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KSTK SPRING ON-AIR FUNDRAISER ends Friday, April 26. Help KSTK raise $21,000 for broadcast services. All donors are invited to KSTK Friday evening, April 26, for the spring grill-out, with burgers, hotdogs, side dishes and beverages. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT will host a pre-season tourism stakeholder meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday, April 25, at City Hall. The meeting is intended for businesses and organizations that provide services to the tourism industry. For those unable to attend in person, a Zoom link is available. h...
The 2024 Stikine River Birding Festival will take flight Wednesday, April 24. Minor changes have been made to the schedule of events, which no longer includes a golf tournament at Muskeg Meadows on Saturday April 27. However, there are still plenty of family-friendly events over the five days. The festival will kick off at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, with a Birding 101 presentation led by Bonnie Demerjian at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. Demerjian will share tips and hints for bird identification. Other events and activities during on t...
NOLAN CENTER THEATER “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” rated PG-13, at 6 p.m. Friday, April 19, 6 p.m Saturday, April 20, and at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 21. The adventure comedy fantasy runs 1 hour and 55 minutes; tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for children under age 12. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. WRANGELL COMMUNITY CLEANUP 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 20, starting at the Evergreen Elementary gym. Trash bags will be provided. Cash prizes for trash volunteers. Lunch will be served at noon. FOREST SERVICE WORKSHOP 3 to 6 p.m...
The time of year is approaching when birds flock to the river flats, and Wrangell is once again hosting the Stikine River Birding Festival. The festival will run from April 24 to 28 and will include a variety of bird-themed events and activities free of charge. This year is a bit of a lighter year, Matt Henson, who is organizing festival planning, said. They are focusing on community-centered, family-friendly events. Rather than a couple weekends of programming that the festival has offered in years past, this year’s schedule will be more c...
Every spring when the eulachon spawn, the Stikine River flats are flooded with thousands of migratory shorebirds. And each year, the town responds in-kind with the Stikine River Birding Festival, filling the radio airwaves with bird songs and holding an array of avian-themed events. This season, the festival will run for three weekends between April 21 and May 6. It will feature movies, crafts, workshops and more. “Birding is such a nice welcome to spring,” said Corree Delabrue of the U.S. Forest Service, who helped plan the festival. She lov...
The annual Stikine River Birding Festival has a busy first weekend planned. It starts up Friday with a 1 p.m. virtual storytime at the Irene Ingle Public Library, then continuing the educational fun agenda with a Birding 101 class at 6 p.m. Friday at the Nolan Center, led by Bonnie Demerjian. The library event will present an Earth Day theme, with activity kits available for pickup at the library. The meeting ID for the Zoom event is 935 4298 0052, passcode 8743535. There are three events on Saturday’s calendar. A community cleanup is p...
Just like migrating birds, the Stikine River Birding Festival is coming back to Wrangell. This year, instead of just one weekend, the festival is spreading its wings to three weekends in a row from April 22 to May 7 with a focus on education. "Instead of having one intensive weekend, hoping to capitalize on visitors, I think we recognized it was never really attracting a huge amount of tourists," said Corree Delabrue, district interpreter for the U.S. Forest Service Wrangell office. She also...
As the green of spring begins to replace the gray of winter, the Wrangell Community Garden crew wants to prepare its plots for planting. Volunteers are needed from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on April 16 at the community garden site at 1.5 Mile to move soil, set up garden beds and fill them with soil. “In theory, we will be setting up the new beds and filling them, possibly Wrangell lasagna-style, depending on how much soil we have available,” said Kim Wickman, community garden board member. Lasagna-style filling starts with a layer of soil or gra...
The annual Stikine River Birding Festival starts Friday and includes movies, a morning walk to identify birds, video presentations, virtual storytelling from the library, a session on how to build a bird feeder, a community cleanup and a nature trail scavenger hunt. Activities run through May 8. Organizers are spreading out the events this year, rather than squeezing everything into four days as was the schedule in 2019. The pandemic forced cancellation of last year's activities. "We have been m...
The Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau met last Friday afternoon, April 17. Among the items on the meeting's agenda was the cancellation of this year's Birdfest, and what could be done in its place. The Stikine River Birding Festival, more shortly known as Birdfest, is a Wrangell tradition that dates back over 20 years. Usually occurring in April, around the time migratory birds return to Wrangell and the Stikine River area, the festival brings all kinds of people, from locals to tourists,...
Tourism is an important industry for Wrangell, and one that has typically shown slow but steady growth over the years. A 2019 study by Rain Coast Data reports that the visitor industry accounted for nine percent of all private sector jobs on the island, and made $2.9 million in workforce earnings the previous year. According to the study, a little over 20,000 tourists came to Wrangell in 2018, a six percent increase from 2017. Preliminary estimates of the 2019 tourist season indicated about 26,4...
The Alaska Raptor Center is a Sitka-based rehabilitation center that cares for sick or injured birds. The Center cares for raptors, primarily, such as eagles, hawks, and owls. However, according to their website, they will care for "any bird in need." As a part of the Stikine River Birding Festival, two human and two avian representatives of the organization came to Wrangell to teach people about Alaska's raptors. Raptors have several distinct characteristics from other types of birds. These...
Spring is in full swing in Wrangell, and that means Birdfest is back for another year. Birdfest, or the Stikine River Birding Festival, is a weekend full of bird-related events that happen across town and in the Stikine River area. Spring festivals have been a common occurrence in Wrangell, according to Corree Delabrue with the U.S. Forest Service. What is now known as Birdfest began about 22 years ago, she said, and was known back then as the “Garnet Festival.” Garnets can be found along the Stikine River, and the festival was originally des...
The Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau met last Thursday afternoon to discuss a variety of items. A new website for the CVB, to show all the attractions of Wrangell for tourists and locals, was a big discussion item. Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore took the lead on the discussion, explaining that there was a lot of work to do to make the site ready for online traffic. The work left included finding photographs to show off the city and events around town, adding pages, working out some minor glitches, and fixing links that were...
At last week's 21st annual Stikine River Birding Festival, increasing public involvement in conservation efforts was a strong theme. The festival's focus always centers around the diverse bird species found around Wrangell and the Stikine River, highlighting different ways for residents and visitors alike to understand and enjoy them. From birdwatching to outdoor photography, using them thematic in the arts or enticing birds to backyards with self-built houses and feeders, the birding festival...
Next week the Wrangell Assembly is scheduled to parse over its line items and budget figures for the coming fiscal year. Bound drafts were handed out to members at their Tuesday evening meeting, to digest before a pair of sessions set for May 1 and 2. As it stands now, the biggest change to come from the upcoming budget effective July 1 will be consolidation of maintenance and facilities services under a new capital facilities department. Separated from Public Works, the new department would also manage major projects and grant implementation....
Wrangell’s annual birding festival is gearing up for a week of activities late next week. This year’s Stikine River Birding Festival will be the 21st, put on cooperatively each year by Wrangell’s Convention and Visitor Bureau and the United States Forest Service. Highlighting birding opportunities on the Stikine River, the event also encourages wildlife conservation and is an opportunity to hone new skills. “This year we’ve brought back more of the art and photo aspects of the festival,” said Corree Delabrue, an interpreter with the USFS Wr...
Another year begins this week, and 2018 both holds promise and poses challenges to Wrangell residents. Economic trials will perhaps be of the greatest concern as state coffers seem set to dry up and fishing forecasts continue to disappoint. Limits to funding sources will be of particular bother as the borough continues to address an aging infrastructure, though securing state funding for the Shoemaker Bay Harbor refurbishment and an expected start to the belated Evergreen Road repaving should...
Board members on the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau last week approved funding site construction for a new web page showcasing the community to potential visitors. The borough’s current page for tourists, WrangellAlaska.org, has proven a pain to maintain. Economic development director Carol Rushmore explained that site had been designed some years ago primarily with conventions in mind. The information it does have to share is limited and mostly links over to the city’s formal Wrangell.com site. “It’s an old design. We can’t get in th...
Last weekend's 20th Annual Stikine River Birding Festival was not only a draw for birders hoping to see and learn more about the area's wildlife, but also was an opportunity for residents to learn more about them and others from around the state. Researcher Dan Ruthrauff, for instance, shared his findings studying rock sandpipers wintering in Cook Inlet. A wildlife biologist for the United States Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center, he spent several years at the inlet's icy tidal flats,...
The schedule of events for the 20th annual Stikine River Birding Festival has been put out. Running from April 27 to 30 this year, the annual festival brings in ornithologists and bird fanciers from all over to appreciate the varied avian life living on and around the Stikine River. Kicking off Thursday, April 27, people can brush up on their observation skills in a Birding 101 crash course, held at the Nolan Center at 6 p.m. An hour afterward, some short films on transboundary water issues will be hosted by Southeast Alaska Conservation...
Wrangell's springtime birding festival was acknowledged for its mindfulness and dedication to conservation. The Stikine River Birding Festival received the 2017 Mindful Birding Award from the Mindful Birding Project, which promotes ethical birding and conservation efforts nationwide. The award comes with a $500 grant, which was applied for by the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We wrote in and explained how we met their criteria," said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell's economic director....
Last weekend's 19th Annual Stikine River Birding Festival proceeded despite unhelpful weather conditions, with heavy rains and whipping winds keeping most of Wrangell's feathered denizens and their admirers close to home. Three events planned for the festival ended up being cancelled as a result, including a morning breakfast and bird walk on April 30, and a special songbird banding demonstration scheduled for Sunday. Forest Service interpreter Corree Delabrue explained the weather made...