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Rolland Wimberley has a bear of a time running the Wrangell Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. Wimberley, along with many others, ran and walked the Volunteer Park Nature Trail loop three times to total 3.1 miles. Many were dressed in costumes as part of the traditional event to help burn calories and raise funds for the Parks and Recreation Department, which put on the race....
Back in March, I wrote a column about being a converted sports junkie. It detailed my appreciation for high school sports, and I believe it’s what spurred me to get more involved in the community since people still remark on it nearly nine months later. On Nov. 15, the last session was held for the I Toowú Klatseen group. Before the final meeting, a make-up run took place for the kids who had missed the previous week’s 5-kilometer fun run. It was the culmination of around 10 weeks of meetings and practices — and I nearly missed all of it. So...
It's becoming a tradition in communities across the United States, and Wrangell is no exception. Every Thanksgiving Day morning, several hundred thousand walkers and runners across the country brave cold temperatures to race in turkey trots, footraces to help burn lots of calories before lots of calories are consumed. The amount of people can vary. The Buffalo, New York, turkey trot averages about 14,000 participants a year. Run to Feed the Hungry in Sacramento, California, attracts 27,000 per y...
Monday, Oct. 10 Letter served to remove a person from a licensed establishment. Civil paper service. Citizen assist. Tuesday, Oct. 11 Gunshots: Unfounded. Civil issue. Found property. Dog complaint. Wednesday, Oct. 12 Agency assist: Alaska State Troopers. Citizen assist. Thursday, Oct. 13 Debris in roadway. Dog complaint. Agency assist: Alaska State Troopers. Paper service. Friday, Oct. 14 Civil standby. Traffic stop. Saturday, Oct. 15 Disorderly conduct. Found property. Agency assist: Fire Department. Traffic stop: Citation issued for failure...
Joint locks and compression locks might sound like the perils of getting old, but they are among hundreds of moves that are incorporated into Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighting. Though the sport can seem intimidating to first-time students, a group in Wrangell is working to welcome newcomers and highlight the many benefits. Jiu-jitsu was created over 100 years ago, originating from judo. Brazilian jiu-jitsu was created in the 1920s and has become one of, if not the fastest-growing martial arts in the...
What some would see as just a portion of muddy lawn at City Park, Angie Flickinger saw as an opportunity to better the environment. A couple years ago, Flickinger, who works on a part-time basis with the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition in Juneau, conducted a community watershed assessment to determine areas that would be ideal for a rain garden in Wrangell. Rain gardens act as natural filtration for rainwater that empties into streams and other waterbodies. "Basically, I went around on...
It's taken a few years of requests and planning, but the community center weight room finally has new equipment, freeing up valuable space and increasing safety. Two metal frames allow users to do pull-ups, triceps dips, landmines, seated rows and many other exercises, helping to create targeted workouts. A survey was conducted to identify the value of each piece of equipment in the weight room before the upgrade was made. Free weights were unanimously chosen as the most used items. However,...
The competitive high school swimming season has only just begun and already the athletes are being challenged. Coach Jamie Roberts so far has four returning swimmers and two new swimmers, but she's wasting no time in making practice tougher and getting her team in winning form. "They're already doing harder practices than where we would start," she said. "(It's) more like interval work where you're pushing yourself against the clock to do repeated distances of swimming. We might do 10 50-meters...
Uncovering historical items can have its ups and downs. In some cases, that's the literal truth. Somewhere around 1915, a set of stairs was built that saw a lot of use over the next 80 years. But they began to fade like an old photograph until suddenly they disappeared. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that the stairs were found, leading to a conversation about their place in Wrangell's history. Peter Karras, of Sitka, was in town on a visit in mid-July. Not one to be idle, he was cutting...
July 6, 1922 The U.S. Secretary of Commerce has approved an amendment to the general rules which requires that no candidate for original license as master, mate, pilot or engineer shall be examined unless he has completed a course of instruction in first aid. “The manual is intended primarily to furnish officers and men of the American Merchant Marine a simple but comprehensive textbook on ship sanitation and hygiene, an outline of surgical and fundamental information regarding the treatment of disease,” an announcement by the Health Ser...
A new Parks and Recreation Department program focuses on keeping student athletes stronger, more flexible and injury-free to keep team rosters healthy and full this coming school year. From July 18 to July 22, the Youth Strength and Conditioning Camp will teach high school and middle school-aged students how to set and attain physical and nutritional goals. "We'll certainly emphasize the importance of all the work that we put in, including strength, mobility and range of motion in the spirit of...
THANK YOU Thanks and Gunalchéesh to Alaska Vistas, ANB, the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce, Harbor Department, Parks and Recreation Department and WCA for all their support with the July 3 canoe races. Both scheduled and spontaneous helping hands made it possible for 100 entrants to participate. John and Cindy Martin THANK YOU Thank you to Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood for the donation and frybread sale on the Fourth of July. Gunalchéesh ho ho! Wrangell JOM THANK YOU The Stough family, James and Rachel, would like to say a big thank y...
A babbling creek and screeching eagles weren't the only music that could be heard among the swaying trees at Shoemaker Bay. The first Music in the Parks concert was held at Shoemaker Park last Wednesday evening, with about 200 people listening to the tunes played by artists Kaylauna Churchill-Warren and The Powers. First Bank and Alaska Marine Lines sponsored the free concert, which was organized by the Parks and Recreation Department. The Wrangell Police Department donated 250 hamburgers and...
A group of 6-, 7- and 8-year-old kids poured over the rocky beach near City Park on June 8 like a bunch of young Indiana Joneses, looking for artifacts. But this group, unlike Dr. Jones, was looking for shells as part of a Beach Explorers program to use in a science experiment. During last week's exploration, children were given a cup, guided to the beach, and instructed to find two intact seashells. "It's fun," said Bo Ritchie, 6. "We find stuff like glass. That's what my sister does. She...
Volunteers cleaned up 14 garden beds along Front Street, from the Stikine Inn down to Rayme's Bar, last Saturday to keep downtown looking nicer for tourists and residents alike. The annual cleanup came about after the beds needed more maintenance, as bushes had become overgrown and caused line-of-sight problems for motorists, said Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas. "Over 550 hours of labor went into (cleaning) them last year," Thomas said. "That's not the cumulative season, it was just...
Schools try to prepare students for life beyond the walls of academia and sometimes that requires more than classroom education. Last Tuesday, high school and middle school staff held a health fair that centered around not only physical and mental health but financial health and planning for the future. Separate sessions were held for the high school and the middle school and each was brimming with students actively going to various tables, asking questions, playing games and competing with...
An official with a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that has awarded more than $820,000 to the Wrangell borough, Forest Service and tribe said more could be on the way. The Wrangell Cooperative Association was awarded $620,000 from the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, part of a $25 million federal grant program intended to help diversify the economy of Southeast communities. The borough was awarded $100,000 to manage lands for the improvement of wild blueberry harvests and $103,000 for trail upkeep. The program also provided...
The parks and recreation department wants to hire and retain lifeguards at the pool, and is asking the borough assembly to amend the current wage classification so as to offer more competitive salaries. People shy away, Director Kate Thomas said, because the pay is low compared to the rest of Southeast, or anywhere else in Alaska, to do what is potentially a liability-incurring job — monitor the pool and dive in to help if someone is in danger. The jobs are part time. The current starting wage for lifeguards and recreation assistants is $...
Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas stands at the tidelands in front of City Park, where the borough plans to build a rock staircase and add a handrail to provide easier access to the waterfront. Thomas estimates the work may cost $2,000 to add the steps, which will blend in with the boulders that make up the naturally rocky shoreline. The department will look at what's left over in the budget from this fiscal year that ends June 30 or turn the page to the upcoming fiscal year to pay for...
The face mask debate is over for now — hopefully for good, if the community can stay healthy — and annual budget deliberations are starting over how much the borough will contribute to education and how the school district will spend its local, state and federal money. Which means it’s a good week to learn what students and staff are doing at Wrangell’s schools. There are a couple of examples this week that students are learning what’s important in life and how to manage and succeed after graduation. At Evergreen Elementary School, fifth gra...
What’s being labeled as a social-emotional fair is aiming to give kids skills that will be useful to them in life after school. On April 5, Wrangell High School and Stikine Middle School will host an event that involves various organizations throughout the community to help students learn everything from stress-reduction skills to how to balance a checkbook. “We’ve been struggling ever since COVID, or even before that with the social-emotional situation with our kids,” said Bob Davis, the assistant principal of both schools. “Krissy Smith ove...
A former concessions stand in City Park is slated to be the site of a commercial-scale composter that could give second life to food scraps on a bigger scale, potentially reducing the volume of trash that Wrangell pays to ship off the island. The folks reviving the community garden have budgeted $19,500 toward the composter, which will be located at the garden on the former Lions ball field. Valerie Massie, coordinator at Wrangell Cooperative Association's Indian Environmental General...
SEARHC's announcement last week that it was shuttering the 21-year-old Alaska Crossings program in Wrangell, a wilderness therapy program for at-risk children that the health care provider took over in 2017, disappointed much of the community. The news release cited rising costs. Spokesperson Maegan Bosak, senior director of lands and property management at SEARHC offices in Sitka, said Friday she didn't have an operating cost for Crossings but would ask the finance department for the...
COVID-19 cases in Wrangell are surging at their fastest rate of the nearly 2-year-old pandemic, with 67 new infections since Christmas weekend, as of Tuesday evening’s borough report. Of those, 37 cases were recorded between Friday and Tuesday. The post-holidays surge is certain to break Wrangell’s single-month record, when the community tallied 66 infections in November. The borough’s Tuesday COVID update made particular note of New Year’s Eve parties, advising anyone who attended a social gathering and is experiencing any symptoms to contact...
A second federal grant of $450,000 has given the borough enough money to start work and complete the long-planned extension of the popular Mt. Dewey Trail. Construction likely will begin this year, according to Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas. The project’s estimated completion date is August, according to a timeline presented to the borough assembly last month by Amber Al-Haddad, capital facilities director. The trail extension project, which would link the existing trail to Airport Road, as well as connect the Volunteer Park Loop Tr...
