A capitol on the move

The great southeastern migration has begun.

Every January, the 57 lawmakers who don't live in Juneau year-round -- plus an estimated couple hundred staffers -- come by plane, ferry and auto to the most remote state capitol in the nation.

Set on the U.S. mainland in the Inside Passage, Juneau is inaccessible by road. Canada rests a mere 30 miles to the east, but it takes a ferry ride north to Haines or Skagway, and now a passport, to reach the roads. Alaska's capitol is 600 air miles from the Anchorage area, where more than half the state's 650,000 people live, and nearly 1,000 air miles from Arctic communities like Barrow and Nome. Legislative aides who call road-system urban hubs like Anchorage and Fairbanks home often caravan the 700-plus miles down the Alaska Highway, through Canada's remote Yukon, and into the ferry ports of Haines or historic Skagway.

Anyone who's planned a trip to Juneau, anytime of the year, knows they're at the mercy of the weather. Planes are routinely redirected to Sitka (frequent flyers laud the airport's pie counter) or Seattle. Dense fog and low, rain-bloated clouds sock in the narrow channel and its mountainside city, making the state Legislature's annual migration a tough one.

Yet every year, lawmakers and staff make the journey for the 90-day legislative session, thundering down upon a tiny capitol city slumbering in a windy, rainy, wintery lull residents welcome after an inundation of cruise-ship tourists through the summer months.

From time to time, Alaskans hunker down on two sides of a bitter debate -- should the seat of government be moved from Juneau to Anchorage or its environs? Juneau staunchly defends its long status as the capitol, while other folks try to woo voters to approve a switch.

The reasons vary -- some say Juneau is too isolated to allow Alaskans reliable access to politicians making decisions on policy matters that affect lives. Others don't care for the weather -- a snowy Seattle in the winter months -- and others find the travel an inconvenience when their families, businesses and constituents live hundreds of miles away.

But for now, Juneau is holding tight to the reins, and the city counts on having legislators in town for 90 days to take the edge off the economic void that's filled by free-flowing tourist dollars during the summer months.

As staff trickle into town, they organize office space, weeding out past years' binders of state budgets, committee reports and hearing testimony. Within a week or so of the session's start, the Capitol is a maze of hallways lined in unwanted office furniture, bins of supplies and boxes of files.

Only a handful of lawmakers put in appearances last week, including David Guttenberg, a Fairbanks Democrat, and Republicans Kurt Olson of Kenai and Carl Gatto of Anchorage. Charisse Millet, R-Anchorage, led a new staffer around the Capitol halls, making introductions as a new class of pages filed past, memorizing office numbers, room numbers, protocol and duties. By the weekend, House Speaker Mike Chenault, a Nikiski Republican, had flown into town, while Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, opted for the notoriously tumultuous ferry ride across the brutal Gulf of Alaska. Rep. Woodie Salmon was unpacking boxes after perhaps the longest drive on the road system; the Democrat lives in Chalkyitsik, near Fort Yukon.

Legislators are reimbursed for travel expenses to and from Juneau for the session. The 2009 totals won't be released for a few more weeks, but amounts vary widely, depending on whether lawmakers bring their families to the capitol, whether they drive, and whether they ship household goods and clothing by air -- the only way out of some places.