Sorted by date Results 1905 - 1929 of 7954
Ofelia Santiago-Ballou, 4, can barely contain her excitement last Saturday night as she tells Santa Claus (Andrew Zeutzius) what she wants for Christmas. Ofelia was one of a couple hundred children who stood in line at the Nolan Center to share their holiday wishes. St. Nick visited with kids from 4 until 8 p.m. - except for about 30 minutes to roast marshmallows and count down the Christmas tree lighting ceremony....
Alaska Native tribes seeking better protection from the environmental impacts of Canadian mines have enlisted allies in their flight: Lower 48 tribal governments with concerns of their own about transboundary mining impacts. A delegation of tribal representatives from Alaska, Washington state, Montana and Idaho traveled to Washington, D.C., last week for meetings that pushed for action to regulate downstream effects of mines in British Columbia. The meetings Dec. 6 and 7 were with Biden administration officials and officials at the Canadian...
Between the holiday wreaths adorning Front Street shops and the tall tree next to Elks Lodge, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But for some, the season may look a little leaner this year as residents and local businesses feel the costly effects of inflation during the holiday shopping season. The current price hikes are the worst that City Market assistant store director Matthew Strickland has seen in his 10 years of retail experience. Large 20-pound bags of rice that cost roughly $25 a year ago are now sitting around $42. Many p...
Every year on Dec. 1, the internet is flooded with variations on the same video - a high school senior sits at their laptop surrounded by a crowd of onlookers who are anxious to discover whether the student has received a full ride to an elite college through the Questbridge program. The student opens their status letter and the crowd goes wild. The student is smothered in hugs. Tears are shed. When Wrangell High School's Nikolai Bardin-Siekawitch received his Questbridge email, his response...
Maria Smith, above, works intently on painting a salt dough ornament at the WCA cultural center last Friday. Children and their families were invited to come choose from a variety of ornaments to paint and take home to adorn their Christmas trees. An example of one of the ornaments, bottom, is on display. The ornament was painted by a WCA staff member....
From deadly toxins to dangerous explosions, the risks of pressure canning make this vital home skill sound like a stunt straight out of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. But, armed with knowledge from Sarah Lewis of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Extension Service, Wrangell residents learned that food preservation can be safe, simple and fun during a series of classes hosted by the Wrangell Cooperative Association last week. Their mission, should they choose to accept it? Turn raw meat an...
Finding the perfect tree in Wrangell isn’t as easy as driving to the nearest lot and picking out a Christmas conifer. But, like many other pastimes in Alaska, one can be hunted down in the Tongass National Forest, as long as the rules are observed. The U.S. Forest Service doesn’t have regulations or require a permit for private household use on Christmas trees, but it does have some guidance for people to follow to help keep from damaging the forest’s ecosystem. According to the guidelines, trees may not be cut from any of its developed recre...
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — Citizen trapping of northern giant hornets in northwest Washington ended Nov. 30 without any confirmed sightings of the hornets this year, state officials said Dec. 6. The Washington State Department of Agriculture also said that no confirmed sightings of the hornets were reported nearby in British Columbia. The northern giant hornet is native to Asia and has been the target of eradication efforts after hornets were discovered in both locations in 2019. The insects are the world's largest hornets, with queens r...
Leroy Wynne knows the value of volunteering and has experienced its rewards on the hardwood. Throughout October and into November, Wynne helped coach fourth and fifth graders in basketball, giving them a social outlet and a way to learn teamwork. The coaching was his high school senior project and a natural fit for the student-athlete. Wynne and a few other volunteer coaches, worked with 20 children to teach them the fundamentals of basketball, instill a love of the game, build teamwork and...
From the subtle shifts in an ocean current to the play of light and shadow on a snow-topped mountain, the work of Wrangell artist Brenda Schwartz-Yeager captures the ever-changing landscapes of coastal Alaska. The painter, who was born and raised on the island, will be displaying her work at a pop-up shop in the Stikine Inn throughout the month of December. "It feels really nostalgic to be back in this space," she said. "I think it's been like 20 years or something since I've been exhibiting...
Above: The Crayne family, Eric, holding Theo, and Aria, holding Laylynn, pose for a photo during the Christmas tree lighting event on Front Street last Saturday night. Right: Lights twinkle throughout the towering spruce tree after Santa Claus led the gathered crowd in a countdown...
If your smartphone screen is cracked, your tablet is on the fritz or your laptop won’t stop generating pop-up windows after you clicked on a suspicious link, Tyler Riberio of Tydi Creek Tech might be able to help. His new tech repair service assists Wrangell residents as they navigate the intimidating world of computers, whether he’s fixing minor cosmetic issues or performing total rebuilds. Riberio moved to Wrangell with his wife in July. After taking on a few pro-bono tech repairs, he “noticed that there was a need in the community” and dec...
For the second time ever, Alaska went a year without any fatalities in its commercial fishing industry. The U.S. Coast Guard reported that there were no operational fatalities from Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2022, in Alaska’s commercial fishing industry. An operational fatality is when someone dies during the operation of a vessel at sea, including from causes like drowning, lost vessels or accidents. This is only the second time Alaska recorded a year without a death in the commercial fishing sector; the first year was in 2015. However, the f...
Ballots from six rural Alaska villages were not fully counted in Alaska’s November elections, the Division of Elections said. A division official said the U.S. Postal Service failed to deliver them to the state election headquarters before the election was certified on Nov. 30. “You’ll need to contact the USPS to find out why there were some that never arrived — as we were told from poll workers, everything had been mailed,” Tiffany Montemayor, the division’s public relations manager, said by email on Dec. 2. As a result, 259 voters in S...
Alaska’s top elections administrator left her job and retired last week, after overseeing the state’s first ranked-choice elections. Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai, 60, has held the job since 2019, when she was appointed by former Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer. She previously served as the state’s elections director between 2008 and 2015, and is a 20-year veteran of administering Alaska’s elections. Meyer, who announced his retirement from politics late last year and was replaced by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Dec. 5, attributed Fenumia...
JUNEAU (AP) — A recount of an Anchorage-area state Senate race reaffirmed Republican Cathy Giessel as the winner, while a recount of an Anchorage House race reaffirmed Republican Rep. Tom McKay as the winner. The Senate recount was conducted by the state Division of Elections on Dec. 7 at the request of Democrat Roselynn Cacy, who was the first of the three candidates in the race to be eliminated in the Nov. 8 ranked-vote contest. The other candidate in the race was Republican Sen. Roger Holland. Cacy had said she had questions about the r...
The high wages that once coaxed people to Alaska have continued to shrink compared to the rest of the U.S., due partly to a statewide recession before the pandemic and a slow recovery after it, according to a new report from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Alaska’s average wages still outperform the rest of the country, said economist Neal Fried, writing in the agency’s latest publication of Alaska Economic Trends. They placed eighth nationally last year at $30.52 an hour, about $2.50 above the national average. But...
While Haines police investigated a theft of tens of thousands of dollars from Alaska Mountain Guides, the suspect and his wife were stopping in Las Vegas for a concert, seeing a Broadway show in New York and planning a cruise to the Caribbean, according to charging documents. Former Alaska Mountain Guides employee Dionicio Charles, 43, was charged in November with first-degree theft, scheme to defraud and misapplication of property. Police say he used the access that came with his position as finance director to wire at least $30,000 from the...
New controls on how fish are commercially harvested and more research to understand the effects of climate change in the ocean and freshwater spawning grounds are some of the key recommendations of an Alaska task force examining ways to address bycatch, the term for capture of untargeted species in commercial seafood harvests. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who created the task force a year ago, released the group’s final report on Dec. 8. The collapse of salmon runs vital to western Alaska — and public complaints that too many salmon were being int...
A couple of Sitkans on a fishing trip in October got a surprise as they got ready to lay a skate of halibut gear in Nakwasina Sound. Their depth sounder revealed a sizable steep-sided cone on the ocean bottom at a depth of about 200 feet, and it was emitting something into the water about 12 miles north of Sitka. Jacyn Schmidt, regional geoscience specialist for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska happened to be on the boat. Such phenomena are her field of interest, but she hadn’t expected to find an unmapped f...
A new study found that killing thousands of wolves and bears did not make for better moose hunting in a popular Southcentral game unit over nearly four decades. The study, by retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game and University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers, focused on an area between Denali National Park and the Copper River that attracts hunters from Anchorage, the Matanuska Valley and Fairbanks. The study’s authors say their findings raise questions about the state’s longtime practice of culling wolves and bears to increase deer, moo...
The borough assembly is moving toward lowering the asking price for the former Wrangell hospital by almost half and hiring a real estate agent to sell the property. The assembly at its Nov. 22 meeting accepted an ordinance to reduce the asking price and set a public hearing on the ordinance for Dec. 20, at which time members could vote on the proposal. The Bennet Street lot has been vacant since the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s new medical center opened in February 2021. The borough has been looking actively – and unsuccessfull...
After a boating accident near Point Baker last week, former Wrangell resident Kelsey Leak spent 24 hours on West Rock before being rescued by a fishing boat. Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Arne Dahl has not been found and is presumed dead. The morning of Nov. 27 was bright and clear. Leak and Dahl set out from their Point Baker homestead at 11 a.m. to collect firewood aboard Dahl's old wooden fishing vessel, the Randi Jo. The pair had been living off-grid at Point Baker, where Dahl was raised, since...
Tribal members of the Wrangell Cooperative Association are eligible to receive funding from another round of COVID-19 federal pandemic relief under the American Rescue Plan Act. The WCA is accepting applications through Dec. 16 to distribute $2,000 per member household to help with things like fuel, groceries and utilities. “Wrangell Cooperative Association realized this can be a tough time of year for people and wanted to offer some assistance to our tribal citizens,” said Esther Reese, WCA tribal administrator. “All WCA members must fill...
Cassady Cowan had a grand plan for her senior project to bring some vibrancy to Wrangell. Although her original plan didn't float, her backup plan bears repeating. When Cowan, 17, was trying to figure out her high school project, her focus was on the killer whale mural on the retaining wall facing the water behind the Stikine Inn. "I was going to make it brighter and make it look newer," she said about the mural. Ultimately, "it would cost too much (because of) the cracked paint. The...
