Sorted by date Results 176 - 200 of 497
The U.S. Forest Service is hiring. Tory Houser, acting district ranger, is looking to hire for four positions at the Wrangell Ranger District. A recreation manager, a wilderness and recreation technician, an Anan Wildlife Observatory crew manager, and a fisheries biologist. The recreation manager is a permanent position. “That's the person who will go and maintain cabins and campsites and help with trails and help us get a lot of those projects done,” Houser said. The biologist will be working on fish streams and habitat, and work with the Wra...
Patrons of the Irene Ingle Public Library will now have more time to peruse the aisles, take advantage of the free Wi-Fi and checkout their favorite books. Thanks to a grant through the American Rescue Plan Act, last year's federal pandemic aid spending bill, the library is extending its hours to six days a week. The funds have also made it possible to hire a third person to help with the pages of responsibilities. Library Director Margaret Villarma said the $14,040 grant is through the...
The assembly could decide this week on a new borough manager. The three finalists were scheduled for interviews at a special assembly meeting Wednesday afternoon, and assembly members could take action in public after talking with the candidates in private. The finalists scheduled for interviews were Jeff Good, who has been working as interim borough manager since Nov. 1; Alexandra Angerman, CARES Act coordinator at Wrangell Cooperative Association; and Kim D. Zimmerman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who serves as borough manager of Le...
Posted Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 12 Alaska Crossings, a program that helps at-risk teens and takes them on guided wilderness expeditions throughout Southeast, is closing its Wrangell base of operations and moving to Sitka. Crossings has been based in Wrangell since it was founded in 2001. The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium took over the program in 2017. SEARHC announced in a press release Wednesday it would permanently shut down Crossings in Wrangell. “SEARHC made the extremely difficult decision to permanently close Crossings i...
Wrangell has been selected for the initial start-up of Tidal Network, a newly formed enterprise of the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska that will bring wireless broadband internet service to underserved areas. The new service could start in Wrangell by late spring. The Central Council plans eventually to extend the new service throughout much of Southeast. The focus is to reach homes and businesses that lack access to reliable internet service, Chris Cropley, a network architect with the Central Council, said last...
There were about 1,000 stories in the Wrangell Sentinel last year, covering state and local budgets, the ailing state ferry system, ongoing pandemic and more — including a new owner for the Sentinel. On Jan. 1, Larry Persily bought the newspaper — for the third time over the past 45 years — with a promise to return the operation to Wrangell, expand the paper and its staff, and focus on more local news. “We plan to add more news from around Southeast and the state, but not at the expense of crowding out news of Wrangell. It’s not one or the ot...
Pieces of rigid foam — polystyrene — broken away from harbor floats installed in the 1970s and 1980s are bobbing along Wrangell’s waters and washing up on beaches along Zimovia Strait. Holdovers from the Shoemaker Bay harbor float replacement project in 2018, the pieces were part of 60- to 80-foot-long old floats that the borough sold in 2018 when it should have trashed them, Port Director Steve Miller said. While records were kept of the individuals who bought the old floats, it’s now impossible to identify who owns the debris floatin...
The contractor hired by the borough for survey and design work of the former Institute property has signed up a subcontractor to advise on historical and archaeological ground searches, which are required before the borough can move ahead with permitting for residential development of the 134-acre site. Interim Borough Manager Jeff Good and Trevor Sande, principal at R&M Engineering, in Ketchikan, which is doing the survey work, have met with representatives of the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to...
Wrangell's community garden has a chance to grow once more. On Dec. 8, eight people gathered in the community gym classroom to discuss forming a committee to oversee the direction the project will take. "That's really what tonight is all about, is not making any decisions or appointing anyone to a position exactly, but we really just want to find out who is serious about being on the committee and if you don't want to be on the committee, that's OK, there's plenty of volunteer (opportunities)...
JUNEAU (AP) — The U.S. House has passed legislation to extend a year-end deadline for Alaska Native corporations to use federal coronavirus relief funds. The U.S. Supreme Court in late June ruled the corporations were entitled to receive the CARES Act funds, but delays in disbursing the money have been many corporations in a bind to spend the funds by Dec. 31. The House bill, however, isn't the same measure that earlier passed the Senate. For the bill to become law, the same version has to pass both chambers before going to the president for s...
The Wrangell Institute was a big part of history — for the Native students who went to school there, for the community and the state. The Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, which operated at the site above Shoemaker Bay from 1932 to 1975, was among several federal- and church-run schools common across Alaska for much of the 20th century. Many of the schools, including the Wrangell Institute, graduated a generation of leaders who served important roles as Alaska Natives gained recognition and rights long denied. But, sadly, many of the s...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association blessed a tree harvested from ancestral Native land on Etolin Island and headed to the Governor's House in Juneau for Christmas display. The blessing in front of the Chief Shakes Tribal House on Thursday, Nov. 18, was a partnership of the WCA, U.S. Forest Service Wrangell Ranger District, and U.S. Coast Guard, which provided the Elderberry, a 65-foot buoy tender, based in Petersburg, to transport the 14-foot-tall lodgepole tree. The Elderberry left for...
Nicole Hammer is faced with a child care conundrum that has no easy solutions. As her unemployment benefits run out, she needs to find a job. But finding someone to watch her son is proving to be difficult. Without a day care center and with few home-based child care providers, Wrangell parents have had to get creative when it comes to finding someone to watch their children while they work. In some cases, they've had to quit working. Or, in Hammer's case, she can't accept a job offer until she...
The Wrangell community garden has seen better days. Its board members believe it can see those days - plus a little more - again. A survey was recently posted online to gauge interest from the community in revitalizing the garden. So far, 40 people have responded, and three have said they want to be on the board. According to Kim Wickman, one of two board members, a great deal of work has already been done to make the plot workable. It's located on Zimovia Highway just south of Heritage Harbor,...
Wrangell Cooperative Association members are eligible for a second round of pandemic assistance grants for food and utility expenses, with applications due by Nov. 30. The assistance payments will be $1,000 per household for groceries and $1,000 for utilities, the same amount as the first round administered by WCA with funds from last year’s federal CARES Act. Tribal members must fill out a certification form “to verify the tribal household applying needs assistance due to the COVID-19 pandemic and there have been no changes to household inf...
A federal effort to help Southeast diversify its economy includes $25 million to be shared across the entire region — and Wrangell has weighed in with its requests. The U.S. Forest Service launched the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy over the summer to help promote “a diverse economy, enhanced community resilience, and conserved natural resources.” From Sept. 15 to Oct. 18, the agency sought input from communities and tribes for projects that could fulfill that strategy. Participants submitted 240 project proposals to spend the $25 m...
Rather than grumbling about face masks or grousing about politics, many of Wrangell’s students are working to improve the school, the community and the world. They are thinking about their life in the future and the life of others today. Good for them, and good for everyone. The high school students in BASE — Building a Supportive Environment — are working to help feed other students, recognize staff for their good work, support students who are having trouble, and even contribute to a microloan program that helps people in need around the w...
The borough will be asking for “archaeological proposals” for a ground survey of the former Wrangell Institute property, consulting with state and federal agencies and the Wrangell Cooperative Association on the process before any work begins. The borough had been waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which has pledged that surveys will be conducted of former Alaska Native and American Indian boarding school sites nationwide. But the department “really doesn’t have any guidance on this,” said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell...
The first rule of Tech Club is talk about Tech Club. Science teacher Heather Howe wants the students who attend Wrangell High's newly formed program to share what they're learning and doing to interest more kids in attending. The T3 Alliance -often referred to as Tech Club - is a program designed to supplement the U.S. Department of Education's Upward Bound program, which helps students increase their ability to complete a secondary education, whether college or a technical school. Not all membe...
The U.S. Forest Service got to most of its Wrangell-area work projects this past summer, with one big job pushed into next spring. The Anan Wildlife Observatory- which has reached the end of "its structural lifetime and needs replacement," the agency's website says - was supposed to be torn down in October, Corree Delabrue, U.S. Forest Service information assistant at the Wrangell Ranger District, said. Tory Houser, the recreation, lands, minerals and heritage staff officer for the Wrangell and...
To some it may look like a pile of dirt; to others it's a way to sustain agriculture and nurture the land. The popularity of composting is catching on, giving growers a way to keep operations affordable and sustainable, and potentially helping the borough save on landfill costs. Composting is the process of breaking down organic materials to be used in growing plants, providing needed nutrients and saving on irrigation. Composting runs hot and cold, literally. Passive or anaerobic composting,...
When the tide is low, the table is set. Sandy Churchill, a teacher at Tlingit & Haida Head Start in Wrangell, was referring to the ocean's banquet of sea cucumbers - known as yein in Tlingit - plus kelp, hooligans, beach grasses and fresh fish. Harvesting the banquet is difficult for about a hundred elders in Wrangell. That's why Churchill and Kassee Schlotzhauer, branch manager at Wells Fargo, organize a subsistence proxy program to help elders who can no longer subsistence harvest from the lan...
From building smokehouses and gardens to assisting with utility and food bills, the Wrangell Cooperative Association has been working to help its tribal citizens make it through the financial and emotional stress of the pandemic. "We took a hard look at what the WCA citizens were facing with the pandemic," said Esther Ashton, tribal administrator. That included financial needs and helping to build food self-sufficiency, she said. The eight-member elected tribal council last year considered how...
Wrangell is seeing some positive growth. The number of farming operations is on the rise throughout the community, and it's contributing to a healthier economy. There are two farms in Wrangell that grow a variety of fruits and vegetables and sell to residents and businesses, no less than nine residents that grow for their own consumption, and even Evergreen Elementary has a small farm. According to the Alaska Farmland Trust, the number of farms in the state increased by 30% from 2012 to 2017,...
There is no precise count but it looks like federal pandemic aid distributed or allocated over the past 18 months to Wrangell residents, businesses, the borough, school district, tribe and nonprofits totals close to $30 million. That's about equal to all the income earned by every household in town in half a year, according to U.S. Census numbers. It's almost three times the annual budget of the borough and school board combined. Most of the money came as grants or simply as federal aid to keep...
