The Brooklyn-raised, motorcycle-loving wife of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will make a campaign swing in Alaska this week, just in time for Saturday's Democratic caucuses.
Jane Sanders will arrive in Alaska Thursday and meet with reporters in Anchorage that afternoon. She will spend much of Friday in Dillingham, one of the spots that anchored President Obama's Alaska trip last year. On Saturday in Anchorage, she'll have coffee at the Bear Tooth Theatrepub at 8 a.m., an event open to the public. Then there'll be a march before the caucuses, which start at 10 a.m.
In Dillingham, the whole community is invited to a lunch and town hall Friday from noon to 2 p.m. at the Dillingham Middle School gym, according to Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay. Sanders is scheduled to talk about the campaign and answer questions. Then, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., a second event will be held for Alaska Native women at the Dillingham women's shelter, known as SAFE, for Safe and Fear-Free Environment. That event is framed around a variety of issues including child care, health care and education. But it also will be a listening session for problems rampant in rural Alaska such as domestic violence and sexual assault, and won't be open to the press, according to Jill Yordy, who is managing the Sanders campaign in Alaska.
Sanders will also meet with Bristol Bay tribes, who plan to talk about protecting salmon-rich Bristol Bay from threats including the proposed Pebble mine, Hurley said. The tribes hope the Sanders campaign will take a stand on Pebble as a result of the visit, she said.
"It's very exciting that one of the candidates is paying attention to Alaska Native issues, paying attention to tribal issues," Hurley said. "It means a lot to us in Bristol Bay."
Hillary Clinton has already spoken up on Bristol Bay. She believes it has "incredible economic, cultural and environmental value" and that both the fishery and watershed should be protected from "harmful mining activity," her campaign said. Clinton believes "the proposed Pebble mine project should not move forward," according to Clinton spokeswoman Gwen Rocco.
Jane Sanders was a community organizer when she met her husband in 1981, the night he won his first race and became mayor of Burlington, Vermont. She rode motorcycles in an earlier stage of life and stopped when she had children, according to a profile on the culture website Fusion. She served for seven years as president of tiny Burlington College before resigning in 2011. She is considered a key adviser to her husband.