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A conditional-use permit for a $150 million development proposed on nearly three acres of Juneau’s downtown waterfront received approval Aug. 7 from the city planning commission. The action follows the commission’s vote in early July to approve another permit related to the same development for construction of a cruise ship dock located along Gastineau Channel just off Egan Drive as the thoroughfare nears downtown. The two projects, proposed by Huna Totem Corp., are part of the Alaska Native corporation’s large vision for its downtown water...
Juneau tourism companies are being forced to turn away visitors who want to see the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area this summer as they are reaching the commercial tourism limit due to “unprecedented increases in visitation,” the U.S. Forest Service announced July 7. The Forest Service each year doles out permitted “service days” to tour providers, such as bus companies or taxi services carrying tourists, in order to manage the area and protect the ecosystem. A service day equates to one tourist visiting the Mendenhall Glacier for one day...
The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is set to become the new owner of Juneau-based Alaska Seafood Co., the tribe’s president said. “We’re finalizing the deal right now and we will probably take ownership by the first of the month,” Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson said Thursday, June 22, in a phone interview. The Alaska Seafood Co., established in 1987, is a seafood processor that sells Alaska salmon, black cod, halibut and salmon caviar including fresh, frozen, canned and smoked products. Its seafood can be found...
Alaska high school students would be required to complete a civics education course or receive a passing score on a civics assessment exam to graduate if the state House next year accepts legislation approved by the Senate. Senators unanimously approved the bill on May 5, and the House could take up the measure next year. The legislation comes as recent national data shows the first-ever decline in U.S. eighth grade students’ history and civics test scores, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which released the data Ma...
Hundreds celebrated at a dedication ceremony Saturday the first dozen of 30 new totem poles along the Juneau waterfront that will comprise Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail. Over the past week, the poles carved by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian artists were raised along the downtown waterfront, each depicting the crests of their respective clans and tribes. Most of the artists spent more than six months creating the poles after being commissioned by Sealaska Heritage Institute, which launched t...
Levi Foster of Anchorage said it’s taken him decades to recover from the “emotional abuse and manipulation” he experienced while he was subjected to conversion therapy, the largely discredited practice that attempts to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation. He said that experience is what led him, and other survivors and advocates, to speak in front of the state House Health and Social Services committee on March 16 in support of a bill sponsored by Juneau Rep. Sara Hannan that would ban licensed physicians, psychia...
A scammer stole nearly $270,000 from the Juneau School District this fall — and it’s unlikely the district will recover the money. In a memo shared with the City and Borough of Juneau Finance Committee at its March 1 meeting, Finance Director Jeff Rogers provided details of the fraud and information shared with him in early December by the school district. A person posing as a vendor for the district asked staff for a change to the company’s direct-deposit information using a spoofed email address made to look as though it belonged to the v...
What was described by a Southeast tribal leader as a benchmark achievement has led to what could become landmark litigation over Native lands. The state of Alaska filed a lawsuit Jan. 17 against the federal government over a small plot of land in downtown Juneau, which was approved as the first parcel owned by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to be put into federal trust. Lands held in trust are afforded permanent protection from state or municipal actions that could be detrimental to the tribe, according to...
Snowplow and bus drivers are exceptionally critical occupations this time of year — but they’re in short supply statewide. A new Juneau-based program may change that. The $1.7 trillion federal spending bill recently passed by Congress includes $750,000 for University of Alaska Southeast to establish and operate a commercial driver’s license (CDL) education training program at the UAS Juneau campus. According to UAS Chancellor Karen Carey, the new program will help fill the many positions for CDL-certified drivers currently vacant across Southea...
A late change in the Senate to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed by Congress last month deleted funding to purchase a privately owned icebreaker that the U.S. Coast Guard said could be homeported in Juneau. A $150 million authorization for the Coast Guard to purchase the vessel was removed from the bill that had to pass by Dec. 23 to avoid a government shutdown. The bill passed the House that final day, after winning Senate approval earlier in the week. The removal of the funding was disappointing, both of Alaska’s senators s...
Nearing the end of his flight from Seattle to Juneau, Frank Hughes looked out his plane window to the ground below where the outline of the Kake slowly appeared beneath him. An excitement built in him, one that he said made him feel like his heart had just skipped a beat. Though Hughes has lived in the small Southeast Native community for years and has come and gone from it too many times to count, this time was different — because he wasn’t alone in coming home. In the belly of the plane sat a sturdy black bin locked by zip ties and sca...
Green might surround the Southeast Alaska village of Angoon, but it’s not that common inside the community grocery store. However, despite the challenges, students and faculty at Angoon’s Chatham School District are taking steps to change that. Angoon agroscience hydroponic cultivation class Haa Aani’: Haa Yaasi’ Haa (Our Land, Our Harvest) is in its second year of operation. Its goal, according to Ryan Smith, the teacher and project manager, is to teach the students how to cultivate healthy and sustainable foods to eventually provide to the...
Dozens of hands small and large held a firm grip on the 30-foot-long dugout canoe they pushed down Angoon's Front Street despite their shoes slipping on the rain-soaked road. Neither the potholes on the road nor the rain on Oct. 26 seemed to discourage the more than 50 Chatham School District students and Angoon residents from pushing what was the first dugout canoe made in Angoon since the U.S. Navy bombardment 140 years ago. The 1882 bombardment destroyed all but one of its fleet of dugout...
Millions of federal dollars are going to Alaska Native organizations and entities across the state for education projects. The U.S. Department of Education has announced it awarded funds totaling more than $35 million dispersed over three years to support Alaska Native education programs statewide. Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska were among the 30 organizations that were awarded the funds. The program aims to improve curricula, education programs and education needs for Alaska...
British Columbia may be able to move ahead with cleanup of the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine just a few miles from the Taku River that flows into Alaska waters. Cleanup of the property just under 20 miles from the Canada-U.S. border, about 40 miles from Juneau, has been held up while the mine’s bankrupt owner, Chieftain Metals, of Ontario, was in receivership proceedings in court. This month’s end of the receivership wipes away any legal holdups that have prevented the provincial government from taking action. The only statement made by the...
Bear activity has been increasing in Juneau in August, said wildlife officials, and some of the bruins are looking in parked cars to grab some food. Carl Koch, assistant area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said the department is monitoring two black bears in the Mendenhall Valley area that have learned how to open car doors, and have caused “fairly significant damage” to at least three vehicles in the past few weeks. Another bear occurrence was posted on the Juneau Community Collective Facebook page, sho...
The summer Dungeness crab commercial season ended Saturday, with reports of low catch rates. “On a regionwide level, there are no bright spots, and generally regionwide catch rates have been down,” said Joseph Stratman, the lead Southeast crab biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It was a shorter-than-typical summer Dungeness season for the 201 permitted crabbers in Southeast. The department trimmed about two weeks from the season after data collected from the first week of the season, which started June 15, pointed to an estim...