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The annual Wrangell King Salmon Derby is tentatively set for June 15 through July 2. Though the chamber of commerce, which is still organizing the event, hasn’t officially set the dates or prizes, the derby typically runs for about two weeks, with prizes for the largest fish and other categories. Entry fees also have not yet been determined. In past years, there has been a kids 12-and-under category, and the adult category encompasses ages 13 and up. Entrants need to have a state sportfishing license and a state king salmon stamp. Alaska r...
Bring a fishing pole and plenty of enthusiasm to Pats Lake for an annual event sure to lure in the whole family. Family Fishing Day on June 24 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will have something for everyone, from lure making to casting practice and even a free lunch. The U.S. Forest Service Wrangell District is hosting the event along with the Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Indian General Assistance Program and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Special youth fishing regulations will be in place the third and fourth Saturday and Sunday at P...
The siding on the exterior of the pool building is deteriorating and local contractor Johnson Construction and Supply has been awarded a contract to take on the repairs. The $474,497 contract is funded through a combination of borough funds and state grant money from the Lost Revenue Relief Grant. The state distributed the federal money to Alaska municipalities as a form of pandemic relief, to help compensate for reduced sales tax and other revenues. It can be used for maintenance of old infrastructure and new builds. The siding project will...
The borough’s contract with waste disposal company Republic is up for renewal and the company has proposed a 25% price increase for its services to Wrangell. Other Southeast communities have contracts with Republic that are set to expire next year, so Wrangell hopes to join with them and bargain collectively for a more affordable contract. “We talked about partnering with them to get a bigger contract and have a little more negotiating power,” said Borough Manager Jeff Good. However, that approach won’t be possible for Wrangell in the short t...
An Airbus H130 helicopter takes off from the back of the Scenic Eclipse in front of Wrangell on May 15. The helicopter is one of two in the Scenic Luxury Cruises and Tours fleet and can be added to a tour package. The Scenic Eclipse, which can host up to 200 passengers for Arctic tours, is billed as the "world's first discovery yacht" by its operators and is designed for scenic luxury cruises and tours. It travels throughout the Americas, Antarctica and the Arctic. It has a crew of up to 192,...
Wrangell Sentinel staff won five awards in the annual Alaska Press Club competition, with radio station KSTK bringing home four honors in the statewide contest for journalists. Marc Lutz won second place in the Best Feature Story category (small newspapers) for his report in the Sept. 21, 2022, Sentinel about retired teacher Jacquie Dozier’s 1965 lunch with Queen Elizabeth II while in the U.K. on a teacher exchange program. The judge commented on Lutz’s work: “A timely memory of QEII, published just after the monarch’s death. The reporte...
After being delayed one week and one day to reopen, Sweet Tides will again welcome customers on Thursday. The bakery has been closed since early March to expand its storefront and offer specialty coffees in a café atmosphere. Due to a backlog in permitting through the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, it was unknown how long the business would be delayed in reopening. Owner Shawna Buness posted on Facebook last week that the permits were approved the day after a Sentinel story reported she didn’t know if it would take a week or...
The Southeast Conference is conducting its annual survey of business owners and managers, looking to gauge the economic outlook and priorities for the region. Last year’s business climate survey collected 440 responses, including 26 from Wrangell. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents had a positive view of the Southeast business climate, and half expected that business would be better than the past year as tourists returned to Alaska and travelers put COVID-19 behind them. Business leaders last year reported that the lack of available h...
For the seventh year in a row, federal managers have closed the Stikine River chinook subsistence fishery to help preserve weak runs of the returning salmon. The U.S. Forest Service, under authority delegated by the Federal Subsistence Board, last week announced the closure to run May 15 through June 20. “The preseason forecast for the Stikine River is 11,700 large chinook salmon (greater than 28 inches in length), which is below the escapement goal range of 14,000 to 28,000 large chinook,” the Forest Service statement said. Though this yea...
Drifting ash from a volcanic eruption in the Russian Far East forced Alaska Airlines to cancel more than 100 flights last week, including its northbound and southbound jets through Wrangell and Petersburg last Thursday and Friday. Flights throughout Alaska had largely returned to normal by Saturday, other than a couple of missed flights to Sitka that day as a portion of the ash cloud hung around the community. Although a “very large area” of gas left over from the ash cloud still hovered over the eastern Gulf of Alaska near Sitka by Sat...
The shelters at Shoemaker Park and City Park were damaged by fire and vandalism last week in two separate incidents. On April 3, the south-end shelter at City Park was used by a group of youths to camp overnight. Food, garbage and human waste were left behind, the Parks and Recreation Department reported. On April 6, more destructive damage occurred at Shoemaker Park as two fires were built inside and outside the shelter. The inside fire, caused by burning a pallet in the fireplace, scorched...
While the high school state championship tournament in Anchorage was attracting a lot of hoopla, the Stikine Hoops Invitational was netting plenty of its own excitement back home, including a big win. Team Wrangell Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Girls Basketball Club hosted teams from Petersburg, Ketchikan and Juneau and won first place in the A Team category over the weekend. Three teams competed in each the A and B divisions, which were set up as a round-robin, double-elimination bracket....
Randy William Churchill Jr., 39, died Feb. 22 after a tree fell on top of him near Pats Lake. Wrangell Police Department received a 911 call at 5:59 a.m. from Churchill’s companion, requesting an ambulance. Police arrived on the scene to assist with removing the tree and emergency medical services personnel began performing lifesaving procedures. Churchill was transported to the hospital, where he passed away. Police Chief Tom Radke could not confirm the exact time of death but said Churchill did not regain consciousness after the accident. ...
The Alaska Marine Highway System has released its draft summer schedule for coastal communities, proposing a similar level of service to Wrangell as last year. The largest vessel in the fleet, the Columbia, coming out of a three-year tie-up, is scheduled to make weekly voyages between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska, stopping in Wrangell northbound on Sundays and southbound on Wednesdays. It is replacing the Matanuska, which is out of service indefinitely for extended repairs. Wrangell would see a second ferry the second week of ea...
It took several years after Abigail Armstrong first had the idea, but a three-day conference to train musicians, artists and others in sharing and spreading a religious message is planned for Feb. 3-5 in Wrangell. “It’s a Southeast-wide conference,” she said. Actually, it reaches farther than that. About 10 Hawaiians are coming to town to help lead the sessions, Armstrong said last week. She met the Hawaiian teachers at a 2021 conference of the University of the Nations’ Youth with a Mission, which started Armstrong’s planning work to bring...
The Sentinel and the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau are joining together to put out a more comprehensive booklet to help draw visitors to town, guide them when they are here, and help promote the community’s businesses. The Sentinel has been publishing a free annual visitor guide for decades. The Convention and Visitor Bureau, which has published its own, smaller guide for years, is almost out of copies and needed to print a new version this year. Rather than continue with two separate publications, the borough’s advisory board dec...
Shoppers who have items shipped via FedEx can probably assume higher charges come the end of the month. On Jan. 30, a surcharge of $13.25 per package will be added to any delivery the company has deemed “remote.” The fee applies to FedEx Express and FedEx Ground services and covers Wrangell and most of Alaska outside of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan. Rival delivery company UPS last year instituted its own remote-area surcharge, which increased to $13.05 per package in the Lower 48 on Dec. 27, up from $12 last year, and as much as...
Health care services for Native Americans and Alaska Natives will be bolstered by a provision included in the government spending bill approved by Congress in the final hours of the 2022 session. The measure provides more certainty for a federal agency that delivers health care to more than 2.5 million people. A coalition of lawmakers from Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Alaska and elsewhere fought to include advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service in the bill, marking a first for the chronically underfunded agency as a...
Sealaska Heritage Institute has released an hour-long film on the history and origin of Celebration since the first gathering in 1982. The film, titled “40 Years of Celebration - A Biennial Festival of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Cultures,” begins with the first Celebration when Native people came together in Juneau to celebrate their cultures. The film shows the growth of the event over the years. It started off with primarily elders and has expanded to include all ages. It also has grown to include art shows, a Native artists market, foo...
Wrangell will go without any state ferry service for three weeks this winter while the Alaska Marine Highway System cuts back on port calls as its ships head into winter overhaul. There will be nothing northbound out of Wrangell after the Kennicott’s scheduled Jan. 6 sailing to Petersburg and Juneau until the Matanuska comes back into service after its winter work and stops here northbound on Feb. 3. The Kennicott’s last southbound run before winter overhaul is scheduled for Jan. 11 in Wrangell, with the Matanuska set to stop here Feb. 6 on...
The Wrangell Swim Club traveled to Petersburg to compete in the November Rain swim meet on Nov. 11 to 13. It was the first time since 2019 the club has competed in the meet. Club coach Jamie Roberts said the team didn't compete the past two years due to COVID-19. This year's team included 19 swimmers, of which 12 were at their first meet. Swim clubs from all over Southeast competed at the event, and Wrangell's swimmers competed in 146 individual races, which included 83 first-time swims with 24...
World-renowned showtunes and brightly colored costumes, cute children dancing and Austrians romancing — if these are a few of your favorite things, then the Nolan Center’s upcoming production of “The Sound of Music” might be the perfect way to spend your weekend. Director Tom Jenkins praised the cast and crew for the “tremendous effort” they have put into the show over the past few months. The child actors, in particular, have impressed him with their “great memories” and their ability to nail complex singing and dancing numbers like “D...
The Wrangell High School girls volleyball team traveled to Skagway to participate in the north seeding tournament last Saturday through Tuesday, winning 12 out of 13 sets and four matches in the first three days. The weekend’s scores are: Versus Haines: 25-17 (Wrangell), 25-16 (Wrangell) and 25-12 (Wrangell). Versus Skagway: 25-19 (Wrangell), 25-8 (Wrangell) and 25-9 (Wrangell). Versus Klawock: 25-18 (Wrangell), 25-19 (Wrangell), 22-25 (Klawock) and 25-16 (Wrangell). Versus Craig: 25-19 (Wrangell), 25-22 (Wrangell) and 25-20 (Wrangell). W...
Wrangell registered voters have the option to cast their ballots early if they will be out of town on election day Nov. 8 or would prefer to get it out of the way in advance. Early voting opened Monday and is available 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays through Nov. 7 at City Hall. The state is offering early voting sites in more than 150 communities across Alaska. Election-day voting in Wrangell is set for 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Nolan Center. Alaskans will be using the state’s new ranked-choice voting system, just as they did in the August s...
David Wilson will serve as school board president for a second year. He was selected by board members at their Oct. 10 meeting. Wilson has served on the board since 2017. He ran unopposed for the board in the Oct. 4 municipal election. Members selected Brittani Robbins as vice president. She has served on the board since last year. Angela Allen was reappointed to a second term as the board secretary. Filling out the five-member school board are new members Elizabeth Roundtree and Esther Ashton. They replaced Jessica Whitaker and Julia...
