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The hospital's charitable foundation is planning a big weekend August 11 and 12 for its annual golf tournament, hoping to boost its cancer care travel fund. The Wrangell Medical Center Foundation was established in 2007 with three goals in mind, among them supporting equipment needs at the hospital and providing health career scholarships to prospective students. It also has over the past decade distributed $97,000 in grants to individuals undergoing treatment for various iterations of cancer,...
events next week, the ninth Wrangell has hosted. The five-day series of events has been organized each year by Sylvia Ettefagh, an outfitter with Alaska Vistas whose work frequently conveys visitors southward to the Anan Wildlife Observatory, a mainland enclosure overlooking the Anan Creek lower falls and its robust bear population. As Alaskan a sight as the salmon they come to feed upon, the festival highlights these black and brown bears inhabiting the area surrounding Wrangell. Chock full of...
Summer has found Wrangell with a pair of vacancies in the realm of law and order, with the retirement of its magistrate judge at June's end and the transfer of its Alaska Wildlife Trooper on July 11. Chris Ellis had worked the magisterial track within the Alaska Court System for 30 years before retiring last month. Spending the first half of her service on the Seward Peninsula and Prince of Wales Island, Ellis served the court in Wrangell for 14 years. With her departure, ACS has decided to...
The Friends of the Museum will be hosting a reception next Tuesday to celebrate Wrangell's eponym, in a sense, and welcome a group of his descendants. The island is one of the namesakes of a prominent Russian explorer, the Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel, who in the early 19th century explored the Siberian Arctic and was appointed governor of the empire's holdings in Alaska in 1829. While an explorer, administrator and admiral for the Russian Empire, Wrangel was himself of German descent, part of th...
On Monday organizers of the regional business development competition Path to Prosperity announced their 12 finalists for 2018, three of which come from Petersburg and Wrangell. Focused on encouraging entrepreneurship in Southeast Alaska communities, P2P is a programming partnership between Spruce Root Inc. and The Nature Conservancy. The latter is an environmental organization centered in Arlington, Virginia, while the former is a rebranding of Haa Aaní Economic Development and its associated...
Laboratory results from a fatal car accident last month indicate the driver had been under the influence of alcohol prior to the crash. Rainie Doak had been driving home with her three children on Zimovia Highway late the evening of June 10 when she lost control of the vehicle prior to crossing the Pats Creek Bridge, about 12 miles south of Wrangell. The sports utility vehicle avoided hitting the guard rail but ran into the creek, upturning in the process and discharging the occupants. Doak and one of the children had been killed at the scene,...
A new director for the Nolan Center was named late last week, with Cyni Crary to begin in the position later this month. Crary has been the executive director at the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce for most of the past eight years, coming with a background in business administration. “I have many ideas for potentially increasing revenue and evaluating the work flow process to create efficiencies and growth,” she said in a statement. “I’m excited to explore new ideas with the team while continuing to advocate on behalf of Wrangell.” On the hiring,...
Technical trouble with the state ferry system has put a crimp on interisland travel recently. The M/V Columbia – one of two vessels making the north-south run each week in Southeast Alaska – had a longer than expected stop into Bellingham, Washington after arriving June 29. Crew members discovered black smoke in the ship's bow thruster room, prompting use of a fixed carbon dioxide fire fighting system and evacuation of the vessel. No fire had been evident, and all passengers aboard were rep...
With the start of the borough’s new business year beginning Sunday, residents Monday found summaries for local water quality during 2017 in their postal boxes. Conducted last year by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s Drinking Water Protection Program, sampling measured treated water for various inorganic and radioactive contaminants, as well as gauging residual disinfectants and disinfection by-products still present. Across the board, Wrangell’s water fell within regulatory thresholds for safety. The results showed an im...
In its first relatively short meeting since concluding its budget process earlier this month, the Borough Assembly nonetheless found time to wade into some sizable items Tuesday. Members approved moving ahead with a contract offer to Tamico RnR JV for float replacement and general renovation at Shoemaker Bay Harbor, in the amount of $8,355,240. (see related story) Additionally, a professional services agreement with PND Engineers to the tune of $731,328 for administration and inspection of the project was approved. A project contingency...
This year’s Independence Day festivities are set to start Saturday morning, kicking off five whole days of activities. Organized by the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce, the celebration is a high mark on the community’s annual calendar, typically drawing in hundreds of visitors. Every year’s observance has a theme, and 2018 will call attention to our shared resources and the opportunities they provide: “Thankful for our Great Land.” “Which could mean our local land, or our country,” said Cyni Crary, executive director at the Chamber. A logo captur...
The glass appears to be on the half-full side for Wrangell's water situation, as the season for peak usage of the resource starts up. "Our outlook is very good right now," reported Amber Al-Haddad, director for Public Works. While reservoir levels have dropped slightly since the spring due to drier than usual weather conditions, raw water reserves are still looking healthy. The city's treated water supply comes from a pair of open reservoirs, with the treatment plant drawing from the lower of...
Meeting in Wrangell this week, board members with Southeast Alaska Power Agency approved a municipal rebate and power rates for the coming year. Headquartered in Ketchikan, the organization generates and distributes power for the Gateway Borough, Wrangell and Petersburg. Board membership is split between the three member communities, meeting at regular intervals throughout the year to set rates and direct projects. Pending a successfully completed audit, member communities would split between...
The hunt is on for a whole crop of high-level management positions in different city departments. The City and Borough of Wrangell is in the early stages of finding replacements for the heads of the Nolan Center, Wrangell Municipal Light and Power and Public Works, plus the city’s top accountant and a newly-created maintenance lead position. The tidal wave of turnover started on April 16, when WMLP superintendent Clay Hammer stepped down in order to head projects for Southeast Alaska Power Agency. City manager Lisa Von Bargen reported the s...
A pair of major state-managed construction projects are either under way or about to move forward for 2018. Years in the making, after wrapping up some outstanding right-of-way issues this winter, the rehabilitation of Wrangell’s Evergreen Avenue finally began last Thursday. The Department of Transportation and contractor SECON got to work, starting on the airport side of the 0.91 mile long project and working their way westward. Crews will begin with drainage work on both sides of the road, especially at driveway crossings along the route. B...
After 30 years on the bench, Wrangell's district magistrate will conclude her legal career today. Chris Ellis has served as a magistrate judge for First District Court in Wrangell for 14 of those years, with most of her preceding tenure spent in Craig. When she graduated with her bachelor's degree in 1973, law hadn't been on her mind, but Alaska was. "Basically I studied anthropology with a specialty in archaeology, and my goal was to come to Alaska," she said. Ellis found herself drawn to the V...
The local tourism sector has seen some logistical gains this season, as a trio of new boats are added to Wrangell's outfitter fleet. Mark Galla, of Alaska Peak and Seas, launched a newly upgraded craft from the city dock just last week. Galla has been taking visitors up the Stikine River and to Anan Creek since 1987, going into the business full-time from 1990 on. "It's a 30-foot Bentz jet boat, 18-passenger, two crew," he said of the craft, named Bear Necessity. The aluminum boat was...
For the first time since 1995, Wrangell will be hosting the annual shareholders’ meeting for Sealaska Corporation this weekend. Formed in 1972 after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act had been adopted the previous year, Sealaska has become the largest of 13 regional corporations subsequently created in the state. The corporation represents 22,000 Native shareholders from among the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples, of which 254 live in Wrangell. Headquartered in Juneau, Sealaska manages 650,000 acres of tribal lands and makes i...
The City and Borough Assembly took its next serious step in redirecting Wrangell Medical Center’s future on Tuesday, authorizing a resolution to pursue a strategic affiliation with Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium. Earlier this year the city and regional healthcare provider began to cooperatively explore a new approach to managing WMC, a municipally-run critical access hospital. The hospital has been experiencing a revenue crisis for several years, and even with additional funds from city reserves has remained low on operating cash. H...
A group of visiting AmeriCorps volunteers have been leaving their mark around Wrangell the past month, with the community being their last stop in a 10-month tour of service. Ten volunteers coming from all corners of the country have already been doing an assortment of projects for the community. They are part of a wider program which operates one of its five campuses out of Sacramento, California. "The program that we are in is the National Civilian Community Corps," explained Kara Riley, the...
A bridgeside traffic accident was discovered Monday evening, one which resulted in two fatalities and left two more passengers critically injured. Rainie Doak was traveling with her three children northbound on Zimovia Highway late Sunday or early Monday morning. Doak is believed to have been at the wheel when the Ford Expedition lost control approaching the Pats Creek Bridge, about 12 miles south of Wrangell. The road approaches the bridge at an angle and conditions that evening had been wet....
The three-way royalty competition leading up to this year's July 4 celebrations has had a change of cast, Wrangell Chamber of Commerce announced last week. A regular feature of the local festivities, royalty candidates sell food and tickets to raise funds, which get divided between the Chamber's Independence Day fund and the contestants. Generally, contestants are high schoolers or young adults pledging their share toward a particular goal, such as continued education costs. Each year, the...
Following an estimated 14 hours of discussion over three separate workshops, members of the Wrangell City and Borough Assembly approved a budget for the 2019 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Getting there has not been an easy process, mulling over among other things a restructuring of how public facilities maintenance and the Public Works Department are arranged, proposed by the city manager as a cost saving measure. Under this proposal, Lisa Von Bargen envisioned a separate division within public works tasked with public maintenance and equip...
Taking advantage of the fair weather, dozens of golfers hit the links at Muskeg Meadows over the weekend for a pair of tournaments. On June 8 the Stikine Sportsmen Association's annual tournament drew 35 participants for a best ball nine-hole. A team of three took first place with a net score of 19, starting from a handicap of 14, featuring Trevor Sande, John Smith and Dave Hansen. Also with 19 and a handicap of 14, runners up were Mike Ottesen, Tyler Gunn, Chuck Hay and Aaron Powell. In third...
With the legislative season at an end and no special sessions left in sight, candidates for Alaska’s primaries and general elections have already put themselves forward for voters’ consideration. By the end of the June 1 filing deadline, House District 36 – an area of representation encompassing Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Saxman and other outlying communities – had three candidates for voters to choose between in the coming election. Two of them will be running unopposed in their prospective primaries against the incumbent, the politic...