Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 514
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...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association is taking steps to reduce the harm caused by fentanyl, opiates and other illegal drugs by providing free resources to community members experiencing addiction. As of Sept. 26, fentanyl test strips are available at the WCA office, Irene Ingle Public Library and the upstairs bathroom at the Kadin Building, where the state’s part-time Public Health Office is located. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Since it i...
James Stough selects from frozen containers of jam at the Wrangell Cooperative Association cultural center on Sept. 20. The jams, along with packages of spruce tips, dried goose tongue seasoning and Labrador tea, were donated and prepared by Vivian Faith Prescott for tribal members and elders....
The process for recycling aluminum cans is about to get easier in the coming months. The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átk - Earth Branch was awarded a $40,000 grant through the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in July to purchase a compactor and baler for its aluminum recycling program. The consortium is working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to provide solid waste disposal funding to tribes. For the past three years, Tl’átk – Earth Branch has collected aluminum cans outside Wrangell IGA and City Market. W...
During the budget process next year, the school district will need to cut about $500,000 from its current $5.1 million operating budget to maintain financial sustainability as it prepares for the end of federal pandemic relief funding. This could mean staffing cuts and major changes to school facilities and programs, unless new sources of money are found. Over the past three years, the district has relied on pandemic aid to help cover its costs, but this funding is ending soon. Those federal aid grants, which will run out in fall of 2024, curre...
Voters on Oct. 3 will choose between incumbent Esther Aaltséen Reese and challenger John DeRuyter for a three-year term on the school board. It is the only one of five school board seats on this year's ballot. Reese, tribal administrator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association, is finishing her first year on the board after winning election last October, when she was unopposed. DeRuyter, in his third year on the secondary school advisory committee, is making his first run for office in...
It appears that tour operators who bring visitors to Wrangell’s Petroglyph Beach will be required to pay a $350 annual fee to the state plus $6 per person starting next year. The fee for commercial use of a state park or historic site has been a provision in Alaska law since the 1980s but apparently never enforced for the Petroglyph Beach State Historic Site, which was designated in 2000. The fee structure was updated in 2021. The State Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation realized it had not issued any commercial-use permits or collected f...
Members of the Tlingit community gathered outside the Wrangell airport last Friday while chests carrying four objects -a mudshark hat, a mudshark tunic, a blanket and a blanket with a killer whale stranded on a rock while hunting - were carefully lowered back into their hands after 91 years of separation. The objects, which belong to the Naanya.aayí clan, were taken by Wrangell police from the home of Mary Kunk, Eva Blake and Betty Carlstrom in the 1930s. In an effort to right past wrongs,...
Voters will choose two borough assembly members, a school board member and a port commissioner in the Oct. 3 municipal election — but only one of the four seats is contested. There are two candidates for the one school board seat on the ballot. John DeRuyter, a clinical psychologist, is running for a three-year term on the school board. Incumbent Esther Aaltséen Reese, tribal administrator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association, is seeking reelection to the board. She was elected to a one-year term last year. DeRuyter is a self-employed cl...
Last Friday and Saturday, WCA, Tlingit & Haida and the American Legion distributed backpacks and other school supplies to help prepare the community's youth for the academic year. A long line of students and families snaked out of the WCA Cultural Center on Friday morning, Aug. 18, as parents and children geared up for the task of backpack selection. "This is an important program to make sure that we're supporting our children and also our tribal families with school essentials," said Tribal...
Ever wanted to learn how to hem a pair of jeans? Fix a bike? Patch a tire? Drain the fluids from an old car so that it’s ready for disposal? The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s upcoming fix-it clinic will help the community learn to maintain and repair household items, promoting sustainability and reducing waste. The event will be held at the covered basketball court on Monday, Aug. 28, from noon to 4 p.m. Marilyn Mork will be available to share her sewing and mending expertise, particularly hemming and attaching loose buttons. She pla...
Gary Albert Stevens, 53, passed away in June in his Las Vegas home of natural causes. His memorial service will be at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 31, at Chief Shakes House on Shakes Island in Wrangell, followed by a reception and potluck at the American Legion Hall. He was born to Gary James and Susan Georgina Stevens on March 28, 1970, in Wrangell. He was Tlingit and Haida of the Naanyaa.iee clan. His Tlingit names were Gush Tlein, Ts'eil and "Eagle Looking Out on the Ocean." He was the first gran... Full story
The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átk - Earth Branch is hoping to purchase a parcel of land next to the community garden from the borough to build a greenhouse. The greenhouse would provide fresh produce to the community year-round and create a space for people to learn about gardening and sustainable practices. The planning and zoning commission and Economic Development Director Kate Thomas both recommended approving the land sale. The port commission will discuss the issue at its September meeting before passing it along to the boro...