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The borough has started a newsletter, the first in a series of initiatives to provide more information for the public, particularly focused on promoting economic growth. The second initiative will be monthly informal discussions titled “Our Town, Our Future.” The “economic coffee chats” will be held the third Friday every month, starting Oct. 18, said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. The meetings will be held at a different location each month, she said, with the first location undecided as of last week. The series will...
After five years, Wrangell High School will have a new elevator, at last. The new elevator will be installed next summer after the borough assembly approved a construction contract last week. Demolition will begin toward the end of the current school year, and Capital Projects Director Amber Al-Haddad hopes construction will be completed by the time students walk in on the first day of school in August 2025. After an oil leak was discovered at the bottom of the existing elevator’s hydraulic ram in March 2020, the school shut down the e...
GCI said Saturday that a ship is coming from Seattle to make repairs to a damaged section of undersea fiber optic cable that has caused the loss of GCI cell phone and internet service in Sitka. Service, which was cut Thursday, Aug. 29, is not expected to be back up until next week. GCI said the repair ship is expected to be at the site of the undersea cable break, about 30 miles from Sitka, by Friday, Sept. 6, and that repairs could take three to seven days. In the meantime, the public is getting help from Starlink satellite communication...
A state geologist walking the landslide area on Sunday morning heard whimpering noises from a collapsed home. He called Ketchikan firefighters, who responded and pulled out two dogs from the debris, reuniting them with their owners. "After an emotional week of recovering from the aftermath of the Third Avenue landslide, Ketchikan - and most specifically, James and Bill Montiver - got some very good news," the city's emergency operations center announced on Sunday. "During the landslide the Monti...
Participants in a transboundary mining conference in Juneau last week said recent natural and industrial disasters show why their heightened concerns are justified. “I think that people are realizing that more and more this is an emergency situation,” Wrangell’s Esther Aaltséen Reese, president of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, said in an interview Aug. 28. “We can’t just keep coming to these meetings and saying the same thing.” The third annual Transboundary Mining Conference began two days after a major landsl...
Disposing of large, derelict vessels abandoned in Petersburg’s harbors comes at a cost. The borough assembly has authorized the transfer of $240,000 from the harbor department reserves to the derelict boat disposal budget category to pay for disposal of two large derelict boats. The assembly also amended the code to make clear that boat owners are responsible for disposal costs. “It’s incredibly expensive,” Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht said at the Aug. 19 assembly meeting. “Literally, to take two boats apart and scrap them and handle an...
Turnout in this year’s state primary election is on pace to be the third lowest in the past 50 years, according to preliminary figures published Aug. 27 by the Alaska Division of Elections. Through that evening, 106,208 votes had been counted from just over 17.5% of all registered voters. The turnout rate in Wrangell was similar. Four years ago, Alaskans approved a new elections system that includes an open primary election in which candidates from all parties compete in the same race for each statewide office. The top four vote-getters a...
A decade after sea star wasting disease arrived in Sitka Sound, researchers are investigating the relationship between sea urchins, kelp forests and sunflower stars. Scientists still don’t know much about the disease, which causes several species of sea stars, such as sunflower stars, to lose their limbs before dissolving. “Sea star” is the name marine scientists now use with reference to the five-limbed marine invertebrate instead of the common term “starfish,” because it is not actually a fish. Around Sitka, sea star wasting disease i...
Workers breached the final dams on a key section of the Klamath River on Aug. 28, clearing the way for salmon to swim freely through a major watershed near the California-Oregon border for the first time in more than a century as the largest dam removal project in U.S. history nears completion. Crews used excavators to remove rock dams that have been diverting water upstream of two dams, Iron Gate and Copco No. 1, both of which were already almost completely removed. With each scoop, more and more river water was able to flow through the...
BOONE, N.C. — Excavators claw at the remains of Shulls Mill Dam on the Watauga River, pulling concrete apart piece by piece and gradually opening a waterway kept in check for nearly two centuries. Removal of this privately owned hydropower dam in western North Carolina will be a boon for rafters, kayakers and tubers by allowing the river to flow freely for nearly 80 miles. But maybe the biggest beneficiary will be a strange, ancient creature known as the eastern hellbender salamander. Sometimes called a snot otter or Allegheny alligator, i...
The Southeast Alaska sport fishery is on track to exceed its king salmon allocation for the summer by 14,000 fish, prompting the state to close the region to sportfishing for kings. The closure went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26. “King salmon may not be retained or possessed, and any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed,” according to the Department of Fish and Game announcement late Friday, Aug. 23. The king salmon sport fishery will reopen on Oct. 1 for the winter season. “While the (...
Staff at three borough offices saw a need and got together to do something about it. Their answer is to provide after-school activities three days a week over the next three months. “There’s always been the need for after-school care in the community … to fill that gap for parents and children,” said Sarah Scambler, director of the Irene Ingle Public Library. The activities will be free; no advance registration required. The program is open to children 7 through 13 years old, though younger children are welcome, but they must be accompa...
A landslide tore down a slope about a mile north of downtown Ketchikan, killing one person and injuring three on Sunday. The landslide hit around 4 p.m., and a mandatory evacuation order remained in place Monday for homes on several streets in the slide area near the waterfront. A dozen people stayed at an emergency shelter established at Ketchikan High School on Sunday night, emergency officials said. Others stayed with family or friends. Schools were closed Monday, which would have been the...
The Alaska Department of Transportation installed a ridgetop weather station near 11-Mile earlier this month. The station will allow scientists and DOT officials to further monitor the area affected by the November 2023 landslides. Standing 18 feet tall, the structure will report data such as air temperature, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and snow depth. Notably, it is the only snow depth monitor on the island other than the airport weather station, according to Pat Dryer, an...
It's not often the U.S. Forest Service gets to open up a new public-use cabin in Southeast, and they had a special visitor to cut the ribbon: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Alaska's senior senator participated in the event Aug. 19 at the Anan Bay cabin. After a tree fell in February 2023, crushing the cabin, the Forest Service decided it would use the need to replace the structure as an opportunity to give it some upgrades as well. The new red cedar cabin boasts a large, covered deck in addition to...
Cell phones won’t be the only things that need charging before a school day. Wrangell could need to plug in its bus too. The school board moved closer on Aug. 20 with plans to purchase an electric school bus. Most of the $423,000 cost would come from a $378,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant the school district received in 2023. The rest of the funding would likely come from the district’s reserve fund. Superintendent Bill Burr estimates the bus could arrive sometime in 2025. The board is scheduled to consider the purchase con...
Tracey Martin wants to bring everyone together. After working in classrooms for three decades, she found her way back to her hometown three years ago. She retired from teaching this past spring and began her new role as executive director of the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 13. After working with students for 30 years, Martin hopes to apply what she learned in classrooms to her new role working with small businesses. "There is so much planning that goes into teaching," she said. "I want...
When the borough went out to bid to replace the dilapidated Meyers Chuck dock, there were four or five interested parties. When bids closed on Aug. 13, however, the borough received not a single one. After some delays in the project, the borough hoped to begin procurement for the dock’s new floats late this year. Ideally, construction and installation of the new 200-foot dock would take place next summer. The two-part project was estimated to cost $2.5 million, of which Wrangell would only have to pay $1.4 million thanks to a $1.1 million s...
Republican candidate Jeremy Bynum received just under half the votes in the Aug. 20 primary election for state House District 1, easily outpolling two independent candidates in a preview of the Nov. 5 general election. The three candidates are competing to replace Rep. Dan Ortiz, who is retiring for health reasons after 10 years in the Legislature. The district covers Ketchikan, Metlakatla and Wrangell, plus Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island. All three candidates live in Ketchikan, whose larger population dominates the district. About...
The Wrangell Athletic Club has raised more than $17,000 toward covering the estimated $24,000 to $25,000 the school district spent on sending students, coaches and chaperones to state competition in the 2023-2024 school year. The district had sent the fundraising group an invoice for more than $29,000, but the nonprofit is contesting about $5,000 of the charges. The Wrangell Athletic Club said the additional costs were for school district administrators who accompanied the students to competition, which is outside of what the nonprofit...
Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom is withdrawing from the race for the state’s lone U.S. House seat, she announced via social media on Friday, just three days after the primary election. With most of the votes counted, Dahlstrom is expected to finish third in the state’s top-four primary election, behind Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola and fellow Republican challenger Nick Begich. In a prepared statement published, Dahlstrom said she wanted to see Peltola voted out of office but “at this time, the best thing I can do to see that goal reali...
A ballot measure that could repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice election system is headed to a vote in November, the Alaska Supreme Court confirmed Thursday, Aug. 22. In a brief order, the court’s five members upheld a lower court decision that certified Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal the laws that created the state’s ranked-choice general election and open primary election system. The order came shortly after justices heard oral arguments in an appeal claiming that the Alaska Division of Elections improperly certified the measure. “Toda...
Saxman, a community of about 400 people just south of the city of Ketchikan, will build 14 affordable housing units over the next year. In partnership with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Saxman will use $4.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds distributed through the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. to develop four apartment buildings — three fourplexes and one duplex — containing a total of 14 two-bedroom dwellings for low-income tenants. The units could be open for occupancy by the end of 2025. AHFC, a public corporation and independent sta...
Alaska Airlines is one step closer to acquiring Hawaiian Airlines after the U.S. Department of Justice chose not to challenge the $1 billion deal that the carriers say will create a company better able to serve travelers. The brands of both airlines would be preserved after the merger, which is rare in an industry where decades of acquisitions have left only four big carriers dominating the U.S. market. Alaska and Hawaiian say they have few overlapping routes and the intent of a tie-up is to allow the new airline to better compete with the...
The Petersburg Indian Association is now in the hospitality business with its purchase of the 45-room Tides Inn hotel and Highliner Car Rental from a longtime Petersburg family. “My sisters and I are very pleased with the conclusion of the sale of the Tides Inn and Highliner Car Rental to the Petersburg Indian Association,” Dave Ohmer said in a written statement. “The Ohmer family started doing business in Petersburg in 1916, and it is wonderful to now be selling the Tides Inn and Highliner to an organization whose families were here long...