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For Wrangell, the past year was one mixed with successes and setbacks, shared tragedies and uplifting moments. Sales taxes collected over the spring and summer tour seasons neared all-time highs, with the visitor industry experiencing a good season overall. On the other end, fishermen experienced one of their worst harvests of the summer, which after a disappointing 2015 season has put the fiscal pinch on a number of local families, boat builders, and associated sectors. As 2017 dawns, concerns...
A lifelong Wrangell resident, Lawrence Bahovec, just celebrated his 100th birthday this week. Asked how he felt about reaching the milestone, he joked: "It makes me feel old." He was born in Chicago on January 4, 1917. Alaska and Hawaii both were still territories at the time, the United States had not yet joined into the fighting alongside the Allied Powers during the Great War, and Wrangell was still very much a frontier town on the nation's periphery. At a very young age, Bahovec was brought...
January 4: 1917: Wrangell, which has for years had the name of being the original one-horse town, now has a greater dignity, according to William G. Thomas, United States commissioner at Wrangell, who is at the Frye. The town already has two horses, one does the community’s dray work and the other, which is attached to the mill, in its spare time carries the residents their wood and coal. So great is the prosperity of Wrangell that in the spring there will be need of a motor truck. Mr. Thomas, whose duties include many of those performed by cou...
Monday, December 26 Alarm. Citizen Assist: Unlock Vehicle. Agency Assist: Line Crew. Tuesday, December 27 Disturbance: Title 47. Parking Complaint. DV Order: 20-day ex parte. Verbal warning given for parking in front of fire hydrant. Alarm. Wednesday, December 28 Report of Motor Vehicle Accident. Thursday, December 29 Abandoned Vehicle. Agency Assist: WMC. Friday, December 30 Domestic: Courtesy Transport. Citizen Assist. Traffic Stop: Verbal warning for not having headlights turned on. Traffic Stop: Verbal warning for no taillights. Saturday,...
John, 80, passed away on December 23, 2016 in Yuma, Arizona. He was born in Marshall, Texas to Virginia Bell Hall and John Bryan Hall, Jr. on May 25, 1936. He graduated from Marshall High School in 1954 and East Texas State University in 1958, whereupon he moved to Saint Mary's, Idaho in search of good fishing. He taught math and shop there for two years and then moved to Seward, Alaska in search of even better fishing. Turns out the fishing in Seward was great, but the earthquakes were a... Full story
The start of 2017 marks the 26th year for this weekly column that targets news for and about Alaska’s seafood industry. The goal is to make all readers more aware of the economic and cultural importance of our state’s first and oldest industry. Today, Alaska fishermen and processors provide 65 percent of our nation’s wild-caught seafood; it is also Alaska’s most valuable export to more than 100 countries around the world. The seafood industry puts more people to work throughout Alaska than oil/gas, mining, timber and tourism combined. The bul...
Wrangell's second-largest travel lodging has been sold, and will be repurposed as a senior housing and assisted living center this spring. The owners of the Sourdough Lodge sold the property to a group of buyers, who are currently renovating its rooms and preparing it for the new use. Once completed, by April 1 the lodge will be rechristened Harbor House Assisted Living Center and Senior Housing. One of the buyers, Shannon Bosdell, explained the facility will fill a need in the community for hou...
Temperatures in Southeast Alaska were for many communities the warmest on record, according to weather data collected by the National Weather Service. Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NWS data showed records were broken for Juneau, Petersburg, Annette and Haines, while Ketchikan had its second-warmest year on record. In Petersburg, the average temperature for the year was 46.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 2.9 degrees higher than normal. Its previous warmest year was in 2015, when the average temperature was...
Residents are reminded that January 15 is the cutoff for open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace. In a media release put out by Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium on Tuesday, it notes that many who already had insurance plans through the marketplace were automatically renewed for the new year. But for those who failed to pay their initial premiums on time or would like to change their policies, they still have time to do so ahead of the coverage period start on February 1. Otherwise, one might have to wait until March 1 to beg...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A union representing nearly 8,000 state employees has filed a complaint against Gov. Bill Walker and his administration for an alleged violation of contract. The Alaska State Employees Association filed the class-action grievance Tuesday in response to Walker’s recently announced budget plan for next fiscal year. The union takes issue with a part of the plan that calls for downsizing Department of Transportation staff and privatizing the majority of the agency’s design team. The grievance says plans to privatize union...
