sued to stop the State of Alaska from a discriminatory practice of denial of PFDs to same sex military spouses and kids stationed out of State in Smith v. Dunleavy (2020). We talk about all of that and the potential undoing of landmark supreme court precedents on today's episode.