Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 7998
It's been 10 years since the community saw the map of a proposed new access route to the Mount Dewey Trail and its viewing platform for a scenic look at the town and harbor below. The wait ended with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new trailhead parking lot on Thursday, Nov. 14. "It's heavily used already," Amber Al-Haddad, the borough's capital projects director, said a few hours before the official opening. The trail runs from Bennett Street, starting at the new parking area on the road to th...
GCI is pulling the plug on its cable TV and streaming services, just as its customers have been cutting the cable cord for years. The company announced Nov. 11 that it will shut down its TV services by mid-2025; it did not provide a more specific date. “Over the past few years, we have … seen our customers increasingly choose online video streaming as their preferred way to watch their favorite programming. In light of these factors, we will sunset our TV offerings by mid-2025,” the prepared statement said. GCI has been in the cable TV busi...
The ballot measure to repeal open primary elections and ranked-choice voting in general elections saw its lead narrow last week and then disappear on Monday, with a final vote count scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 20. As of Monday afternoon, the repeal effort was behind by 192 votes out of more than 332,000 ballots cast on the measure. State elections officials estimated there were about 5,000 ballots still to count this week, an assortment of early votes and mail-in absentee ballots. The repeal initiative led by more than 4,100 votes after the...
Hospice of Wrangell is planning its two biggest events of the year, including its only fundraiser of the year. The Dove Tree Ceremony is set for 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26, in the Nolan Center lobby. The tree, decorated with paper doves in memory of those who have died, will remain up through the new year. The annual remembrance started more than 20 years ago. Volunteers will prepare a dove for each community member who died in the past year, and blank doves will be available for people to add their own remembrances. People can add a dove to the...
The Wrangell advisory committee to the state boards of fisheries and game will meet Tuesday to begin its consideration of multiple proposed changes in state regulations for salmon fishing in Southeast Alaska. The committee also will hold elections to fill several seats on the 15-member panel. The public meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26, at the Nolan Center. Though the public may attend the meeting by Zoom, in-person attendance is required to nominate people to serve on the committee and to vote in the election. The meeting is...
Since acquiring a new 3D printer for the Irene Ingle Public Library, librarian Sarah Scambler and library assistant Kaitlin Wilson have enjoyed familiarizing themselves on the latest addition. Much of the learning came through experimenting, creating different objects. After several weeks, Scambler had made several skeletons, spring-coiled ghosts and even segmented slugs for Halloween. "It's been fun to play around with it and figure out how it works," she said. The printer is not yet available...
As another dark winter season in Southeast Alaska approaches, developing healthy sleep habits can improve overall well-being, from creating a calming bedtime routine to tackling sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep apnea. Internal medicine physician Dr. Guillermo E. Espinoza, who has worked for SEARHC since 2017, specializes in sleep study at the Mount Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka. Starting about three years ago, he began focusing on developing a practice for weight management. “(There’s) a lot of overlap between obesity and obs...
The Petersburg borough assembly is considering an ordinance that would impose requirements — including storage fees, a marine condition survey and proof of insurance — on vessels that don’t leave their moorage stall in the harbor for 12 consecutive months. The ordinance aims to discourage using stalls for vessel storage, especially for boats that may be inoperable. An inactive or inoperable boat may deteriorate as its condition worsens; removing derelict vessels is expensive and historically burdensome for the borough, officials said. The o...
A five-member state commission has approved plans for a new borough centered on the Southeast Alaska town of Hoonah. Approval sets the stage for a local election on the proposed Xunaa Borough. If voters approve the borough’s creation, Hoonah will be dissolved as a town and reincorporated as a city-borough with governmental authority over a wide swath of northern Southeast Alaska, including much of Glacier Bay National Park. It would be the state’s 20th borough and the first new borough since Petersburg created a city-borough in 2013. Wra...
A federal judge in Alaska has dismissed a legal challenge filed by the Bering Sea bottom-trawl fleet against stricter halibut bycatch limits. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, or NMFS, approved a new halibut bycatch quota system in December 2021 based on annual surveys of the valuable flatfish. Instead of fixed limits, the new abundance-based system means that when halibut stocks are low, bycatch caps can be cut by up to 35%. The lawsuit challenging those caps was filed by Groundfish Forum, a Seattle-based trade association...
Juneau got a record number of cruise ship passengers for a second straight year, with 1,677,935 arriving during the 2024 season that ended Oct. 24 compared to 1,638,902 last year, according to the Docks and Harbors Department. Ships this year were at 104% capacity — meaning some cabins had more than two people staying in them, such as a child with parents — compared to 101% capacity last year, according to Docks and Harbors. Every month of this year’s season between April and October was at or above 100% capacity, compared to last year when...
With a new stretch of undersea cable complete, Alaska Power & Telephone is set to expand its fiber optic broadband internet service to more communities on Prince of Wales Island. The utility announced Nov. 12 that it had finished a $39 million undersea fiber optic cable that connects Ketchikan with Hollis and Coffman Cove. The new 101-mile-long SEALink South cable runs west of Ketchikan and splits into a Y near Kasaan Arm to reach the two communities. The project is intended to strengthen high-speed fiber optic internet access across Prince of...
Arthur Sammy Heckman Sr. has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of unlawful interference with an election after illegally canceling a 2023 election and hiding the results of a 2022 election while serving as acting mayor of Pilot Station in Southwest Alaska. The Alaska Department of Law announced the plea deal on Nov. 14 by email. It did not immediately answer a request for a copy of the plea deal and associated documents. Pilot Station is a town of about 600 people, on the Yukon River. Heckman and city clerk Ruthie Borromeo were...
Two Southeast Alaska Native organizations are among seven entities that will share in $1 million in federal grant funds to support multi-year projects through the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Indigenous Engagement Program. Sealaska Heritage Institute was awarded $110,000 to use Indigenous knowledge to document changes in the ocean and marine ecosystems from human and climate-related impacts, to better understand their effects on subsistence resource systems in Native communities. The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of...
A belt of rocks spanning Southeast Alaska hosts at least a dozen prospects and deposits enriched with nickel, copper and platinum group metals (PGM) needed for the energy transition. Granite Creek Copper, a small mining company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, believes a couple of prospects also host hidden stores of geological hydrogen that could offer a clean-burning fuel for the 21st century. The company has acquired two Southeast Alaska PGM projects with “white hydrogen” potential. An element that only emits water vapor when bur...
For Artha DeRuyter, flowers have always been a passion. She's owned flower shops in Fairbanks and now Wrangell. Sometimes she operates seasonally - other times, year-round. At one point, she even ran a shop out of her boat in the Wrangell harbor. But now, the lifelong passion is taking her to the White House Last month, DeRuyter was invited to help decorate the White House for the Christmas season. She will join a team of roughly 300 other volunteers from around the country to - quite literally...
The apparent winner of last week’s election to represent Wrangell, Ketchikan and Metlakatla in the state House, Republican Jeremy Bynum, said he has not yet decided whether he will join the bipartisan coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans that is likely to govern the House next year. Though a couple of House races around the state are still too close to call and may not be decided until the final vote tallies on Nov. 20, the coalition, which was announced on Nov. 6, expects at least 22 members of the 40 House districts. The m...
The deadline is approaching to sign up for federally subsidized health insurance in 2025 through the Affordable Care Act, now in its 15th year. SEARHC — just as it has done for the past decade — is offering free assistance for Southeast Alaska residents who need help navigating the online marketplace to choose the best coverage for themselves and family members. And even though tribal members receive free health care services at SEARHC through Indian Health Service funding, they can benefit from the additional coverage provided by an ins...
In the run-up to Election Day, high school teacher Jack Carney took a hands-on approach to teaching his U.S. government students about the issues at stake. The class is predominantly made up of seniors. Over the past few weeks, Carney’s students researched, studied and formed opinions on the ballot measures and candidates in the Nov. 5 election. Though just one of the nine students was eligible to vote in the actual election, eight of the nine students participated in the mock election. (One student was absent.) The results were relatively in l...
As temperatures drop below freezing, many folks in town will turn to their wood-burning stoves for some warm respite. And while there may be nothing cozier than a pair of wool socks and a wood stove on an icy evening, there is certainly nothing cozy about a chimney fire. Chimney fires are common but are easily preventable by regular maintenance. They are often caused by a buildup of creosote on the inside of chimney walls. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s fire safety guide, creosote is essentially the residue left over b...
Federal prosecutors are recommending that an Alaska fisherman serve six months in prison, pay a $25,000 fine and be banned from commercial fishing for a year after lying about fishing catches and trying to kill an endangered sperm whale. Dugan Paul Daniels pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor earlier this year, and prosecutors released their sentencing recommendation on Nov. 5. According to court documents, Daniels became infuriated in March 2020 when a whale began taking fish from his longline fishing gear and damaging equipment. This kind...
Alaska has joined a growing number of states that are considering cellphone restrictions in schools. The Alaska Board of Education has directed the state’s education department to create a policy to limit the use of cellphones in schools during class hours. Currently, there is no statewide cellphone policy in Alaska, and any restrictions must be set at the district or school level. Several already do that, including Wrangell middle and high schools. “The Stikine Middle School is cellphone, earbud free,” said Greg Clark, who serves as princ...
Republican Nick Begich will have to wait until the final vote count on Nov. 20 but he looks likely to defeat incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in the race for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House. As of the latest tally on Tuesday, Nov. 12, Begich has 142,023 votes, or 49.11%, to Peltola’s 132,473, 45.81%, with the two fringe candidates collecting 14,070 votes. It takes 50% plus one to win the election. The Alaska Division of Elections reported on Tuesday that there were more than 32,000 mail-in absentee and in-person early-voting bal...
A majority of Alaska state senators want to address education, elections, energy and the public employee retirement system when they convene in January. Late Nov. 6, the day after the election, leading senators confirmed that the chamber will continue to be led by a large coalition of Republicans and Democrats. Members of the new bipartisan coalition were vague about its precise makeup, saying negotiations are still ongoing. After one member of last session’s coalition lost reelection and another decided against running for another term, the g...
Wayne Johnson, the Georgia real estate developer who made a run earlier this year at buying the former Wrangell hospital property to build half-million-dollar condominiums, lost his bid for a U.S. House seat in his home state. Johnson, who pulled out of a deal with the borough in June, lost in the Nov. 5 election to 16-term U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop. As of Nov. 8, Johnson had 136,399 votes to 175,773 for Bishop. Johnson was endorsed by former president Donald Trump. It was the Republican’s second try at Congress. He failed to get past the R...
