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Federal financial aid made available by a presidential disaster declaration requested by the Wrangell Cooperative Association is now available for people who suffered economic damages from the Nov 20 landslide. The assistance includes grants for home or vehicle repairs, temporary rental assistance, replacing essential personal property and loss of subsistence foods, as well as medical, dental and funeral expenses. The assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not available for damages covered by insurance, state disaster...
The time is coming once again for residents to help clean up the town, with Wrangell’s annual community cleanup scheduled for Saturday, April 20. The spring cleanup includes volunteers picking up as much trash around town as possible. The event will start at the Evergreen Elementary gym at 8 a.m. and continue until noon, when there will be a free lunch. Free trash bags and disposable gloves will be provided and there will be drawings and cash prizes for volunteers. After the bags and gloves are handed out, volunteers can head out and clean u...
Presidential approval of a disaster declaration for the Wrangell Cooperative Association will make more than half-a-million dollars available for the tribe to remove hazardous material from the beach covered in debris by the 11-Mile landslide on Nov. 20. WCA is the first tribe in Alaska to receive a federal disaster declaration, and the fourth in the nation to provide individual assistance under the program, said Esther Aaltséen Reese, WCA tribal administrator. President Joe Biden signed the declaration on March 15. The funding will cover the...
Kevin Gadsey, hired last month by the Wrangell Cooperative Association to work on domestic violence prevention, said the problem is more traumatic in smaller communities like Wrangell, where survivors often must leave town for support and treatment. Alaska has some of the highest domestic violence rates in the country, especially among Native communities. While more support and resources for survivors of domestic violence are needed, a key piece of the equation is prevention, Gadsey noted. The...
Clean water advocates believe a seafood consumption survey among Wrangell residents might help in their push for higher water quality standards. Together, the Wrangell Cooperative Association and the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission will conduct a survey in Wrangell to determine the quantity and types of seafood community members consume. The goal of the survey is to update the region’s outdated fish consumption rate, said Esther Aaltséen Reese, WCA tribal administrator. The metric is used by the U.S. Environmental Pr...
HELP WANTED Tourism Coordinator at Wrangell Cooperative Association. Complete job description and applications are available at 1002 Zimovia Highway, by emailing receptionist.wca@gmail.com, or at www.wcatribe.org. Contact Esther Ashton at 907-874-4304 with any questions. Open until filled. First review date: March 22. HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following position: Elementary School Principal for the 2024-2025 school year. The principal will provide leadership to ensure high standards are met and...
HELP WANTED Tourism Coordinator at Wrangell Cooperative Association. Complete job description and applications are available at 1002 Zimovia Highway, by emailing receptionist.wca@gmail.com, or at www.wcatribe.org. Contact Esther Ashton at 907-874-4304 with any questions. Open until filled. First review date: March 22. HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for a Paraprofessional. This is a part-time, 9-month position working with students in the Early Childhood Special Education Program at Evergreen Elementary School. A...
While it’s uncertain if the state could transfer funds to the borough for maintenance work at Petroglyph Beach, the more immediate concern is that neither the borough nor the state have any idea how many visitors commercial tour operators bring to the site each year. The state this year is requiring tour operators to buy a license and pay a per-visitor fee, which had been required under state law for more than 20 years. But the fee was never enforced for Petroglyph Beach because the Alaska Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation essentially l...
The borough is waiting on a federal disaster declaration to cover the expense of power line repairs and other immediate and near-term costs from the Nov. 20 landslide at 11.2-Mile Zimovia Highway. The Wrangell Cooperative Association is seeking federal funding for the longer-term expense of cleaning up the tidelands of debris and toxic material. Under federal law, only the governor can request a federal disaster declaration, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency reviews before sending it to the president for signature. The state has...
Wrangell Cooperative Association tribal citizens last week reelected two members and voted in two other members for the tribal council. Tribal citizens on Feb. 20 reelected Frank Churchill and Edward Rilatos to two-year terms on the council, said Esther Aaltséen Reese, tribal administrator. They also elected Thomas Gillen Sr. and Richard Oliver, who had previously served on the council, she said. The members were sworn in Feb. 22, and the eight-member council selected Rilatos to serve as president, Jason Clark to serve as vice president and...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association has established an advisory council of clan leaders and representatives, in particular to help the tribe with a totem restoration and replacement project. Feedback from the advisory group will help WCA determine which totems to select for the project, said Esther Aaltséen Reese, tribal administrator. The tribal council received a $20,000 donation last year from the Wrangell Tlingit and Haida Community Council to pay for carving two replacement totem poles while also repairing older poles in town. “It’s look...
A group of Southeast Alaska tribes has petitioned Canada to recognize their right to have a voice in how transboundary lands and waters are treated — they’re asking to be recognized as participating Indigenous nations in Canada’s review process for resource development. The latest issue is the proposed reopening of the Eskay Creek open-pit gold and silver mine near the headwaters of the Unuk River, which empties into open water about 55 miles northeast of Ketchikan. The mine site is about 80 air miles east of Wrangell. Vancouver-based Skeen...
Borough staff presented their plan for selling the first 20 lots of the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.'aan) subdivision to the Economic Development Board and members of the public at a work session Nov. 16. The plan is to sell the first row of 10 lots - the ones with waterfront views - at a public auction and the second row of 10 using a lottery system. The auction is tentatively scheduled for May 2024 and the lottery for June 2024, with buyers receiving access to their land in September, thoug...
Alexandra Angerman of the Wrangell Cooperative Association is one of 16 young people who will serve on a nationwide committee advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on environmental issues. The National Environmental Youth Advisory Council (NEYAC) was created this year by EPA Administrator Michael Regan to provide "a critical perspective on how the impacts of climate change and other environmental harms affect youth communities," according to the EPA press office. Members are ages 16...
After a yearlong public process, the U.S. Forest Service has announced eight potential cabin sites in the Petersburg and Wrangell Ranger Districts. After considering the environmental impacts and accessibility of hundreds of sites suggested by members of the public or identified by staff, the district picked the ones that are most likely to see substantial traffic and compete for federal funding, and announced them in a draft decision published Thursday, Oct. 19. There are three sites in the...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átk - Earth Branch is looking for a place to build a greenhouse after tribal citizens objected to putting one near the community garden, due to the area’s proximity to Indigenous gravesites. The borough assembly was slated to consider Tl’átk – Earth Branch’s request for a parcel of land next to the garden at its Sept. 26 meeting. The parcel is near Indigenous gravesites and Tl’átk was considering maintenance and signs on the gravesites as part of its plan for the greenhouse. However, after some triba...
Economic Development Department staff met Oct. 18 with the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau to review the borough’s travel marketing strategy and prepare it for final bureau approval in November. The group discussed industry trends, the borough’s strengths as a destination and the methods it should use to expand tourism in town. Potential visitors might ask, “why come (to Wrangell) when other communities north and south of us are easier to get to and have more perceived amenities,” said Economic Development Director Kate Thomas. She belie...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association is nearing completion of its 5,000-square-foot maintenance and warehouse building on Zimovia Highway. The facility is in its second year of construction, though planning for the project started about a decade ago. Bill Willard, Transportation Department manager, said he hopes to finish the work later this fall. The project is just waiting on some electrical items and then crews will finish the last of the interior work on the building, which is next door to the tribal offices. As with construction projects n...
No question housing is tight in town, and the Wrangell Cooperative Association is trying to help. WCA already has used federal funds to build two single-family homes, which it sold to tribal members, and now is partnering with the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority on a rental duplex. WCA is interested in providing more housing to help ease the shortage in town, said Esther Aaltséen Reese, tribal administrator, last week. Any further development, however, will depend on funding, decisions by the tribal council and available lots, which...
As the borough is developing a portion of the former Wrangell Institute property near Shoemaker Bay for a residential subdivision — Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) — the Wrangell Cooperative Association has asked for two adjoining parcels at the northern end of the property. “We want it for a memorial for people who attended the Wrangell Institute,” said Esther Aaltséen Reese, tribal administrator. One possibility is constructing a gazebo with Alaska Native art at the site, to create “a place for reflection,” she said. “Have it as a...
A seal-processing workshop hosted by the Wrangell Cooperative Association brought knowledge about traditional subsistence practices to the community. During a series of classes on Oct. 6, 7 and 8, students helped harvest the meat, fat, skin, oil and intestines from two seals and learned how each byproduct could be prepared or stored. Instructor Paul Marks II learned how to harvest and process seals from his family in Kake, particularly his grandmother. "I would bring in fish, crab, halibut, what...
While ground work is underway at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision upland from Shoemaker Bay, borough officials are at work researching options for how the residential lots — as many as 42 — will be sold. The sale is expected by next summer or fall. “People are excited about it,” said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. The community has never seen so many building lots come up for sale at one time, she said in an interview Friday, Oct. 6. “This is a new opportunity for us.” Borough officials want...
Clint Kolarich, who served as Wrangell's district ranger since June 2019, has moved to Ketchikan to work as one of the Tongass National Forest's two deputy forest supervisors. He officially stepped into the new job on Sept. 13. District employee Austin O'Brien will step in as his interim replacement for the next 120 days. In the Wrangell district, Kolarich was responsible for the management of the area's natural resources. "It's all the folks in the district that do the work," he said. "The dist...
Almost five years after the original petition was filed, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has ruled that the complaints against mining activity in British Columbia warrant fact-finding and further analysis, which could result in a determination that pollution puts the health and rights of Alaska Natives downriver of the mining at risk. The ruling found the petition “admissible” and within the commission’s jurisdiction to determine whether the mining and Canadian government and British Columbia approvals violated the Alaska tribe...
There isn’t any proof that fentanyl has made its way to Wrangell, but Police Chief Tom Radke has no doubt that the drug is present in the community. “I’m sure it’s here,” he says. “It would be foolish to say it’s not.” It also would be foolish for people who use illegal drugs to assume fentanyl is not in whatever they are about to use. “It’s in a lot of things people don’t think it’s in,” Radke says. And because the synthetic opioid could be mixed in with other illegal drugs like heroin and methamphetamines — even black-market marijuana — an...