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It was 1869 and smoke filled the winter air. Cannon balls ripped through Tlingit homes while U.S. Army shells shrieked across the sky. The same type of artillery used against the Confederates just four years prior was now turned on the Tlingit people of Wrangell, in their homeland which they called Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw. One hundred and fifty-five years later, the U.S. Army is apologizing. The apology is scheduled to take place in Wrangell on Jan. 11, 2025. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Army repr...
Landslides, heavy snowfall, flooding and wildfires aren’t uncommon in Alaska. But as the oceans and atmosphere grow warmer, such extreme events and disasters are becoming more frequent across the state, a new report says. The Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center this month released the report, “Alaska’s Changing Environment 2.0.” The report contains contributions from dozens of scientists and Indigenous experts and dives into long-term climate trends, focusin...
Sometimes, the best explanations are the simplest. Especially when it comes to economics. The complicated way to describe the consequences of Alaska losing population, particularly working-age residents, is to explain that fewer people have moved north than have moved out of the state in each of the past 12 years. That net outmigration is making it hard for employers to fill jobs, which means reduced hours of operation, longer waits for services and less money in the economy. The decline in working-age residents — ages 18 to 64 — is esp...
State officials and industry leaders trying to rescue the ailing Alaska seafood industry are facing daunting challenges, recently released numbers show. The industry lost $1.8 billion last year, the result of low prices, closed harvests and other problems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Direct employment of harvesters last year fell by 8% to the lowest level since 2001, when counts of harvesting jobs began, the Alaska Department of Labor said. The monthly...
Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, an anthropologist and cultural leader, is one of 10 Americans to receive the 2023 National Humanities Medal. Worl, 87, who is Tlingit, is a longtime leader in Alaska’s Native community, advocating for subsistence practices and promoting cultural traditions on a national level. Born in Petersburg, she has conducted research throughout Alaska, including fieldwork in the Arctic. Worl has also taught at University of Alaska Southeast. She has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard U...
As Alaskans from different organizations convened at the University of Alaska Anchorage to brainstorm ways to reverse the state’s continuing population outmigration, a leading state economist delivered some bad news. Dan Robinson, research chief at the Alaska Department of Labor, revealed that the latest data shows that Alaska has now had 12 consecutive years with more residents leaving than arriving. That is unprecedented, he said. “This is not normal for us. It hasn’t happened before,” Robinson said on Sept. 5 at the start of the two-day...
"Every room has water in it and mud," Debora Gerrish said at her home on Emily Way in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley, several hours after the Mendenhall River had receded from record flooding on Aug. 6. "Everything on the floor is destroyed. I'm trying to save my grandmother's hope chest from 1913." A similar glacial outburst flood last year only filled the ditches on her street, though it did knock down several residences along the river. But this year's flood saw the river crest more than a foot...
Charles Martin Nore, 82, passed away on July 6, 2024. Charles, the oldest of seven children, was born on Sept. 9, 1941, in Wrangell to Martin and Celestine Nore. In 1956, Charlie and his brother Mike were deckhands on the Marcele for their dad. In the summer of 1957, W.F. Smith brought the first shrimp peeling machine to Wrangell and asked Martin to fish for shrimp for him instead of seining. Charlie and Mike worked for their dad on the Marcele in 1957, 1958 and 1959. Charlie graduated in the Wr...
The Alaska Legislature recently increased state funding for domestic violence and sexual assault efforts, but a leading advocate says the effort doesn’t go far enough to meet the need. One of the main federal funding sources for Alaska’ domestic violence and sexual assault prevention efforts and programs has dropped over the years, creating a hole in service providers’ budgets as state funding has remained the same for seven years. Lawmakers plugged part of the that hole with a $3.7 million budget boost this year for the Alaska Council on Domes...
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,...
Of all the courses offered by the Della Keats precollege program, the three high school students in the University of Alaska Anchorage lobby were most struck by the cadaver lab in their anatomy and physiology course. It’s not the kind of opportunity students from rural Alaska usually get, which is the point. Bristol Albrant, a 16-year-old from Ketchikan, said the experience was indescribable. “That’s definitely not normal,” she said. For Tanya Nelson from Napakiak, it was her first time seeing a cadaver. “Probably most of our first time,” sh...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed more than $230 million in spending from the state budget but left intact $6.5 million for repairs to Wrangell school buildings, along with $5 million for stabilization work at the community’s water reservoir earthen dams and $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route from the southern end of Zimovia Highway. In addition to covering state-provided public services, construction projects and community grants, the budget bills signed by Dunleavy on June 27 also will provide an estimated $1,650 t...
The state of Alaska experiences some of the highest rates of domestic violence and sexual assault and abuse in the nation, yet most health care personnel are not trained to document and collect medical evidence crucial for aiding victims of assault and abuse. Creators of the Alaska Comprehensive Forensic Training Academy, who visited Wrangell last week, are trying to bridge the gap in training. ACFTA provides free training to nurses and health care providers that “teaches medical providers the correct way to collect forensic evidence from t...
Several of Wrangell’s requests are included in the state capital budget of public works projects that the Legislature approved last week, sending the spending plan to the governor for signature into law or veto. Unless the governor uses his veto powers to eliminate or reduce the appropriations, Wrangell would receive $5 million toward stabilization work at the earthen dams that hold back the community’s water reservoirs; $200,000 to start planning what’s being called an “escape route” for Zimovia Highway residents to drive across the island to...
Kyle Hopkins, an award-winning journalist for his reporting work on sexual assault in Alaska, will be the keynote speaker at an event for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Awareness Day at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 5, at Shakes Tribal House. Hopkins was the lead reporter on the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Lawless” series published by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica. The project explored sexual assault in Alaska and why the problem was getting worse. Though his work is not focused directly on MMIP, he hopes to share the parts of...
The state capital budget approved by the Alaska Senate last week includes $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route for when Zimovia Highway is blocked by landslides or other disasters. The route would connect the old logging road at Pats Creek on the west side of Wrangell Island to the Spur Road on the island’s east side. The borough estimates the total cost of design and construction at roughly $5 million, and requested $500,000 in state funding to start planning and design work. The Senate approved the capital proj...
The Alaska House has sent to the Senate a state operating budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 with an almost $2,300 Permanent Fund dividend that would be the single largest expenditure in the spending plan. The budget also includes $175 million in additional one-time school funding, raising the total state contribution to school district operating expenses to just over half of what House members voted to spend on this fall’s dividend. The boost in state aid for the 2024-2025 school year, if approved by the Senate and signed into l...
Archie Young likes to joke that August is like Christmas for the coaches at Mt. Edgecumbe, full of surprises for the season ahead. The state-run public boarding school in Sitka has new students coming in and departing each year, and it isn't until classes start and the dust settles that the coaches know who might be representing the school on various athletic fields and courts. In 25 years as a teacher and coach, Young has thrived as a stabilizing force in those unpredictable circumstances. But...
Teacher salaries in Alaska are not competitive when compared to much of the Lower 48, according to new research from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Alaska teachers are paid below the national average once their salaries are adjusted for the high cost of living in Alaska, said Matthew Berman, a professor of Economics at UAA and one of two authors of the study published last month. The topic of public school funding and teacher pay has been a main focus in the Alaska Legislature this session and o...
Teacher salaries in Alaska are not competitive when compared to much of the Lower 48, according to new research from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Alaska teachers are paid below the national average once their salaries are adjusted for the high cost of living in Alaska, said Matthew Berman, a professor of Economics at UAA and one of two authors of the study published last month. The topic of public school funding and teacher pay has been a main focus in the Alaska Legislature this session and o...
Russian fish flooding global markets and other economic forces beyond the state’s border have created dire conditions for Alaska’s seafood industry. Now key state legislators are seeking to establish a task force to come up with responses to the low prices, lost market share, lost jobs and lost income being suffered by fishers, fishing companies and fishing communities. The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, was introduced on March 1 and is sponsored by the Senate Finance Committee. “Alaska’s seafood industry is in a tailspin from fa...
A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Center t...
What began about a year and a half ago as a side project for high school student Spencer Petticrew would eventually evolve to become his senior project: the livestreaming video setup at Wrangell High School for events, including all sports games, musical concerts and graduation ceremony. "Basically, if it takes place in the gym, and people want to watch it, I'm the guy that handles the livestreaming of it over platforms like YouTube," he said. Petticrew credits the high school's former IT...
Just because few to none of Alaska’s elected officials are talking about bringing back the personal income tax is no reason to ignore its anniversary. OK, maybe it’s weird to celebrate your anniversary with an ex, but it’s different with the state income tax. Whereas you’re unlikely to remarry an ex, Alaskans eventually may reunite with the tax. Not willingly, of course. More like a shotgun wedding based on financial necessity. It was 75 years ago this month that the territorial Legislature enacted Alaska’s first personal income tax. It was als...
This column has little to do with actual footwear — dress shoes if you have an office job, work boots if you’re a contractor, comfortable shoes if you’re on your feet all day or rubber boots if you work on a fishing boat. It’s about walking in their shoes or, more specifically, walking and working in the shoes of people in other jobs. It’s about elected officials and office bosses who make decisions about the jobs and lives of other people. What better way to make good decisions than to know what your employees deal with on the job, the probl...