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Wrangell is not immune to the nationwide shortage of electrical transformers, and the delivery delay has pushed back the borough’s sale of 20 lots at the residential subdivision near 6-Mile Zimovia Highway until the spring. The borough wants to wait until the streets and utilities are finished at the property before opening access to the land for potential buyers to evaluate which lots they may want to buy. The transformers and buried electrical lines are part of the work. The land sale had been tentatively planned for late summer or fall, b...
So, you want to see bears at the Anan Wildlife Observatory. But maybe you couldn't get one of the limited number of permits, or you live out of town and can't make the trip, or maybe you are a little more afraid of them than you care to admit. But now, thanks to the U.S. Forest Service, explore.org and 14 Wrangell high school students in the T3 Program, anyone worldwide can view Anan's fish-crazed black and brown bears. Last week, after months of preparation, planning and prototyping, the two...
T.J. Sgwaayaans Young, a Haida master carver from Hydaburg, arrived in Wrangell earlier this month to lead a team of Wrangell-based apprentices to carve a new Kadashan totem pole. When the work is finished, the Wrangell Cooperative Association plans to hold a pole raising ceremony on Shakes Island sometime next year, Wrangell's first totem raising in 38 years. The Kadashan pole - referring to the Tlingit chief of the same name - is the first of two the WCA team will carve this year. Next month,...
Annual moorage rates will not increase this year, after the assembly on July 23 passed a resolution reversing a 3% fee increase it approved in April. The higher rates had been scheduled to take effect this month. The vote to roll back the rate increase was unanimous. “Realizing that it’s such a poor commercial fishing season, realizing that the tourism industry has struggled a bit this year, we felt we could drop the rate increase this year and come back to it next year,” Borough Manager Mason Villarma said in an interview last week. The assem...
LEARN TO LINE DANCE 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Aug. 27 at the community center multi-purpose room, with Issabella Crowley. For ages 18 years old and up. Entry fee is by donation. NOLAN CENTER THEATER “Despicable Me 4,” rated PG, at 6 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday Aug. 2-4. The animated adventure comedy runs 1 hour and 34 minutes; tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for children under age 12. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. MUSKEG MEADOWS Compass Line Shop, 9-hole best-ball golf tournament, with special prizes,...
July 31, 1924 The most disastrous fire that Wrangell has seen in years occurred last Thursday night when the Alaska Sanitary Packing Co. cannery burned. The fire was discovered about 1:30 o’clock near a gasoline engine in the front end of the cannery. The fire department quickly responded to the alarm, but all efforts to check the flames in the main building proved futile. It was only by the most persistent efforts that the flames were kept from spreading to the office building, mess house and other buildings in the vicinity of the cannery. It...
They may be out of sight to the general public but they are never out of mind for the U.S. Forest Service. The agency maintains 35 mountaintop repeater towers within the Tongass National Forest to provide radio coverage for their field crews and first responders. A contractor is installing new repeater stations at five sites this summer in the Wrangell and Petersburg ranger districts, part of an ongoing effort to switch out older units with newer models. Of particular importance to Wrangell, a...
The assembly last week took the first step toward seeking voter approval to someday pay members for their work. The assembly on July 23 approved in first reading an ordinance that would put the question to voters on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot; they set a public hearing on the ordinance for Aug. 27. If approved by voters, the ballot measure would not result in immediate compensation for assembly members and the mayor. Instead, it would only remove a provision from the borough charter prohibiting such payments. The assembly would need...
The borough assembly has started a lengthy process that will include a lot of public input, as it should, to possibly amend the municipal charter so that a future assembly, if it chooses, could change municipal code to pay mayors and assembly members for their work. Allowing the option of paying members a few hundred dollars a month is a good idea — not because so many other cities and boroughs in Alaska have been doing it for years, but because it takes a lot of time to be a good assembly member, more than should be expected of volunteers. S...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has long prided himself on being a fiscal conservative. He has consistently adhered to that mantra, with the exception of his long-standing advocacy for a state checkbook-draining supersize Permanent Fund dividend. As a fiscal conservative, the governor has always talked of keeping a short leash on spending, a tight rein on appropriations, a firm grip on the budget. Too bad that stinginess extends to explaining his budget vetoes. Critics of Dunleavy’s vetoes of legislative appropriations for the state fiscal year that s...
A $38.6 million federal grant will help lower the cost of energy-saving heat pumps for an estimated 6,100 Alaska households stretching from Ketchikan to Kodiak, including Wrangell. The money will provide rebates of between $4,000 and $8,500 per household for the purchase and installation of a heat pump. The funding is in addition to federal tax credits of up to $2,000 per household. The federal grant for coastal Alaska, announced July 22, will go the Southeast Conference, a community and economic development nonprofit for the region, and...
First it was radio, then television. Then it was video games and TikTok. Many book lovers, bookstores and parents of reading-age children feared the demise of the printed story. Yet, with just a few days to go before the end of the Irene Ingle Public Library annual summer reading program for kids, the youngsters are far ahead of last year’s pace. The program ends Saturday, Aug. 3, with prizes for readers and a party on Aug. 10. Wrangell’s young readers entering kindergarten through ninth grade in August had gone through 2,603 books as of Jul...
The WMC Foundation and SEARHC are inviting women to enjoy some "fun and frolic" golf for a good cause. The annual Rally for Cancer Care will be held Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Muskeg Meadows. Registration starts at 9 a.m.; the event begins at 10 a.m. The day will feature a luncheon, beverages, prizes, a silent auction and a golf tournament with no scoring and no skills required. "It's not even golf," organizer Patty Gilbert, board member of the WMC Foundation said. "It's 'fun and frolic' on the...
More than $600,000 was returned to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough on July 25 after the borough’s bank, Wells Fargo, successfully retrieved an electronic fund transfer that the borough made to a fraudulent account a couple of months ago. Charlanne Thomas, the borough’s finance director said the borough was notified by Wells Fargo in May that it unknowingly sent money to a fraudulent checking account at Citibank after attempting to pay for the Dudley Field turf project. The contractor’s email account had been hacked by scammers who reque...
Alaska’s highest-ranking Democratic officeholder said July 23 she has not decided whether to back the party’s likely candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. Rep. Mary Peltola broke with other state Democrats, who quickly gave their support and their party convention delegates’ votes to Harris just hours after President Joe Biden announced that he was ending his campaign for re-election. Peltola, in an online news conference, said she is still weighing her decision about whether to vote for Harris and is “keeping an open mind.” “We still have...
Alaska’s U.S. House race will be one of the hardest-fought campaigns in the country, according to a national group dedicated to getting Republicans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s for that reason the National Republican Congressional Committee launched its first television ads in the general election cycle in Alaska before any other state, according to a news release. The television ad labels incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola a “devout Biden enabler” who would “betray Alaskans to back Biden.” It includes Peltola say...
Alaska voters are set to have an opportunity in the November election to affirm or repeal the state’s use of ranked-choice voting, Division of Elections officials confirmed on July 24. The news comes after Superior Court Judge Christina Rankin on July 19 disqualified some of the petition signatures collected by the repeal effort because the gathering process was not carried out in accordance with state law. The judge found instances in which the signature-gathering process was improper and disqualified those petition booklets. She ordered s...
A cyanide spill at a major gold mine in the Yukon Territory — high in the Yukon River watershed — has sparked widespread concern in Canada. But Alaska salmon advocates say the mishap isn’t just a problem for Yukoners: The spill happened upstream of a tributary of the Yukon River. The Yukon is Alaska’s biggest transboundary waterway, and residents along its shores who have depended on salmon for generations are already suffering amid crashes of fish runs. Officials on both sides of the border say it’s too early to know the full impact of the sp...
The top two officers of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. board of trustees were replaced at the beginning of the board’s quarterly meeting on July 24 in a contentious vote, with displaced Vice Chair Ellie Rubenstein announcing her resignation hours later. The moves came after months of controversy involving allegations of improper financial actions by Rubenstein, sparking further accusations of politically motivated behavior among some board members. Ethan Schutt was ousted as board chair and Rubenstein replaced as vice chair in a 4-2 vote at t...
Alaska firefighting departments will have to stop using fire-suppression foams containing contaminants known as “forever chemicals,” under a law that went into effect July 24. Legislators passed the new law nearly unanimously this spring. It went into effect without Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s signature, an option that governors can choose when they don’t want to veto a bill but also don’t want their name on it. The new law targets per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS. They have qualities making them resistant to fire, water and oil....
Monday, July 22 Welfare check. Agency assist: Harbor Department. Found property. Dog at large. Agency assist: U.S. Forest Service. Found property. Motor vehicle accident: Citation issued for negligent driving. Tuesday, July 23 Bird complaint. Wednesday, July 24 Agency assist: Wrangell IGA. Agency assist: Fire Department. Found property. Report of suspicion of driving under the influence. Thursday, July 25 Time-limit parking. Friday, July 26 Deer complaint. Motor vehicle accident. Citizen assist. Saturday, July 27 Bar check. Summons service....
When the only preschool teacher left Harold Kaveolook School in Kaktovik, a village of around 250 people on the northern coast of Alaska, Chelsea Brower was in charge. It was January and she had been the preschool aide for about a year and a half. “Being with the kids and trying to be their teacher is what really made me realize I want to be their teacher — and it also made me realize I need to become certified to be their teacher,” she said. The only problem was that universities that offered the requisite courses were hundreds of miles away,...
LOST PHONES Lost iPhone XR and Samsung Android on Feb. 1. If found, please turn in to the police department. HELP WANTED Wrangell Chamber of Commerce is accepting applicants for executive director who plans, organizes, coordinates and directs chamber business as well as oversees the daily operation of the chamber. Posting open until filled. Full job description and applications are available by emailing Chamber President bburr@wrangellchamber.com. HELP WANTED Johnson’s Building Supply is accepting applications for the following position: C...