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Barack Obama Alaska
Barack Obama holds a puppy while posing for a photo with a family in Kotzebue, Alaska on Wednesday. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Barack Obama holds a puppy while posing for a photo with a family in Kotzebue, Alaska on Wednesday. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Alaska puts politics aside for Obama visit: ‘This is the president and this is exciting'

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The president’s three-day tour of the state of only 700,000 gave everyone something to talk about, from climate change to Obama’s gelato preference

In this state of only 700,000 people that American presidents tend to visit most often only to refuel, the three-day tour by Barack Obama this week gave everybody something to talk about.

Alaska is conservative and backed Obama’s opponents in 2008 and 2012, but the president’s celebrity appeal overshadowed the political misgivings of many as he travelled the vast state. Everywhere he went, residents made signs, crowded into restaurants and pulled over on roadsides to catch a glimpse. Social networks were ablaze with reports of security helicopters overhead, and observations about Obama’s gelato preferences (coffee and coconut), his treadmill routine (he runs “slow and smooth”, according to someone a few machines down), and his opinion of fish jerky in the rural community of Dillingham (“Outstanding!”). Videos of the passing motorcade were an epidemic.

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Presidential motorcade watchers #2, Jewel Lake Rd. #ObamaAK pic.twitter.com/E7cwb6WjjU

— Marc Lester (@marclesterphoto) September 1, 2015

Right before President Obama waved at me. #omg pic.twitter.com/JPkjJzUGwF

— Kirsten Swann (@kirsteswann) September 2, 2015

The political implications of the visit weren’t lost on Alaskans either. At the US State Department conference on Arctic issues held in Anchorage, the president promoted renewable energy, called out climate change deniers, and warned that inaction on the issue could have grave consequences.

He did not discuss offshore oil drilling in the Arctic, which was recently approved by his administration over opposition by environmental groups.

Representatives of Alaska’s oil industry and the oil-producing North Slope region of the state were mostly absent from the conference, said Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of Alaska Oil and Gas Association, a trade group that represents oil and gas producers in the state. She called that “a missed opportunity”. The president also did not visit any oil industry sites, even though Alaska has one third of the nation’s oil and gas reserves, she said.

“Alaska is not just America’s playground, we are a very vital, important component in providing resources for the world and the country,” she said.

Obama’s next stops after the conference were a visit to Seward, several hours outside of Anchorage, where he viewed diminishing glaciers by boat. He continued on to the rural communities of Dillingham, in south-western Alaska, and then north to Kotzebue. It was the first time a sitting president had travelled above the Arctic Circle.

In rural Alaska, Obama talked with fishermen, danced Alaska Native dances with schoolchildren, discussed the impacts of climate change with Alaska Native leaders, and flew over the community of Kivalina, which is being eaten away by climate change-related coastal erosion.

#POTUSAK Dances with the children in Dillingham! pic.twitter.com/HhrGGIwSj5

— Marilyn Heiman (@marilynheiman) September 2, 2015

At one point, in Dillingham, salmon milt wound up on his shoe.

Barack Obama’s fish photo-op goes awry when fish begins spawning on president’s shoes. Link to video Guardian

Margaret Williams, director of conservation group World Wildlife Fund’s US Arctic program, attended the State Department conference and followed Obama’s remarks as he travelled the state.

She said taking the focus off oil development was fair because it usually dominates the discussion in Alaska. She was pleased with Obama’s Alaska message.

That said, World Wildlife Fund is critical of the president’s position on offshore drilling. Williams said she had deep concerns about a spill in Arctic waters, which she said was “a matter of if, not when”.

“This is a problem, it is a disconnect; at the same time, the president is doing other important things,” she said.

In Anchorage on Tuesday, architect Melanie Mangione got word that Obama might be getting coffee at Snow City Cafe, a restaurant near her office. She and co-workers decided to take a coffee break as well.

“I had co-workers with me who are completely opposed to his politics, they ran down there with us,” she said. “They were like, ‘This is the president and this is exciting. Period.’”

They got their coffee, she said, and “just hovered”. Pretty soon Obama came in the door.

The crowded restaurant went quiet. Obama ordered his coffee and some sticky buns, and proceeded to walk through the restaurant, chatting and shaking hands.

PHOTOS: @POTUS grabs breakfast to-go at Anchorage’s @SnowCityCafe. #ObamaAK #POTUSAK pic.twitter.com/EmKsWwAvC0

— KTVA 11 News (@ktva) September 1, 2015

“The impression I got from him is he is a gracious, kind human being,” said Mangione, who declined to discuss her opinion of his policies. “Politics and opinions aside, he didn’t have to interact with us the way he did.”

Next up for @POTUS: Kotzebue - Where the welcome-wagon is actually an ATV: pic.twitter.com/M5TIUiTqCP

— APRN Alaska News (@aprn) September 2, 2015

In the community of Kotzebue, Joshua Melton, tribal president from the community of Noorvik, waited for Obama’s arrival on Wednesday. Noorvik, a village far from the state road system on the Kobuk river east of Kotzebue (roughly 550 miles north of Anchorage) has a population of around 600. In his town, people’s feelings about the president are mixed, he said. Many rely on hunting to supplement expensive store-bought food, and some worry about the president’s position on gun control. “Firearms are our lifeline out here,” he said.

But he said many people were concerned about the changes in weather, ice and animal behaviors that have been linked to a warming climate. It was good for Obama to see it, he said. There was anxiety in the region, too, about offshore drilling.

“That big oil spill on the Gulf Coast that they couldn’t handle that well, how can they handle a spill in our Chukchi sea?” he said. “There’s a lot of risk. Our ecosystem can be damaged real fast.”

Millie Hawley, president of the Native Village of Kivalina, waited with Melton, wearing a purple blazer decorated with Alaska Native designs that she had sewn herself. Kivalina, a coastal community north of Kotzebue, is predicted to be totally uninhabitable because of coastal erosion within the next few decades.

“I think Obama’s gotten the world’s attention, internationally and nationally,” she said “He confirmed that climate change is happening and needs to be addressed.”

And then he was gone. Last peek @POTUS in Anchorage #POTUSAK @aprn http://t.co/JqPIT2RavF pic.twitter.com/6wRNmAyTvi

— Anne Hillman (@hillman_anne) September 3, 2015

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