Sorted by date Results 1670 - 1694 of 7954
Due to an increase in respiratory disease rates —including COVID-19 — throughout Southeast and in Wrangell, the Wrangell Medical Center has re-implemented a mandatory masking policy for its visitors, patients and staff. “It was in response to what we were seeing as increased respiratory illnesses both in the community and in the region, COVID of course being one of those,” hospital administrator Carly Allen said last week. “We’ve also been following influenza A and B and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), as well as … other respiratory i...
From painters to comic illustrators, jewelers to woodcarvers, quilters to printmakers, Wrangell is full of talented artists. However, after a downtown gallery closed earlier this year, there was no centralized venue for artists to display their work and tourists to check out the local art scene. Cyni Crary, director of the Nolan Center, Michael Bania, a member of the former art gallery, and others are planning a collaborative effort that will house a new gallery in the Nolan Center for community members and summer visitors to enjoy. The former...
The Biden administration on Monday approved an $8 billion oil development on Alaska’s North Slope. ConocoPhillips’ Willow prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is expected to be one of the largest oil fields developed in the state in decades and could produce oil for 30 years. The administration’s decision is not likely to end the debate, however, with litigation expected from environmental groups. Depending on litigation, first oil could flow before the end of the decade. Peak production, estimated at 180,000 barrels of oil a day...
Zeke Yéeskáa Young always enjoys meeting new people, traveling to new places and learning about different cultures. But he had no idea when moving to Wrangell last year from Port Angeles, Washington, that he'd be helping to sustain a culture. Young's high school senior project is to create five new signs in Tlingit and English to direct residents and visitors to five Native points of interest. "When I came up here last year, I needed a fine arts credit," he said. "I was put into Tlingit for m...
Haines police have connected a suspect to a Senior Center break-in after locating stolen tightly folded, pyramid-shaped $2 bills that had decorated a windowsill and were later spent at the local pot shop. "They busted out the window, ransacked the office and took all the donation money, plus the money that was in my drawer," said Senior Center manager Cari O'Daniel. She said the burglar stole between $300 to $400, personal checks, and 21 of the $2 bills folded into pyramid shapes that decorated...
“Plastic is a wonderful product because it lasts. It’s also a really horrible product because it lasts,” Haines Friends of Recycling board chair Melissa Aronson said, standing in the operation’s warehouse. In a shipping container outside, more than seven tons of plastic waits to be sent to Seattle for recycling. The nonprofit has been stockpiling plastic since October 2021, as the market for selling recycled plastic is practically nonexistent, Aronson said. Haines usually sends one load of plastic to Seattle each year. Juneau’s municipal...
Newly appointed Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said last Thursday that she was considering severing ties with a nonprofit that helps maintain voter rolls nationwide, after several Republican-led states announced earlier this month their intention to pull out of the effort. Beecher told state lawmakers she was evaluating Alaska’s membership in the organization during a presentation to the Senate State Affairs Committee. She cited the cost of the program as a reason for leaving despite the benefits it provides. Her c...
Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl is a Tlingit, Athabascan and Filipino artist and co-owner of Trickster Company in Juneau. And a postage stamp designer, too. On March 24, she will attend the Art of the Skateboard U.S. Postal Service stamp release in Phoenix, at the Desert West Skatepark. Worl's stamp is featured with three other skateboard stamps selected for the honor. "It's so cool to be in this collective of artists. I didn't know about the artists before and then we've been talking to...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Environmental groups and a Native American tribe have accused the operator of a Maine hydroelectric dam of not fulfilling its obligation to protect the country’s last remaining Atlantic salmon river run. The last wild Atlantic salmon live in a group of rivers in Maine and have been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 2000. The Penobscot River, a 109-mile-long river in the eastern part of the state is one of the most important habitats for the fish. The Penobscot is also the site of the Milford Dam, which is o...
Following criticism from Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, the nationwide pharmacy chain Walgreens will not seek to sell the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone in Alaska, the company said earlier this month. Though abortion is legal in Alaska, Taylor was one of 20 Republican attorneys general who wrote the nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain and urged it to not sell mifepristone by mail. The attorneys general said they disagree with a Biden administration analysis approving the sale and distribution of the drug through the mail and by c... Full story
Alaska's rugged and frigid Interior, where it can get as cold as minus 50 Fahrenheit, is not the place you'd expect to find an electric school bus. But here is Bus No. 50, quietly traversing about 40 miles of snowy and icy roads each day in Tok, shuttling students to school not far from the Canadian border. It works OK on the daily route. But cold temperatures rob electric vehicle batteries of traveling range, so No. 50 can't go on longer field trips, or to Anchorage or Fairbanks. It's a...
A comprehensive review of assessments on every piece of property in the borough has resulted in total taxable values 56% higher than last year. That doesn’t necessarily mean this year’s tax bills will increase. The actual tax rate multiplied against the assessed value will depend on what the assembly decides is needed for the borough budget this spring. Assemblymember David Powell said Friday the assembly would do its best to maintain consistent tax bills for residents, covering the borough’s budgetary needs and no more. “We know that all the...
The past three summers have been lean for Alaska cruise ship tourism, but Wrangell’s 2023 draft cruise schedule shows a substantial gain in traffic compared to the 2019 pre-pandemic season. There are 132 scheduled stops this summer, with a combined maximum passenger capacity of 28,830 — about a 40% increase from the 2022 capacity of 20,088 and a 35% jump from 2019. Before the pandemic shut down the industry, Wrangell’s cruise tourism numbers were on a steady climb, from 5,500 in 2011, 10,000 in 2015 and 15,000 in 2018, according to stati...
Who cheers on the cheer squad? A weekend that began with disappointment turned into determination and the will to beat defeat. As the Wrangell High School boys and girls varsity basketball teams were scheduled to go to Juneau to compete this week, so too was the cheer squad. But there weren't enough funds to cover the trip. That is, until the squad and community jumped into action. "We're going (to regionals)," said cheer coach Stephanie Cartwright last Saturday. "Between the parents and me ...... Full story
The Alaska Marine Highway System is working faster to hire more crew, trying to fix problems that slowed the process so much the past four years that the state failed to keep up with retirements and resignations. The hiring process was so cumbersome and excessively choosy that the state brought aboard just a few new workers out of 250 applicants forwarded by a search agency over the past year, according to a January report from the recruitment contractor. “Since 2019, AMHS has lost more staff annually than recruitment efforts can replace. F...
A state House committee last week held its first hearing on a bill intended to settle the Legislature’s biggest annual political battle: The amount of the Permanent Fund dividend. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Dan Ortiz, who represents Ketchikan, Wrangell and Metlakatla, would amend state law so that 75% of the annual draw on Permanent Fund earnings goes toward paying for schools and other public services, with 25% designated for the PFD. “Tonight, we’re going to open a can of worms,” Chairman Ben Carpenter, of Nikiski, said at the March 1 meeti...
A school budget presentation meant to engage the public in the decision-making process on Feb. 27 drew a scant few to ask questions and offer suggestions. Outgoing district business manager Tammy Stromberg, whose last day was Feb. 28, went over the draft budget for the 2023-2024 school year, detailing projected revenues, expenditures and where the Wrangell School District could fall short. According to the current draft, the district is projected to be short by $53,179 in its spending plan of about $5 million, and will draw on its general fund...
A record number of Wrangell Cooperative Association members came out to vote for four members of the tribal council, the governing body of the Native organization. Esther Aaltséen Reese, the tribal administrator for WCA, said 168 members, or 41.6% of 403 eligible voters, voted in this year’s election on Feb. 28, the most they’ve had turn out. The WCA has 887 members, but only those 18 years and older are eligible to vote. Seven tribal members ran for the four vacant seats on the eight-person council. The winners, Sandy Churchill, Luella Knap...
Canadian educator, nonprofit director and human rights advocate Catherine Morris is visiting Wrangell this week to share a message about human rights challenges that are playing out on the international stage. After graduating from the University of Alberta law school in 1978, she began working in the University of Victoria's Institute for Dispute Resolution, where she served in leadership roles from 1992 to 1998. She founded the nonprofit organization Peacemakers Trust, which focuses on...
A scammer stole nearly $270,000 from the Juneau School District this fall — and it’s unlikely the district will recover the money. In a memo shared with the City and Borough of Juneau Finance Committee at its March 1 meeting, Finance Director Jeff Rogers provided details of the fraud and information shared with him in early December by the school district. A person posing as a vendor for the district asked staff for a change to the company’s direct-deposit information using a spoofed email address made to look as though it belonged to the v...
Alaska Airlines will paint over "Salmon Thirty Salmon," the custom Boeing 737 that looks like a 129-foot-long Alaska king salmon, the company confirmed Feb. 27. Tim Thompson, director of public relations and community marketing for the airline, confirmed that the plane will be painted over after a final ceremonial flight on April 17 - which is scheduled to stop in Wrangell. That will be Flight 65, the daily Southeast Alaska "milk run" that travels from Seattle to Anchorage with stops in... Full story
For many years now, Google Maps street view allowed travel planners to tour cities in a realistic, 360-degree-view platform. But not people planning to visit or those living in Wrangell. One teen decided to fix that. Senior Killian Booker photographed all of the borough's streets and popular tourist attractions to upload to Google Maps, allowing people to use the street view option. He chose the undertaking for his graduation project. Booker began taking photos and editing them on Sept. 12 last...
The Alaska Volcano Observatory is planning to install a series of seismic instruments on Mount Edgecumbe near Sitka after preliminary measurements showed magma moving deep below the Mount Fuji-shaped volcano. The movement doesn't mean an eruption will happen soon - or even at all - from Southeast Alaska's most prominent volcano, but it's significant enough that the observatory has raised the volcano's threat level. "Internally, how we think about Edgecumbe has changed. It definitely has moved... Full story
The borough assembly has issued a unanimous statement of opposition to a petition by conservation groups to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf as an endangered species. Earlier last month, the assembly considered signing a petition against listing the wolf but decided not to, opting instead to draft its own statement, which it approved Feb. 28. The opposition petition, which was drafted by the Klawock Fish and Game Advisory Council and has been circulating through Southeast communities, argues that an endangered listing likely would lead to...
State funding is being directed to help stock Alaska food pantries — including those serving rural communities — as part of a broader effort to address a monthslong state backlog in processing food stamp benefit applications. Major delays in processing applications for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have stressed thousands of Alaskans who depend on the monthly benefits to feed their families, and strained food bank resources across the state. State officials have attributed the processing delays to staffing sho...
