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Police Chief Gene Meek has revamped the Wrangell Police Department. Since arriving in July, he has implemented a series of policies that emphasize transparency, prevention and community engagement. When he arrived in town, he realized something pretty quickly about the police department. "This agency was stuck in the 1990s," he said. "It was a reactive model, where you sit back, wait for calls for service, and go out and handle the calls. That's fine from a law enforcement standpoint, but...
It's been 10 years since the community saw the map of a proposed new access route to the Mount Dewey Trail and its viewing platform for a scenic look at the town and harbor below. The wait ended with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new trailhead parking lot on Thursday, Nov. 14. "It's heavily used already," Amber Al-Haddad, the borough's capital projects director, said a few hours before the official opening. The trail runs from Bennett Street, starting at the new parking area on the road to th...
Since acquiring a new 3D printer for the Irene Ingle Public Library, librarian Sarah Scambler and library assistant Kaitlin Wilson have enjoyed familiarizing themselves on the latest addition. Much of the learning came through experimenting, creating different objects. After several weeks, Scambler had made several skeletons, spring-coiled ghosts and even segmented slugs for Halloween. "It's been fun to play around with it and figure out how it works," she said. The printer is not yet available...
FALL STORYTIME for children 10 to 11 a.m. Fridays at the Irene Ingle Public Library. Stories, crafts and snacks. COMMUNITY POTLUCK 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, at the Nolan Center. Native American and Alaska Native heritage potluck to honor the Native community. Bring your favorite dish and your regalia. Hosted by the Nolan Center, Wrangell Cooperative Association and Wrangell JOM. SCHOOL BOARD will meet at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18, in Evergreen Elementary School Room 101. A work session will precede the meeting at 6 p.m. for budget training. Communit...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association is working with the borough to put together a commemoration and remembrance event for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the Nolan Center, marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly landslide that hit the community. More details about the remembrance and potluck will be announced this week. The slide started about 1,500 feet up the hillside the evening of Nov. 20, 2023, and flowed down the steep slope, destroying two homes at about 11.2-Mile Zimovia Highway and killing six people: Otto Florschutz, and Tim...
Jamie Roberts is leaving Wrangell better than she found it. After 26 years on the island, Jamie is saying goodbye to a town that not only formed her, but that she helped form for the better. The Roberts family moved out of their 11.25-Mile home after the Nov. 20, 2023, landslide. Since then, they have been unable to find a tenable housing solution. Later this month, Jamie will join her husband, Greg, at their new home in Veneta, Oregon. The Wrangell chapter in the book of Jamie Roberts begins...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association, alongside the borough, invite community members to come together at the Nolan Center for a one-year remembrance of last November’s deadly landslide. The event is set for 6 p.m. on the slide’s anniversary, Nov. 20. Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese said both the tribe and the borough want the structure of the event to be flexible in order to best meet people’s needs. There will be speeches to open the remembrance, but Reese said they are going to try and keep that portion of the evening short...
NBA champion Chucky Brown should probably be back in Raleigh, North Carolina, preparing his St. Augustine’s University Falcons for their basketball season opener. He is their head coach, after all. But following a Zoom call with Wrangell Cooperative Association Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese earlier this fall, he realized that a trip to Wrangell was not something he could turn down. Brown will join a coalition of Team Hollywood athletes and officials in Wrangell on Monday, Nov. 11, to lead all-day programming for students. Team Ho...
By Sam Pausman Sentinel senior reporter If you weren't at the Nolan Center on Saturday afternoon, you must have been out of town. It seemed all of Wrangell piled into the center to witness the blessing of the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. Led by the Wrangell Cooperative Association, the event was moved indoors after a persistent storm turned a cloudy afternoon into a rainy one. The event was attended by folks from Wrangell, folks from throughout Alaska and folks from Washington, D.C. Even Smokey...
This November, when the President steps out on Pennsylvania Avenue and looks toward the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, he's going to see a Christmas tree from the Tongass National Forest. Better yet, Wrangell High School students were tasked with keeping it alive. Members of the T3 program (Teaching Through Technology), a federally funded teaching nonprofit, teamed up with a local inventor to make sure the tree continues to absorb water on its nearly month-long journey from Wrangell to Washingto...
A major copper-and-gold mining project in the rugged mountains of northwestern British Columbia - upriver from Wrangell - is poised for a boost from the Canadian government. Canada's Department of Natural Resources last month announced that it plans to inject about $15 million U.S. into a massive copper and gold development just 25 miles from the Alaska border. The project is perched above tributaries of the Stikine River - a major salmon-bearing waterway that flows into Alaska waters. The...
Wrangell hasn’t been this excited about a harvested spruce tree since the sawmills were running. Only the tree that is the subject of this month’s enthusiasm wasn’t cut down, it was dug up. Crews dug, then dug some more, cut some roots and then lifted the 80-foot-tall tree and its massive root wad out of the ground on Zarembo Island on Oct. 19 for a short ride to Wrangell, where it will go on display Saturday, surrounded by a weekend of activities. Not to diminish its brief display in Wrangell, but the tree’s real destination is the West La...
Wrangell's famed Three-Frog Totem on Shakes Island is no more. The clans involved in the pole's history decided its purpose had long since passed. It was taken down in a ceremony on Sept. 6. Kiks.adi clan mother Katherine Geroge-Byrd said the pole's origins date back to the 19th century. A Naanyaa.aayí chief's three sons were slated to wed Kiks.adi women in a series of arranged marriages. Instead, the three women instead fell in love with - and ran away with -slaves. For the Naanyaa.aayí chief,...
The community is climbing up the right tree as it prepares to celebrate an early start to the holiday season Oct. 25-27. The borough’s economic development team, the Nolan Center, chamber of commerce, U.S. Forest Service and other branches of community service are going all out to deck out the weekend as Wrangell will for the first time see and then say goodbye to the special tall tree that will truck its way to a spot on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. It’s not going out on a limb to say it’s a big deal for the town. This year’s Capitol...
It's not often the U.S. Forest Service gets to open up a new public-use cabin in Southeast, and they had a special visitor to cut the ribbon: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Alaska's senior senator participated in the event Aug. 19 at the Anan Bay cabin. After a tree fell in February 2023, crushing the cabin, the Forest Service decided it would use the need to replace the structure as an opportunity to give it some upgrades as well. The new red cedar cabin boasts a large, covered deck in addition to...
It took us seven days to get from Wrangell to Juneau in the Paddle to Celebration 2024. We could not have even launched without you and your support. Gunalchéesh. We extend our deepest gratitude to all the community supporters who donated money, and those who lent us gear, especially the U.S. Forest Service and Wrangell Cooperative Association. We extend our deepest gratitude to our friends and family who offered views, likes and shares, and cheers and prayers — you paddled with us. The Wrangell-Petersburg Indian Association Canoe Team ex...
T.J. Sgwaayaans Young, a Haida master carver from Hydaburg, arrived in Wrangell earlier this month to lead a team of Wrangell-based apprentices to carve a new Kadashan totem pole. When the work is finished, the Wrangell Cooperative Association plans to hold a pole raising ceremony on Shakes Island sometime next year, Wrangell's first totem raising in 38 years. The Kadashan pole - referring to the Tlingit chief of the same name - is the first of two the WCA team will carve this year. Next month,...
Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Earth Branch, Tl’átḵ, is working with the U.S. Forest Service to install temperature loggers (data recording devices) in selected salmon streams on Wrangell Island to help get a better understanding of the impacts of thermal variations on salmon populations. The two agencies are planning to deploy three to six temperature loggers on the island. As of July 15, two had been installed. Alex Angerman, Earth Branch coordinator, said “monitoring stream temperatures is crucial for assessing the health of salmon p...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Chamber of Commerce is accepting applicants for executive officer who plans, organizes, coordinates and directs chamber business as well as oversees the daily operation of the chamber. Posting open until filled. Full job description and applications are available by emailing Chamber President bburr@wrangellchamber.com. HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following positions for the 2024-2025 school year: - Special Education Paraprofessional: This is a part-time, 9-month classified position,...
The extension to the Mount Dewey trail is nearly complete and will connect the existing trail to a new trailhead on Bennett Street. Work began on the three-quarter-mile trail extension in December and is expected to be complete by the end of the month. It will provide a pathway from the backside of Mount Dewey, supplementing the longstanding route up the front from downtown. The borough worked with the Wrangell Cooperative Association to name the trail Sháchk Kináa Deiyí, which means “path over the muskeg.” The total project cost added up to...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Cooperative Association Transportation (WCAT) is seeking two road/trail maintenance laborers. Complete job descriptions and applications are available outside the Wrangell Cooperative Association office at 1002 Zimovia Highway. Positions are open until filled. Contact Lizzy Romane at 907-874-3077 with any questions. HELP WANTED Johnson’s Building Supply is accepting applications for the following position: Customer Service: Duties include counter sales, freight handling, customer deliveries, stocking and inventory. F...
Sarah Lewis from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service will return to Wrangell July 27-29 to teach more health and food preservation classes for free. Lewis, based in Juneau, will travel on her family’s boat, the Pacific Sapphire, to visit nine communities in Southeast Alaska during the month to teach a variety of home skills and food preservation classes. “More reliable than the ferry and less expensive than flying,” she said. The Wrangell classes are a collaboration with the federal Tribes Extension Program, 4-H,...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Cooperative Association Transportation (WCAT) is seeking two road/trail maintenance laborers. Complete job descriptions and applications are available outside the Wrangell Cooperative Association office at 1002 Zimovia Highway. Positions are open until filled. Contact Lizzy Romane at 907-874-3077 with any questions. HELP WANTED Johnson’s Building Supply is accepting applications for the following position: Customer Service: Duties include counter sales, freight handling, customer deliveries, stocking and inventory. F...
