Sorted by date Results 151 - 172 of 172
Looking ahead to another century, delegates with the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) and Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) met in Wrangell last week for their 100th annual Grand Camp. Seventy-one of 120 camp delegates from Alaska, Washington and Oregon were able to attend the four-day conference, which brought about 140 visitors in all. Dedicated to advancing civil rights and improving living conditions for Native communities, the Brotherhood was founded in Sitka in 1912, with an auxiliary...
Next week, the Alaska Native Sisterhood celebrates its 100th anniversary at the place of its founding, Wrangell. Alaska Native Brotherhood/ANS is the oldest rights organization for indigenous persons in the world, with the Brotherhood founded in 1912 and the Sisterhood established in 1916. Its stated mission is to improve the lives of Native people and their families, by promoting Native culture and advocating for civil rights and land rights. Membership is organized into local camps,...
Scores of people lined up with plates for Wrangell's Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 1 and Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 4 third annual Unity Dinner on Saturday evening. Participants partook in a bit of fellowship and marked the start of November's National Native Heritage Month. "The theme of this Unity Dinner is 'let's work together,'" explained Virginia Oliver, Wrangell's Johnson-O'Malley coordinator. Members from all seven Wrangell clans were there, plus visitors from neighboring...
It was a festive holiday weekend for Wrangell, but the local Tlingit community had particular reason to celebrate as they dedicated a new canoe Saturday inside the Wrangell Cooperative Association's recently completed carving facility. The 30-foot vessel seats up to nine crew members and is constructed of fiberglass and wood framing with a red cedar inlay. It was constructed over the summer at the old carving shed, near the causeway entrance to Chief Shakes Island. "Shane Gillen is the one who...
The seals' death circulated via text message, phone, and word of mouth the minute they touched the shore of Shakes Island Friday. Alaskan Native Wrangellites had hunted, killed, butchered - and would eventually smoke and eat - harbor seals, long a traditional part of the native diet and permitted under strict guidelines by the Marine Mammal Protection and Endangered Species acts. Parts of the law allow hunting for subsistence and the manufacture of Native handicrafts, according to the Harbor...
Wrangellites hoping to take advantage of the Southeast Regional Health Consortium’s services will no longer have to make two separate trips. SEARHC’s prevention and referral offices have been combined into a single office located in the Stikine Native Organizations building along Front Street. The SEARHC Traditional Foods Program and Referral Care had been located in separate office spaces. Officials with the Consortium celebrated the consolidation with an open house at the new offices March 4. The event drew about 30 people, officials sai...
More than 200 people met Saturday with local organizations at the Wrangell Cooperative Association's first membership rally. Representatives from the Association, the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program, Alaska Island Community Services and Tlingit-Haida registered, updated, collected and distributed information for 210 people by the end of the four-hour event at the Stikine Native Organizations building. Organizers from the WCA's Membership Committee had worked on organizing the...
Former Wrangell Medical Center CEO Noel Rea has accepted a position as the head of Sitka’s Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium hospital. In a newsletter to SEARHC members and employees, Charles Clement, the organization’s CEO, said Rea was taking over as the interim administrator of SEARHC Mt. Edgecumbe’s operation. “It is with a heavy heart that I announce the resignation of our friend and colleague, Dr. Marty Grasmeder, Hospital Administrator/Medical Director of the SEARHC Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital. His last day will be at the end of...
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium partnered with the Center for Disease Control this week to hold a meeting on traditional foods – and showcased a variety of options available to Natives and others for healthy eating. The meeting was held at the James and Elsie Nolan Center starting on Monday, June 17 and is a required component of the CDC’s Traditional Foods Program and for all tribal entities receiving grant money under a federal program aimed at diabetes prevention in Ame...
Wrangell not only has a new medical clinic, but a brand new physician added to the staff of the Alaska Island Community Services location on Wood Street. Dr. Laura Dooley, who has been affiliated with Bartlett Regional Medical Center and Southeast Regional Health Consortium, began work this week and will be seeing patients at the new facility. Dooley, who just arrived in town with her husband, said she has been here in the past during her travels throughout the state. “It’s good to be here in...
For Alaska Natives, food is essential – and traditional foods are of extreme importance to the indigenous people of the Last Frontier as they choose to live their history and culture in the modern age. In Wrangell, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium leads the way with its traditional foods program, under the direction of Ken Hoyt. Hoyt moved to Alaska in 2012 to take over the program and has, in the past year, introduced a variety of projects to the Natives and non-Natives of W...
Ken Hoyt, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium traditional foods program director, took a trip to Kake last week to take part in the town’s annual “Kake Day” and to hold a series of meetings with his SEARHC counterparts in the business of keeping elders and members of the Native community well fed all year round. In addition to Hoyt, Wrangellites Sue Stevens, Tommy Rooney, Joel Churchill and Mary Lou Churchill made the trip as representatives of the SEARHC traditional foods project. “We are working under the same grant and in a si...
A new mayor, renovations to the Shakes Island Tribal House and Marine Service Center, and the ongoing Wrangell Medical Center debate – all of these stories were newsmakers in 2012. Let’s take a look back at some of the biggest stories in Wrangell over the past year. JANUARY A late night blaze destroyed a trailer and sent a woman to Wrangell Medical Center with severe burns on Dec. 22. The fire, which began at 10:30 p.m. in a small pull-behind trailer near the top of the park, severely inj...
The Wrangell Public School District Board of Directors held their second to last regular meeting of the year on Nov. 19 at Stikine Elementary School – and held a public hearing where the results of the district report cards were discussed. The report cards, which are issued annually for each of the three public schools in the district and the Alaska Virtual Academy, showed an 88.5 percent graduation rate with a 92.7 percent average attendance for the 2011-12 school year. The State of Alaska requires 85 percent return as a target for each of t...
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium Board of Directors elected new officers during its quarterly board meeting last week Oct. 11-12 in Juneau. Lovey Brock of the Wrangell Cooperative Association was reelected secretary, while Frederick Olsen, Jr., of Kasaan was reelected to a second one-year term as board chair. Jan Hill of the Chilkoot Indian Association in Haines was selected as vice-chair, and Harriet Silva of the Angoon Community Association was reelected treasurer. SEARHC is a consortium of 18 tribal communities in Southeast...
September is National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month and is promoted nationally by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. The theme for 2012 is “Join the Voices for Recovery: It’s Worth It,” which emphasizes that while the road to recovery may be difficult, the benefits of preventing and overcoming mental and/or substance use disorders are significant and valuable to individuals, families, and communities. Because of the high incidence of drug and alcohol abuse in the r...
A Homer-based group is seeking help from Wrangellites in their effort to bring natural blueberry products to the local, regional and international markets. Trail Mountain Harvesters is a company that organizes harvests of wild berries and herbs for Denali BioTechnologies, Inc., a manufacturer of premium dietary supplement ingredients owned by Dr. Maureen McKenzie, also of Homer. According to TMH field purchasing supervisor Bob Fenex, his company is interested in recruiting Wrangellites and...
By Greg Knight Sentinel writer In Tlingit culture and history, there is a concept of a house outliving its structure – and that the physical presence of any building carries forward in spiritual connotation long after it has fallen to the ground. With that concept in mind, Ken Hoyt of Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s native foods program in Wrangell helped organize the building of a community smokehouse for all residents of the island. More than two-dozen Wrangellites came out to...
Last week, arborist Rico Montenegro of the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF) was in town to help determine the specifics of the fruit tree orchard set to be planted in Wrangell. Cherry, apple and plum trees are, so far, some ideas of fruit trees that can handle Wrangell’s wet and cloudy weather, according to Montenegro. “We’re stretching the limits here,” he said. Montenergo will have to do a fair amount of research to decide what fruit trees will thrive in Wrangell. Because of the dampness and high number of overcast days, disease could p...
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium has a new leader at the helm in Juneau. Charles Clement, who is currently serving as vice president and chief operation officer for the Southcentral Foundation, an Anchorage-based health care organization, has been selected as the organization’s next president and CEO. Clement will replace Roald Helgesen beginning in February 2012. Helgesen is set to take over as CEO of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. According to a press release, C...
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium recently hired Ken Hoyt to manage the WISEFAMILIES Through Customary and Traditional Living program in Wrangell with his office located in the SNO Building at 325 Front St., in Wrangell. The WISEFAMILIES program participants learn how to harvest and preserve traditional subsistence foods, learn Tlingit language, story telling and other traditional activities such as carving and weaving. These traditional activities improve overall health and...
A former Wrangell resident and Tlingit elder received an award last week from Governor Sean Parnell for her work in advocating for Alaska Native women and children. Gov. Parnell awarded the 2011 Shirley Demientieff Award to Ethel Lund at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage on Friday, Oct. 21. The governor of Alaska gives the award each year at AFN. Lund, who grew up in Wrangell, is one of the founders of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium and has served as its...
