ALCOHOL WAS A FACTOR: Weekly Newspapering In Rural Alaska

White Fang

I’ll tell you something you probably didn’t know.

Did you ever watch that 1990s television comedy called Northern Exposure, about all the free-spirits inhabiting the make-believe town of Cicely, Alaska?

The show, which ran for five seasons through 1995, centered on the travails of a New York City physician who finds himself in a one-man practice in the 49th State. Dr. Joel Fleishman pitted his urban ways against the quirky personalities of the often-eccentric townsfolk.

Well, guess what?

That show was based on Haines. If Green Acres and Dragnet had a child, that would be Haines.

Now, I don’t know this as fact, and I know that Chilkat Valley News owner Tom Morphet disputes this, but there sure are some rather strange coincidences.

For one, Haines for decades had a resident doctor named Len Feldman, who just retired a few years back. But back in the late 1980s, he was still going strong. There were also a slew of oddball characters living here then (and now), including a few intrepid female bush pilots, a far-lefty radio deejay and assorted backwoods denizens who rumbled into town, scratched their whiskers and did outrageous things.

And here’s what ties it all together.

In 1990, the Disney film “White Fang’ was filmed entirely in Haines. It was the only major motion-picture to be shot here in its entirety.

At the time, Haines residents might have anticipated a regular Hollywood invasion, but that in fact didn’t happen until Reality TV and all its Alaska survival shows came to cable a few decades later. Many are shot in and around Haines.

But rumors here persist that the producers of the “White Fang” movie thought Haines was pretty unique and thought it could carry a TV show. But they decided in the end to shoot the series in Washington State.

One reason is that Hollywood didn’t have an easy time filming White Fang.

There was a near-riot between locals and the Burbank crowd. Twenty-five years later, Haines residents still recall that rather strange cultural clash.

My colleague, Russ Lyman, for example, was a body double for star Ethan Hawke’s scenes paddling a canoe. Russ for years was a professional river guide and knew how to paddle a boat. He was one of scores of locals who had a role in the film.

Russ said he had a blast.

Last week, the local museum opened an exhibit to mark the 25th-year anniversary of the Haines’ biggest splash on the big screen.

Here’s my story this week for the Chilkat Valley News:

By John M. Glionna
A year ago, Madeline Witak was helping plan future exhibits at the Sheldon Museum and Cultural Center. She realized then a blockbuster was heading the town’s way.

It was the 25th anniversary (give or take) of one of the most memorable, satisfying, frustrating, lucrative, disastrous and downright crazy times in the long history of Haines.

The filming of White Fang, the only feature-length movie shot entirely in Haines; was the town’s biggest splash on the big screen.

Produced in the winter and spring of 1990, the Disney film based on author Jack London’s 1906 novel about a wild wolfdog, brought nearly $3 million into community coffers.

In the process, the Hollywood types (known as Fangers) literally took over the town.

Scores of Haines residents were enlisted as extras, craftsmen, carpenters, location scout liaisons, cooks and even as armed sentries to discourage grizzlies from wandering onto some backwoods set. Male extras were encouraged to grow out their facial hair before any shoot.

Residents were paid $50 a day for a non-speaking role, $150 if they actually said something.

“White Fang was a really big deal for this town,” Witek said.

As museum community coordinator, Witek wanted to mark the event. But the in-house collection contained few artifacts: a dogsled, a few scripts a clapper used to mark the start of scenes.

“I thought maybe we could use a White Fang exhibit to change that,” she said.

So Witak put the word out around Haines. The result: a walk down White Fang memory lane.

Haines came up with so much stuff, it fills an entire exhibit room. There’s the producer’s chair, a binder kept by resident Thom Andriesen (who then worked in the local tourism office) that contains contracts and a host of film records as well as news coverage of that colossal long-ago project.

There are scores of photographs of Haines residents, as well as soundbites of others discussing their roles — including Andriesen, magistrate judge Linn Asper and others.

Asper talked of playing a cardsharp dandy who was filmed reading a book; in this case an old volume by Voltaire, on a rainy winter day. His woolen three-piece suit and bowler hat got drenched.

The hand-warmers given out by the film crew were the only thing that saved them. Then there was the ASPCA representative on the shoot who harassed Haines locals for leaving dogs out in the rain as the extras huddled in unheated tents.

“People began bringing in their photographs but I realized they were meaningless without the stories behind them,” Witak said.

The film shoot used the area near the old sawmill at Jones Point to represent Skagway and Dalton City. But the Hollywood people filmed most everything else in and around Haines.

Eventually, problems arose.

“People here weren’t used to waiting in line at the grocery store. There were also huge shortages of things because the film crews needed them.” Witak said.

Perhaps worse was showing up in the backcountry to ski or hike and run into a sign that read: “Attention: This area has been prepared for filming and must remain undisturbed. Thank you for your cooperation — Hybrid Productions/White Fang.”

“Suddenly, people couldn’t do what they wanted,” Witak said. “They moved to Alaska to do what they wanted.”

For their part, Hollywood had its own problems — including ferry breakdowns and a mid-winter thaw that drove filmmakers to the Yukon to keep on schedule, which blew the budget. That was after they tried using dehydrated potatoes for snow in Haines.

But rain turned the spuds into starch, attracting wolves and wild dogs.

Then carpenters walked off the job for more pay. The mail moved too slowly. Filmmakers noted each “problem of the day,” leading one local to observe there was “more finger-pointing going on than construction work.”

The crew later held a tug-of-war with locals, a send-off many found fitting. The Jan. 1991 premier was in Juneau, because Haines had neither a theater or a projector.

While Hollywood never returned to film another complete major motion picture in Haines, Witek has heard rumors the town was the basis for the TV show Northern Exposure.

The show, which ran for five years through 1995, contrasts the foibles of a New York City physician and the quirky locals he meets in the faux Alaska town of Cicely.

“One story says the White Fang people were inspired by such Haines characters as Dr. Feldman, the Jewish physician, the liberal outspoken deejay and the resident lady bush pilot,” Witek said.

But the produces didn’t think Haines could handle both a movie and TV show, so they shot Northern Exposure in Washington State.

Witek says the White Fang exhibit, which opened last week and runs through February, has been an instant success.

“People got excited the moment it opened,” she said. “They look at everything and tell stories, which is exactly what I wanted them to do.”