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The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced late last week the extent of its expected king salmon sport fishing restrictions for this season. The region wide closure to retention of Chinook began on Sunday, April 1, to last through the first half of the summer for some waters. Citing a poor preseason forecast, ADFG has decided to close the majority of marine waters within the Petersburg-Wrangell area, not only in District 8 but also in 6, 7 and 10. (see map) The lengthiest closure will focu...
With this week’s edition the price of both the Wrangell Sentinel and Petersburg Pilot increases to $1.50 from the $1 price charged for nearly two decades. The Sentinel price went from $.75 to $1 in 2000. The Pilot price was last adjusted in 1995. “We’re producing papers filled with local news produced by staff members that are recognized for the quality of their work each year,” publisher Ron Loesch noted this week. Just this past year the Sentinel earned four Alaska Press Club honors including 2nd place for Best Weekly, while the Pilot e...
April 4, 1918 The long awaited Alaska draft will come on June 30, or very near to that date, according to word received by the Governor’s office from Provost Marshal General E. H. Crowder. The Alaska selective service men will not go to Camp Lewis for their training, but will, as intimated in The Dispatch several months ago, be trained at Ft. Seward. The telegram from Gen. Crowder reads as follows: “The Secretary of War has directed that Alaska quota will be called to colors about June 30, 1918, and that they will not be sent to the United Sta...
Monday, March 26 Agency assist: AST. Tuesday, March 27 Nothing to report. Wednesday, March 28 Assault reported. Assault reported. Citizen Assist: Toxic smell coming from downtown area. Thursday, March 29 Found items: Owner picked up items. Citation issued: Ian Howard Carson, 27: No proof of insurance, verbal warning for no registration and headlight out. Truancy: Caller requested officer assistance with help getting child to go to school. MVA. Agency assist: Injured eagle 1:50 p.m. Paper service. Paper service. Officer responded to a welfare...
An important roundtable discussion on the future of public health care provision in Wrangell is set for this weekend, followed by a community meeting Monday night. At the behest of the City and Borough Assembly, a steering committee made up of representatives of a half-dozen stakeholder groups is in the process of being formed. From the assembly itself, Roland Howell and Patty Gilbert will be joined by Dan Neumeister of Southeast Rural Health Consortium and Mark Walker from its Alaska Island Community Services clinic; Jennifer Bates and Olinda...
Wrangell Public School District has narrowed the field in its search for a new school superintendent. Current superintendent Patrick Mayer informed the WPSD Board in February his intention to move on after finishing out the current academic year. Since then the district has been working with the Association of Alaska School Boards to find a replacement. AASB had been the organization which had referred Mayer when he was hired in 2014. After working out a fee with the Wrangell district, the association put forward eight interested candidates...
Since June 2017 this newspaper has received three price increases totaling $167 metric/ton from our Canadian newsprint supplier. This newspaper, along with other Alaskan publishers, purchases their newsprint from Canadian manufacturers because there are not enough U.S. paper mills to meet the demands of the newspaper industry. The Trump administration has levied a 22% tariff on newsprint imported from Canada based upon the complaint of a single paper mill (North Pacific Paper Company) that is accusing Canadian mills of engaging in dumping...
Irene Ingle Public Library will be holding an open house next week, serving up cake as a way of celebrating National Library Week. On March 13, Wrangell Mayor David Jack proclaimed the week of April 8 to be dedicated to libraries. Institutions of learning available to the whole community, they are not only repositories for books but provide internet access, educational programming and other resources visitors may benefit from. All next week, Jack encouraged residents to stop by their library and maybe say a quiet word or two of thanks. To mark...
The Chamber of Commerce’s annual king salmon derby has been cancelled, it announced last week, following emergency management orders issued by the Department of Fish and Game (see king salmon story). A tradition for over 60 years, initially the month-long fishing derby was to be pared down to weekends this year, given restrictions ADFG had at first countenanced that would have centered around the Stikine River’s mouth in District 8. The eventual orders released last Thursday were far more expansive, encompassing nearly all inner waters in South...
Sen. Dan Sullivan will be stopping in Wrangell to meet with the Borough Assembly and wider public about federal issues. The visit will be Sullivan’s first since being elected to office in 2014, stopping into Wrangell on the campaign trail that October. He is scheduled to meet with assembly members tomorrow morning at City Hall from 10:15 to 11:30. The public is encouraged to attend, but Sullivan will hold an additional stop at the Stikine Inn to meet with constituents there at noon. He will have to depart for Ketchikan on the afternoon jet, b...
The Department of Transportation is finally able to get started on a major Wrangell road repaving project. Perforated by potholes, the borough’s Evergreen Avenue will finally be resurfaced and repaired, with pedestrian improvements and other fixes. The major project has been on hold for half a decade, surviving rounds of budget cuts to capital funding elsewhere in the state along the way. Two local right of way issues which had lately been holding up the project were wrapped up in February, allowing the project to finally move along. At last we...
Alaska is expecting a reduced salmon harvest this year, setting up a trifecta of falling fish revenues for Alaska fishermen, coastal communities and state coffers. Coming on the heels of an 80 percent crash of cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska and a 10 percent decline in halibut catches, state fishery managers are projecting a 2018 salmon harvest at 149 million fish, down 34 percent from last season. The shortfall stems from lower forecasts for returning pink salmon. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is forecasting a humpie harvest of just...
Coast Guard Commercial Fishing Vessel Examiners will be conducting dockside examinations for Commercial Fishing Vessels in Wrangell from April 16-18. Our new vessel specific checklist generator located at www.fishsafewest.info will allow you to print out a list of all safety requirements for your vessel prior to your exam. Mandatory exams are now required for all commercial fishing vessels that operate beyond three miles from shore. The U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center (NAVCEN) discovered numerous vessels broadcasting incorrect AIS data in...
The city has lowered its alert stage level for water conservation, dropping from its red-level Stage III stance to an intermediate Stage II. Citing dwindling supplies at its reservoirs, on March 13 City Hall had urged residents to dial back their water usage with the Stage III announcement, jumping from a lesser Stage I. The designations were composed by the Borough Assembly last year in an attempt to organize response measures in the event of a shortage. This followed a water crisis in the...
PETERSBURG – The CEO of Southeast Alaska’s wholesale power provider stopped by an assembly meeting on Monday to update Petersburg on its projects and financial wins so far this year. Trey Acteson, CEO of Southeast Alaska Power Agency, the primary electric provider for Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan, explained multiple ways on how the organization is cutting costs, mostly from fighting strict regulatory proposals. “As many of you know,” Acteson said, “I’m pretty active in that arena.” SEAPA saved $30,000 annually when the Federal Energ...
We are indebted to former Petersburg Press and Wrangell Sentinel publisher Lew Williams, Jr. for providing stories, photos and information about both Petersburg and Wrangell newspapers. In addition to providing historic photos, Williams also provided entire chapters of a book he updated and edited, "Bent Pins to Chains; Alaska and its Newspapers." In the mid-1970s historian and author Evangeline Atwood was urged by Fairbanks Daily News-Miner executive Charles Gray and Ketchikan Daily News Publis...
We're proud of the work our employees accomplish to bring a new edition of the Sentinel and the Pilot to our readers each week. We have published this guide to the Wrangell Sentinel and the Petersburg Pilot to acquaint you with who we are and the how we do our jobs. We've also included photos and stories about the history of each of the papers. This guide explains some of our values and philosophies and how we operate our newspapers. We offer advice on how to get your stories and advertising mes...
Editorial pages are unlike any other pages in the paper, because they are reserved for opinions. News appears on other pages, free from opinions, except those of news sources that may be quoted from time to time. Reader’s opinions and the newspaper’s opinion both appear on the editorial pages of both newspapers. We even label the page as the “Opinion Page.” One editor wrote, “The front page is for the report of what others are doing. The editorial page is the report of what the editor thinks they should be doing.” An editorial is written by the...
Both the Pilot and Sentinel have special forms that help people give us news about engagements, weddings, birth announcements and obituaries. The forms list the types of information we publish and help us get the necessary information to write a story about the event. Photos may be submitted along with stories, news releases or with completed forms that we provide. Bring in several photos and we will select those that are of interest to us or that will reproduce the best. Photos must be...
Both newspapers welcome letters to the editor, particularly letters pertaining to local issues. Letters must be signed and be limited to 350 words or roughly a page and one-half of double spaced type. Writers should include a daytime phone number so that the editor may verify content and authorship. We reserve the right to edit letters for libelous material, length, taste and clarity. All letters are accepted and published on a space available basis. Letters become the property of the newspapers and will not be returned. Deadline for...
Over a period of 60 years, Petersburg has had four weekly newspapers, one of which operated under two different names. The Petersburg Pilot is the fifth paper and was founded on February 8, 1974. Newspaper history in Petersburg began on January 18, 1913 with the appearance of The Progressive, "published every Saturday" by J.E. Rivard and J. Frederick Johnson. Rivard was editor. The Progressive survived only a year. Johnson's name last appeared on the masthead on March 8, 1913 and the paper's...
Since the Petersburg Pilot was founded, our mission has remained the same as that stated by its first publisher, Jamie Bryson. Bryson also published the Wrangell Sentinel. The Pilot is a publication dedicated to running news, features and photos about and of specific interest to Petersburg and southeast Alaska. We only run state, national and international news items that pertain to Petersburg’s interests. We strive to publish a newspaper that is “bright, newsy, entertaining and a responsible observer of the public affairs of the com...
A press release might be the best way to present news to us for publication. It’s not hard to do. Here are some tips to follow. Today, news releases can be sent to the paper by email. Keep it short. Space is limited in our small paper; so brief items have the greatest chance of being published. If we want more information, we will get in touch with the news release writer. Get to the point. The important information in your news release should appear at the beginning. This way editors can shorten news items by cutting from the bottom of the s...
Advertising is the bread and butter of both newspapers and makes up about 70% of our annual income. Since we are a business, it is important that we be profitable. If we aren’t, the bills would go unpaid and we would be out of business. Since both newspapers draw an average readership in excess of 6,000 people each week, businesses find the papers to be valuable publications in which to advertise their goods and services. We have three major types of advertisements in The Pilot and Sentinel – classifieds, display and legal notices. CLA...
Our reporters rely upon a variety of people to talk to them each week in order to report the news of the community. The police chief, city clerk, city manager, school principals, parents, children and many others all give us information each week that helps us write news report about this community. Our reporters are trained to ask questions about news events that people want or need to know about, and then to write a story about that news event. They are trained to listen, observe and write about that which they hear and see. Good reporters...