Sorted by date Results 251 - 275 of 497
The Wrangell Cooperative Association held an award ceremony at Wrangell High School Monday evening, Sept. 30. Tribal Administrator Esther Ashton, along with several members of the WCA board, organized the ceremony to officially give several local organizations a check from the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium's "Healthy Is Here" grant. In total, $10,600 was given to 17 organizations. "The reason we're here today is that we received from SEARHC a Healthy Is Here grant," Ashton said....
While the role of superintendent is always busy, it has been especially so for Debbe Lancaster this past week. Lancaster, superintendent of the Wrangell Public School District, recently attended the Alaska Superintendents Association conference in Fairbanks, from Sept. 25 to 28. The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development also recently released a new website, "The Compass," that lets people more easily compare schools across the state. The ASA Conference was an opportunity for...
A large crowd gathered at the Wrangell Cooperative Association's new building last Friday, Aug. 30. The building, located at 1002 Zimovia Highway, is the new home for the WCA after their move from downtown Wrangell. Two stories tall, the new building offers much more room for the cooperative association to work in. With formline artwork by Steve Brown on the panelling, the building draws attention from people going down the highway. Construction of the building began in April of 2018, according...
August 14, 1919 Either the Admiral Farragut or the Spokane, formerly running from Seattle to Skagway by way of Ketchikan, will be returned to the northern run within a month, according to the announcement made by V. A. Peterson, agent of the Pacific Steamship Company at Ketchikan. “One of the two liners will make a trip as soon as the freight traffic gets heavy,” said Mr. Peterson. “Although the passenger traffic would at times warrant its return before, the San Francisco run is much more congested, and the lack of Alaskan freight traff...
Closing on July 19 last month, the Wrangell Community Prioritization Survey garnered what Ruby McMurren called a surprising number of responses. A total of 482 people responded to the survey, she said. Most of these surveys were completed online, but 49 of them were hard copies. The survey is part of a grant project by the Administration for Native Americans, lead by McMurren and Talea Massin of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, seeking to combat outmigration of tribal citizens and improve t...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association, once again, is helping out with the Tlingit and Haida Central Council's back to school backpack event. Tribal Administrator Esther Ashton said that the WCA partners with the central council every year for this event, which aims to provide backpacks and school supplies to native children across Southeast Alaska. Applications to receive a backpack will close on Aug. 2. "Basically, it's for Alaska Native or American Indian," she said. "You have to reside in...
Sea otters are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a federal law that prohibits the harvesting of marine mammals. However, this law does allow for some exceptions. Under section 101 of the act, on page 16, it reads that "... the provisions of this Act shall not apply with respect to the taking of any marine mammal by any Indian, Aleut, or Eskimo who resides in Alaska and who dwells on the coast of the North Pacific Ocean or the Arctic Ocean if such taking-(1) is for subsistence...
Ruby McMurren, with the Wrangell Cooperative Association and project director of the local Administration for Native Americans grant project, wanted to remind everybody in town that the "Wrangell Community Prioritization Survey" will come to a close on Friday, July 19. The survey is designed to get public input on the subjects of economic development, healthcare, and housing in Wrangell, and what people want to see improved or changed. The ANA grant project is designed to help stem the flow of...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association, along with Corvus Design and SALT, a consulting team, held a workshop at the Nolan Center last Thursday, June 13. The workshop was part of the Administration for Native Americans grant project, which has been led in Wrangell by Ruby McMurren and Talea Massin of the WCA. The project was designed to look at ways to prevent the out-migration of the native community in Wrangell. Through several meetings with community and tribal leaders, McMurren and Massin...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association held a "meeting of the association" last Wednesday, May 29. The cooperative association is Wrangell's governing body for tribal citizens. The meeting held a dual purpose: To introduce the public to the new tribal council, and to let the public know about several projects that are in the works. The WCA elected five new members to the tribal council in April. These are Christie Jamieson, Michelle Jenkins, Cori Robinson, Richard Oliver, and Lu Knapp. After introducing the council, and a prayer by Virginia...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association and the Administration for Native Americans will hold a workshop for the community to discuss ways to improve healthcare, housing, and economic development in Wrangell. Ruby McMurren and her assistant, Talea Massin, have been working on creating an action plan tocombat the out-migration of tribal citizens since 2018, thanks to a grant from the ANA. Through a series of meetings with various community members, they determined that healthcare, housing, and...
Members of the Wrangell Cooperative Association and the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority held a short presentation last Wednesday evening on some upcoming home renovations the organizations plan to complete. The THRHA was in Wrangell in January to talk about renovations to about 20 low-income homes in Wrangell they were completing under the Indian Community Development Block Grant. Recently, however, both the WCA and the THRHA were awarded the Healthy Homes Production Grant. This money...
Many people came out the morning of Saturday, April 13, to participate in the Wrangell Community Clean-Up. Both individuals and local organizations participated in picking up trash wherever it could be found. The Wrangell Rod and Gun Club, for instance, drove out to the gun range on Spur Road to clean up trash and bullet shells. One family found a pile of old tires left in a ditch near Volunteer Park, while another group came by with a rusted, old sled. Wrangell Resident Paula Rak and the...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association, the local organization dedicated to supporting Alaska Natives, held an election for new tribal council members last Monday, March 25. The WCA oversees cultural events, supports subsistence lifestyles, assists with transportation, and does much more for Wrangell's native community. Board members are elected by tribal members of the WCA. Five people have been chosen for the council this year, according to results released on the WCA's Facebook page: Christie...
Bob Dalrymple said he first became interested in forestry when he was in the Boy Scouts. It was a fairly linear career trajectory. He said he knew what he wanted to do since high school. He attended forestry school at Colorado State University, and got his first job with the Forest Service planting trees in 1975. In 1982 he came to Southeast Alaska for seasonal work, and fell in love with the area. He said that he worked on Prince of Wales and in Petersburg for many years, then went south for a...
The Nolan Center hosted the first of several Chautauqua speaking lectures last Thursday. Members of the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, a regional organization dedicated to the stewardship of Southeast Alaska watersheds, were invited to talk about the Pat Creek watershed. A watershed, for those unfamiliar with the term, is an area of land that feeds all of the water that comes into the area into a single body of water. These bodies of water, then flow into larger bodies of water, which eventually all connect into a stream or a lake. The...
The Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority (THRHA) held a meeting in Wrangell last week, on Jan. 23, to give an update on a project they have been working on to reduce the cost of living for low-income tribal citizens. Thanks to an ICDBG grant they received in 2018, or Indian Community Development Block Grant, they are working to renovate 20 homes across Wrangell to make them more energy efficient. According to the presentation, about $34,000 will be spent on each home. Director of Tribal Services Desiree Jackson explained that the goal is...
April The Department of Transportation is finally able to get started on a major Wrangell road repaving project. Perforated by potholes, the borough’s Evergreen Avenue will be resurfaced and repaired, with pedestrian improvements and other fixes. The major project has been on hold for half a decade, surviving rounds of budget cuts to capital funding elsewhere in the state along the way. Two local right of way issues which had lately been holding up the project were wrapped up in February, allowing the project to move along. Speaking at a p...
The past year has been a busy one for the community of Wrangell, and also one full of changes. Elections have come and gone, the school district saw a new superintendent and two new principals, a high school swimming and diving team was organized, and a new reporter came to town. A new organization was formed, BRAVE, to help bring people together to enhance life in the community for Wrangell’s younger population. Other organizations like the Senior Center and Nolan Center saw new faces, as well. There were lots of physical changes to W...
Many Wrangell residents who went out to vote in the Nov. 6 midterms saw a poster board covered in blue "I Voted" stickers. They were encouraged to add their stickers to the collage to support Evergreen Elementary. This past election, the school participated in the 2018 First Alaskan Institute Youth Voter Turnout Challenge. The contest was fairly simple, as explained by a paper attached to the sticker collage. Whichever school saw the highest increase in voter turnout from 2016 to 2018 would win...
Members of the Wrangell Cooperative Association moved a totem pole from Shakes Island to the cultural center on Front Street Thursday evening. According to Tribal Administrator Esther Ashton, the tribe plans to do some restoration work on this totem, and some others, in the near future....
Ongoing efforts to remove contaminated soil from the site of the Byford junkyard are about a third of the way complete, according to Sally Schlichting with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The soil is being packed into large bags specially designed to carry soil and is being shipped to a landfill in Oregon. Schlichting explained that the soil at the junkyard site was heavily contaminated with lead, as well as with some petroleum and trace amounts of other chemicals. The lead was neutralized, she said, with a chemical called...
"Alaska Sprouts – Seeds of Change" is a new group in the city of Wrangell, recently funded through grant money received by the Wrangell Cooperative Association. Their goal, according to the organization's Facebook page, is to help make a brighter future for the city's youth. One of the ways this all-volunteer group hopes to do so is by hosting "teen nights." Jillian Privett is the main organizer of Alaska Sprouts. She said the teen night is aimed for eighth through twelfth-graders, and is m...
Legal representation for the Wrangell school district was discussed in Monday night’s school board meeting. With the new school year beginning August 23, the board had several policy items to discuss. Among them was the potential hiring the law firm Sedor, Wendlandt, Evans, and Filippi for legal representation. The contract presented to the school, according to board member Aleisha Mollen, was fairly standard. Board member Dave Wilson, however, said that there was some wording in the contract he was concerned about. The portion of the c...
