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Running three-and-a-half hours long before even coming to an executive session, the borough assembly meeting on Oct. 22 saw a wide variety of topics covered. One of them was overseeing several appointments to various city positions. Patty Gilbert, recently re-elected to the borough assembly, was named the vice-mayor. There were two open seats on the planning and zoning commission, to which Terri Henson and April Hutchinson were appointed. Annya Ritchie was appointed to the parks and recreation a...
Donna McKay, assistant teacher at Head Start in Wrangell, was recently recognized for hitting the 30-year mark in her career. She was given a plaque last Monday, Oct. 14, in Fairbanks during an award ceremony. Head Start is an early childhood program that, according to their website, serves children from birth to five-years-old in 100 Alaskan communities. Starting her career this month 30 years ago, McKay said that she has helped to teach approximately 620 children. "By the 28th of this month...
“Unpredictable” is the way salmon managers describe Alaska’s 2019 salmon season, with “very, very interesting” as an aside. The salmon fishery is near its end, and a statewide catch of nearly 200 million salmon is only six percent off what Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game number crunchers predicted, and it is on track to be the 8th largest since 1975. The brightest spot of the season was the strong returns of sockeye salmon which produced a catch of over 55 million fish, the largest since 1995 and the fifth consecutive year of harvests topping 5...
Federal agencies are meeting now through next March to define U.S. dietary guidelines for 2020-2025, and a high powered group of doctors and nutritionists are making sure the health benefits of seafood are front and center. For the first time in the 40 year history of the program, the dietary guidelines committee has posted the questions they are going to consider. They include the role of seafood in the neurocognitive development in pregnant moms for their babies, and in the diet of kids from birth to 24 months directly, said Dr. Tom Brenna,...
Cheryl and Cynthia Karras wearing their brand new backpacks, which they received as part of the Wrangell Cooperative Association's back to school backpack drive. The WCA received over 130 backpacks full of school supplies from the Tlingit and Haida Central Council, according to Esther Ashton with the WCA, which they then distributed to children of Wrangell's native community. Ashton added that kids from Head Start to 12th grade got backpacks this year....
As the District 36 Representative, my primary assignment now in the Legislature is to serve as the Vice-Chair on the House Finance Committee. In that duty, I traveled to Juneau, Anchorage, Wasilla, and Fairbanks between July 15-18 in order to hear Public Testimony on HB 2001, the special session budget bill. During those three days of testimony, we heard over 600 people testify in person. During the month of July, we had over 2,300 Alaskans provide testimony to the House Finance Committee. Over 85% of the testifiers were in support of...
Last Thursday, June 20, members of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the Forest Service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and local volunteers all converged on the beach of east Wrangell, near Channel Island, to dissect a dead gray whale that had washed ashore. Kate Savage, once a veterinarian in Wrangell but now working with NOAA, said that an Unusual Mortality Event is occurring all along the Pacific Coast, from Alaska to Mexico. There...
Last week, the Alaska House of Representatives passed a budget for the State of Alaska. As a member of the Finance Committee and the Chair of the Education & Early Development, Fish & Game, and Environmental Conservation Department Finance Subcommittees, I am a part of the budget process from the beginning until the end. For the past month, we have dug into each department budget, asking critical questions, and analyzing impacts of potential cuts. The budget was an intense collaborative effort;...
The Panhandle plans to be the next Alaska region to give new life to old fishing gear by sending it to plastic recycling centers. The tons of nets and lines piled up in local lots and landfills will become the raw material for soda bottles, cell phone cases, sunglasses, skateboards, swimsuits and more. Juneau, Haines, Petersburg and possibly Sitka have partnered with Net Your Problem to launch an effort this year to send old or derelict seine and gillnets to a recycler in Richmond, British Columbia. “We’re going to be working in a new loc...
The Nolan Center has a new exhibit available for public viewing. A collection of almost 50 "story dolls" currently sit in glass shelves at the center, depicting life of Alaska natives in the rural parts of the state. Cyni Crary, with the Nolan Center, said that the doll collection was put together by Jane Niebergall, of Anchorage. The dolls themselves were created by a variety of different artists. The Nolan Center is the first museum to show these dolls, she added. "She called and asked if we m...
December 19, 1918 Reappearance of epidemic of influenza now threatened in many parts of the country. The Surgeon General of the United States Public Health, however, has issued a warning. The epidemic persists widely. Everywhere the epidemic and other abnormal conditions created by war has left millions of people particularly susceptible to disease. Risks are aggravated by the fact that medical and sanitary facilities have been depleted to meet war needs and cannot be restored to normal for some time nor without concerted effort. In view of...
It was cold, the evening of Dec. 7, and at times rainy. That did not deter many Wrangell residents from coming out for Midnight Madness, however. Midnight Madness has been a Wrangell tradition for about 30 years, according to Stephanie Cook with the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce. "I think it went pretty well, even though it was a little rainy and cold," she said. "There were lots of people who showed up and had fun." Front Street was crowded as people hung out, shopped, and sang Christmas...
Head Start hosted "Baby Raven Reads" this past Saturday morning. Baby Raven Reads, according to Community Liason Delila Ramirez, is a program by the Sealaska Heritage Institute to promote literacy and language development in native children. The program involved lots of fun activities for the children who attended, like listening to stories, singing, and playing games. Virginia Oliver (left) and Lu Knapp (right) were two of the volunteers helping the program last Saturday....
Baby Raven Reads is a program sponsored by the Sealaska Heritage Institute giving native children an opportunity to learn about their history and culture through stories, activities, and music, according to community liaison Delila Ramirez. The monthly program is in its second year, she said. The next reading day will be Sat., Dec. 8 at Head Start from 10 a.m. to noon.. "It promotes early literacy, language development, and school readiness for Alaska native families," Ramirez said. The target...
Students at Evergreen Elementary School have spent the past few days making Christmas ornaments. Some students drew pictures of Alaskan wildlife, others made miniature wreaths, and another class made poinsettias. All these ornaments are not only fun projects for students to work on. They will be travelling up to Juneau in the coming weeks to hang on the governor's Christmas tree. Tory Houser, with the Forest Service, said that the Wrangell district of the Tongass National Forest has also been...
October 7, 1918 Fred Watson, a recent arrival from the West Coast but well known in Wrangell, had a very narrow escape from a watery grave last Saturday. Mr. Watson has recently purchased a boat from G. H. Tozier and while walking along its side holding onto a slender handrail, the latter broke and Mr. Watson found himself in the briny deep. A pair of high top boots made swimming difficult and he went down the proverbial three times. Instead of staying down as he expected to do according to precedent, he rose again to the surface and this time...
September 12, 1918 School opened Monday with a total enrollment of 73 pupils. Only two of the teachers engaged for the year were on hand to begin work, Miss Armstrong being ill with quinsy, and Miss Allender having missed boat connections. Miss Armstrong has recovered so far as to be able to take up her work this morning. During her absence, Mrs. J. W. Pritchett took charge of the intermediate grades. A plan is being worked out by which the work in the school will be more equally divided than heretofore. The high school program will be...
Head Start preschool opened its doors Tuesday morning for its first day of school this year. According to Donna McKay, who has worked at Head Start for about 29 years, the school has 10 new students. Here, McKay can be seen teaching the class a song....
Following an estimated 14 hours of discussion over three separate workshops, members of the Wrangell City and Borough Assembly approved a budget for the 2019 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Getting there has not been an easy process, mulling over among other things a restructuring of how public facilities maintenance and the Public Works Department are arranged, proposed by the city manager as a cost saving measure. Under this proposal, Lisa Von Bargen envisioned a separate division within public works tasked with public maintenance and equip...
It's a royal rumble this month, with the competition to see who gets crowned this year's king or queen of Wrangell's Independence Day celebrations starting off on May 31. Arranged by the Chamber of Commerce, the competition is meant to raise funds both for the summer festivities and for the candidates themselves. Typically individuals have used what they raise to support higher education or some other project. This year's group is no exception. Recent graduate McKinley Bosdell intends to head...
Construction of a designated monofill site to store treated soil from a contaminated site cleanup will begin next week, after nine months’ delay. To be interred at a state-owned rock pit off Pats Creek Road, the site will house around 18,500 cubic yards of earth pulled from the former Byford junkyard property along Zimovia Highway’s 4-Mile stretch. During 2016 the Department of Environmental Conservation led efforts to remediate the disused junkyard, which had extensive contamination after decades of battery and junk vehicle storage. The sca...
Three finalists for the Wrangell Public School District superintendent position made a joint visit to the island earlier this week. Patricia Hutcherson, Debbe Lancaster and Bill Schildbach were the top three of eight candidates submitted for consideration by the Association of Alaska School Boards. AASB had been contracted by the Wrangell School Board to help hire a replacement to current superintendent, Patrick Mayer, who will conclude his time in the position at the end of the school year....
Wrangell's Head Start program will be opening its doors to families Friday evening as part of a recent educational collaboration between Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Tlingit and Haida Central Council (CCTHITA). The Baby Raven Reads program uses a combination of storytelling, songs and interactive activities to promote literacy and school readiness for Alaska Native families with children ages five years and under. At first started for the Juneau area as a pilot program in 2014, for its...
More big bundles of old fishing nets will soon be on their way from Dutch Harbor to Denmark to be remade into high end plastics. It will be the second batch of nets to leave Dutch for a higher cause and more Alaska fishing towns can get on board. Last summer a community collaborative put nearly 240,000 pounds, or about 40 nets, into shipping vans that were bound for a Danish ‘clean tech’ company called Plastix. The company refines and pelletizes all types of plastics and resells them to makers of water bottles, cell phone cases and other items....
