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Kodiak is at the center of a national push to produce biofuels from seaweeds. Agents from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) recently traveled to the island to meet with a team of academics, scientists, businesses and local growers to plan the first steps of a bi-coastal pilot project to modernize methods to grow sugar kelp as a fuel source. The project is bankrolled by a $500,000 grant to the University of Alaska/Fairbanks through a new DOE program called Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel E...
October 18, 1917: Dr. W. J. Pigg returned Saturday from Ft. Seward at Haines where he took a physical examination and passed. He expects to receive notice any day to report somewhere for medical examination. Dr. Pigg hopes soon to get a commission in the regular Army. He thinks it probable that he will leave Wrangell within the next three months. October 23, 1942: Merlin Elmer Palmer Post, American Legion, last night gave a farewell dinner for Wrangell’s latest group of men who expect to leave soon for the Army. The dinner was given at the L...
With one weekend to go in the 2017 moose hunting season, numbers were approaching 100 as of Tuesday. Ninety-five bull moose had been reported by hunters in the Petersburg-Wrangell management area, only seven of which have been confiscated due to noncompliance with local antler restrictions. “It seems like a nice, lower number of illegals,” Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Rich Lowell said of the year. Typically about 10 percent of the total harvest is deemed illegal by management officials, making this year’s slightly bette...
KENAI, Alaska (AP) – The Upper Cook Inlet had a scarce sockeye salmon harvest this year, but commercial fishers caught more coho, chum and pink salmon than expected, the Peninsula Clarion reported. The sockeye harvest was the smallest in 10 years, leading to this year's overall salmon harvest being lower than average, according to a season summary released on Tuesday by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Fishers brought in about 1.8 million sockeye, according to the summary. Altogether, about 3 million salmon of all species were h...
Night owls may have noticed their power go out late Sunday evening after a bird strike took down service for an hour. A problem was reported to Wrangell Municipal Light and Power by police dispatch at around 11:20 p.m. Checking the substation behind the Public Works Department yard, electrical superintendent Clay Hammer explained one of the feeder relays was down. Feeder 4 provides power to utility users from one end of Peninsula Street down to the end of service along Zimovia Highway. A potentially blown generator had been reported by a Penins...
The Petersburg-Wrangell area moose harvest seems set to break 100 again this year, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. So far 67 moose have been checked in during the first 18 days of the monthlong hunt. Petersburg ADFG wildlife biologist Rich Lowell explained that generally the larger share of bulls are killed during the first half of the season. Over the past eight years the final two-week average has seen around 45 moose harvested, ranging from a low of 36 to a high of 57. The number of moose taken illegally in the district...
Around 40 residents came together last week for dinner, drinks and a presentation about mining issues at the Stikine Inn. Campaigners with advocacy group Salmon Beyond Borders hosted the event, one of a series being held last month around Southeast communities. Meeting in Wrangell on September 27, one of its purposes was to bring residents up to speed with recent developments in the mining industry in neighboring British Columbia. There are three rivers of primary interest, being the Stikine,...
October 4, 1917: War was declared on Wrangell Saturday night by Oscar Weston, who, after mixing drinks too freely, became enraged over imaginary offenses. Weston went aboard a gas boat tied to the slip of the Columbia and Northern dock and opened fire on the town with a 280 Ross high power rifle. Fortunately he aimed a little too high to do any harm, but the whistling of bullets overhead was not very welcome music. The officers, knowing that Weston was insane for the time being, and wishing to take him alive, permitted Charlie Olesen, who knew...
JUNEAU, AK- The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is announcing the reopening of the Southeast Alaska and Yakutat sport fishery for king salmon. The following regulations will be effective 12:01 a.m. Sunday, October 1, 2017 through 11:59 p.m.Saturday, March 31, 2018. The regulations are: Alaskan Resident The resident bag and possession limit is two king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length. Nonresident The nonresident bag and possession limit is one king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length; The nonresident annual limit is three ki...
Undaunted by pouring rain, hunters in the Wrangell and Petersburg areas have been bringing in their fill of moose for the 2017 season. As of Tuesday afternoon, Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported a total of 47 bulls have so far been shot since the season's opener on September 15. Of these, only three have so far been confirmed as noncompliant specimens. "We've got a couple that we're looking at," ADFG wildlife biologist Rich Lowell added. The department investigates the carcass in...
October is National Seafood Month, a distinction bestowed by Congress 30 years ago to recognize one of America’s oldest industries. Alaska merits special recognition because its fishing fleets provide 65 percent of the nation’s wild caught seafood, more than all of the other states combined. Ironically, there is little to no fanfare in Alaska during seafood month. My hometown of Kodiak, for example, (the #2 U.S. fishing port) never gives a shout out to our fishermen and processors, nor do local restaurants celebrate seafood on their Oct...
The 2017 moose season is set to begin next week, with the monthlong harvest opening on September 15. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has already seen an increase in permits being issued as the season approaches. Last year's harvest for District 3 – encompassing Wrangell, Petersburg, and surrounding islands – had seen 110 moose taken, according to ADFG harvest records. It was the district's best on record, surpassing 109 harvested in 2009. "Everything's pretty much the same," Pet...
Alaska’s salmon season is winding down and while catches have made the record books in some regions, the statewide take will fall a bit short of the 204 million fish forecast. “We are within about 10 percent of the forecast, so that’s very positive and overall it’s been a pretty good season,” said Forrest Bowers, deputy director of the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The statewide salmon catch through Friday topped 191 million. The shortfall, Bowers said, again stems from the arrival of fewer pink salmon...
One of Wrangell’s two seafood processors has drawn down production early for the season due to lower than expected returns this summer. Updated twice daily, on Tuesday the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Blue Sheet reported just over 143 million salmon have been harvested statewide, though numbers were not available for the Bristol Bay, Kuskokwim and Aleutian Islands districts. Seventy-four percent of these are pink salmon, with over 106 million already reported in. Coming off of last year’s season – declared a “disaster” by Gov. Bill W...
PETERSBURG — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced August 15, that the 2017/2018 commercial Dungeness crab fall fishing season in Registration Area A (Southeastern Alaska) will be reduced in duration. All waters open to commercial Dungeness fishing in Southeastern Alaska will open at 8:00 a.m. on Sun., October 1, 2017 and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Tues., October 31, 2017. In accordance with the Southeastern Alaska Dungeness Crab Management Plan [5 AAC 32.146(3)], the department has completed an analysis of the incidence of l...
JUNEAU – The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced today that the retention of king salmon is prohibited in all Southeast Alaska salt waters, king salmon may not be retained or possessed; any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed. These regulations will be effective 12:01 a.m. Thursday, August 10 through 11:59 p.m. Saturday, September 30, 2017. The Southeast Alaska king salmon sport fishery is managed under the directives of the Southeast Alaska King Salmon Management Plan (5 AAC 47.055). T...
A regional conservation group recently called attention to the prospective sale of a disused Canadian mine, and suggests the exchange could bode poorly for efforts to maintain water quality in transboundary rivers. The Tulsequah Chief zinc mine is across the Canadian border in British Columbia located along the Tulsequah River, a tributary of the Taku River. It has been out of use since 1957, and its critics contend it has since been a source of headache both for its past owners and for subsistence users along the Taku watershed it neighbors....
June 14, 1917: The School Board has elected Miss Edith Carhart principal of the Wrangell Public School for the coming term. Miss Carhart is not a stranger in Wrangell, having been principal of the school here during the term of 1909-10. She was re-elected but preferred to return to the States. She has had 17 years experience. For the past three years she has been principal of the Fobes school at Snohomish, Washington Miss Tressa Curtin has been elected teacher of the primary department. Miss Curtin has had 11 years as a teacher, seven of which...
Want a fishing license to crew on a salmon boat this summer? Got friends or family visiting who want to wet a line for a prized Alaska catch? Don’t count on it. If the Alaska legislature continues to defy its constitutional obligation to pass a budget, those opportunities will be lost because there won’t be any state workers to issue fishing licenses. Layoff notices went out on June 1 to thousands of state employees who will be off the job at the July 1 start of the fiscal year. That’s just one of the lesser impacts of the legislative impasse,...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – A Douglas Island homeowner shot a brown bear after feeling threatened by the animal, Alaska wildlife officials said. The 725-pound brown bear was shot on May 25, said Ryan Scott, Alaska Department of Fish & Game wildlife regional supervisor. It is the first documented, or legal, killing of a brown bear in Douglas Island reported to the department since 1974, the Juneau Empire reported. “It’s a rare event to have them on Douglas or really in Juneau,’’ Scott said. “Over the years we’ve had reports of bear swimming adjacent t...
Home grown shellfish and kelp are gaining momentum in Alaska, spurred on by growing markets and the steadfast push by Governor Walker’s visionary mariculture task force. Applications for more than 1,000 acres of oyster and kelp farms were filed with the Department of Natural Resources by the April 30 deadline, far more than usual. Fifteen are for new farms in the Southeast, Southcentral and Westward regions of which seven plan to grow kelp exclusively. Two farms at Klawok also are adding kelp to their current oyster growing operations. ...
June 14, 1917: The School Board has elected Miss Edith Carhart principal of the Wrangell public school for the coming term. Miss Carhart is not a stranger in Wrangell, having been principal of the school here during the term of 1909-10. She was re-elected but preferred to return to the States. She has had 17 years experience, and always been reelected wherever she has taught. Miss Tressa Curtin has been elected teacher of the primary department. Miss Curtin has had 11 years as a teacher, seven of which were spent in the Fobes School at...
A pair of French travelers made their way down the Stikine River to Wrangell from Telegraph Creek using a homemade dugout. Both in their early twenties, friends Theophile Bouton and Karl Panchout have spent the past year exploring the Northwest, and their 11-day trip down the transboundary river was just one of a series of adventures. This part of the story begins in the Yukon, which Panchout hitch-hiked across Canada to reach from Quebec about 11 months ago. "I met a friend of my uncle there,"...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that the 2017/2018 commercial Dungeness crab fishery in Southeastern Alaska will be opening as scheduled at 8 a.m. on June 15. Dungeness crab fishermen must register their vessels and applicable gear with the department. The holder of a valid 2017 Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission permit for Southeastern Alaska Dungeness crab must be onboard the vessel during fishing operations and the permit holder’s name must be listed on the vessel registration. Buoy tags must be purchased prior to f...