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The state has so far not received any applications from a number of floathouse owners contacted last autumn. Since October, the Department of Natural Resources has been reaching out to identified owners of floating facilities anchored along the Stikine River’s tidal area, the land which is under its clear jurisdiction after resolving a longstanding dispute with the United States Forest Service last March. The floathouses being targeted are those anchored within the tidal influence of the river, which ends just beyond the terminus of Shakes S...
PETERSBURG – An application for an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) permit alteration to release 40 million chum salmon in Thomas Bay brought forth by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) has been approved. The application process has taken just over a year to secure the location, north of Petersburg, for the release but the change is something NSRAA general manager Steve Reifenstuhl has been thinking about for a while now. “I looked at Thomas Bay approximately 20 years,” he says. “Had temperature probes o...
The end of the RM038 moose season is in sight, and as of noon Tuesday the total stood at 97 moose taken, including 11 illegal kills. The season total is on track to exceed 100 moose for the third year in a row, according to Rich Lowell, area wildlife biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G). The number of moose illegal kills was low during the first half of the season, but they recently increased and now represent 11 percent of the total harvest. Nine of the 97 moose harvested to date failed to comply with the local antler...
Repairs to the Alaska Marine Highway System’s M/V Columbia are going to take longer than anticipated and it won’t return to service this year, according to Jeremy Woodrow, Alaska Department of Transportation spokesman. The ferry headed for dry dock in Oregon at the end of September to be looked over after divers in Wrangell reported a bent starboard propeller. After arriving in Oregon, the damage turned into much more, and the vessel will take around six weeks to repair, Woodrow says. “Upon dry dock inspection it was discovered that the prope...
The Alaska Marine Highway System’s M/V Columbia is scheduled for a trip to Oregon for repairs after divers noticed a bent starboard propeller late last week, according to Jeremy Woodrow, Alaska Department of Transportation spokesman. “Not a huge bend, but there was a noticeable bend,” he said. “That was the only visible damage the divers noticed.” Earlier in the week, the vessel was traveling Lynn Canal to Haines or Skagway when those onboard noticed a vibration. Soon after, it was discovered the vibration happened when the vessel exceeded...
PETERSBURG – Earlier this month the buzz around a monster halibut caught by local commercial fishermen in Thomas Bay went crazy after news of the catch spread through social media sites. Many of the comments expressed amazement for the monster catch, but some talked about sadness because another “breeder” was taken out of the reproduction equation. Multiple people talked about the cruelty of killing such a remarkable fish or simply said, “Should have put it back.” No matter what your stance is, there are two undeniable truths. First, the fish...
Researchers involved in a four-year collaborative project to study the impact of subglacial discharge at LeConte Glacier were in town this week to conduct fieldwork in LeConte Bay. The study is focused on improving our understanding of how tidewater glaciers interact with the ocean and how the ocean interacts with the glacier. "Basically, the short story is we are looking at how runoff from the glacier affects circulation in the fjord, and then how that circulation then affects melting of the...
Port Protection lost a larger than life resident last week when Jack Mason passed away, and the impact will be felt for years to come. Mason, 88, passed away Aug. 11, 2016 at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. He was known for always being on the go and he worked up until the moment he had to be medevaced off the island last Tuesday. A generator went down in the middle of the night and Mason tripped and fell in his bedroom. He hit his head, causing a brain injury, but Mason...
PETERSBURG – Brian Mattson and Doug Corl are no strangers to catching fish, the pair have fished together for almost two decades, and last weekend was no exception. Around 10 p.m. on Saturday the local fishermen hooked a monster. They made a quick trip on the F/V Day Spring to Thomas Bay, rather than going south of town, because they drew a NOAA observer. Two sets later they had a nearly 400-pound halibut aboard. They caught the fish "right where everybody goes tanner crabbing," Mattson says. "...
Alaska Region. The Chugach was part of a ranger boat fleet that once numbered 11 strong, and worked along 12,000 miles of Alaska coastline. By 2005, the majority of the other ranger boats were in private ownership. The Chugach is 62-feet long and she's just over 14-feet wide. It is listed on the National Historic Register of Places, and in conjunction with the National Historic Preservation Act the agency is required to take certain steps to ask the public what could be done with the vessel....
PETERSBURG – When a person is rowing a freshly licensed, hand-constructed 16-foot boat from Washington to Juneau, bad days are bound to happen. One happened right before Blake Miller of Missoula, Montana, rowed into North Harbor early one morning last week. After being about 3/16 inch on his map, he ended up on a massive mud flat. So his options were, get up at 1 a.m. and be on the water by 2 a.m., or roll the boat over a couple hundred yards of rock and mud. He also had the option of waiting u...
A 28-year-old Seattle man working aboard the F/V Odin was found deceased in his bunk by a fellow crew member Saturday morning. The cause of death is unknown, according to Tim Buness, Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department chief and Search and Rescue coordinator. The vessel, owned by Mark Severson of Petersburg, was located in Anita Bay near Wrangell, when the unresponsive Charles "Rhett" Richards was discovered. According to Buness, the U.S. Coast Guard and Wrangell Search and Rescue were in...
PETERSBURG – Hundreds of Petersburg residents turned out to take part in a candlelight vigil for the victims in a one-vehicle crash July 4 morning. The vigil began downtown and made its way to the ballfields, where paper lanterns were released, and the firework show concluded shortly after. Molly Parks, 18, and Marie Giesbrecht, 19, passed away as a result of the crash. Two others in the crash were taken to the local hospital. Petersburg Police Department received notice of a car over the guard rail and in a ditch near the South Harbor pa...
Navigating the Wrangell Narrows can be tricky, if not treacherous, depending on the vessel size and time of year. On June 14, Britta Adams of Ketchikan became the first known individual to swim the body of water from south to north. "I just knew that I had a tide, and I had six hours," she says. "My goal was to get from Marker 1 to Marker 42, the end of Pinball Alley, and everything beyond that was just a bonus." The water was 48 degrees when Adams jumped in at 4:45 a.m., and 15 minutes later...
PETERSBURG – The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) board held its regular meeting in Petersburg last week, with board members in attendance from Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. Much of the meeting focused on project updates and approving the company’s FY17 budget. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson asked the board to consider a motion to provide one-year notice to end the contract with Ketchikan Public Utilites (KPU), concerning operations at Swan Lake hydroelectric plant near Ketchikan. For Acteson, the move makes sense because it would inc...
Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) board of directors held a special board meeting telephonically to approve a budget increase and construction contract. During a February meeting in Wrangell the board discussed the possibility of completing the Swan-Tyee Intertie Helicopter Pad Project in FY2016. SEAPA staff requested a $937,395 increase to the fiscal year budget to complete the project. The approval of the budget included a $53,165 increase to the overall budget of the project. Voting alternate and electrical superintendent Clay Hammer...
Life is an open book for Fr. Steven Gallagher, the new pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Petersburg and St. Rose of Lima Parish in Wrangell, and there is one common theme-public service. Fr. Gallagher, 63, is taking over for Fr. Thomas Weise who passed away in December of a heart attack, and the unexpected death resonates with Gallagher. "Father Thomas was a great priest in this area; he was 16 years younger than I am," Gallagher says. "We all have expiration dates." For Gallagher,...
PETERSBURG – Earlier this month a team of Oregon State University researchers visited Southeast to tag humpback whales and track their winter migration. The four person team is part of a Marine Mammal Institute (MMI) study that began tagging the endangered species last November. The goal of the two year study is to answer questions like how wide their travel range really is, where they congregate, how long they stay in specific places, and when they depart after staying in a specific place or area. These may seem like basic questions, but a l...
In the early-2000s, the Alaska National Guard (ANG) relied upon a rural presence. Guardsmen of that rural force were deployed to Iraq in 2005 and 2006, which was the first time ANG members were deployed to a combat zone since WWII, according to Guardsman Matthew Duddles. The ANG rural presence sharply declined after the deployments ended, and the decline continues to this day with the 761st Military Police Battalion of the Guard in Southeast scheduled to be deactivated by the end of 2017....
If you have traveled around Southeast in the past couple of years, you have probably noticed the white, almost ghostly looking trees heavily peppered among what was once healthy forest. Those are dead yellow cedar, and the remarkable thing about the dead trees-also known as snags-is they can remain standing for up to 100 years. The decline in yellow cedar came on the radar of the US Forest Service (USFS) in the 1980's, but USFS research plant pathologist Paul Hennon says the problem was...
PETERSBURG – For its September regular board meeting, Southeast Alaska Power Authority (SEAPA) board members met in Petersburg earlier this week. The board heard updates concerning the company’s ongoing efforts to catalog hydro sites in Southeast. This summer, a consultant flight crew moved personnel and equipment to remote areas, including lakes that have never had bathymetric studies conducted on them. The process reveals underwater topography while recording the depth of the lakes. Falls Lake and Scenery Lake were both mapped and rec...
