Sorted by date Results 2006 - 2030 of 7954
Whether it’s a pesky case of the winter blues or a more serious health condition, Brooke Reynolds of the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium has words of encouragement for community members who are starting to feel the effects of the changing seasons. The lengthening hours of darkness “affect us all, some of us more than others,” said Reynolds, who is the clinical supervisor at Wrangell Behavioral Health. Even otherwise-healthy people can have “down days,” especially during the winter months. She recommends that her clients stay phys...
An art teacher has created art for teachers. Tawney Crowley, the art teacher for Evergreen Elementary School, embarked on a logo design project over the summer for the Alaska Science Teachers Association, incorporating elements that each region of the state is known for. The background of the logo is a silhouette of Alaska overlaid with items like glaciers and salmon in Southeast, volcanoes and a mammoth skull in the Aleutians, the aurora borealis over the northernmost portion of the state, a...
Each year, the borough compiles a list of big-ticket infrastructure improvement projects, ranked by priority, that it uses to apply for grant funding. This year, the borough is involving the public in its ranking process for the first time. On Nov. 1, Capital Facilities Director Amber Al-Haddad led a public forum to educate the community about the borough’s ongoing capital investment projects and learn which ones are most important to residents. An updated list that reflects the desires of the community is an important step in accessing g...
In today’s interconnected world, internet access allows people to connect with loved ones, stay updated on current events, access essential government services and more. But in Alaska, not all communities have access to reliable, affordable internet. Late last month, Alaska Municipal League representative Alicia Hughes-Skandijs met with seven representatives from the library, borough, Wrangell Cooperative Association and others to discuss challenges with the Wrangell community’s internet access. The meeting was an early step in the fiv...
Bill Sheffield, who served as Alaska's fifth governor and survived a brush with impeachment during a decades-long career in public service, died Nov. 4 at his Anchorage home after a long illness. He was 94. Sheffield was born in 1928 to a poor family on a small farm in Spokane, Washington, and he grew up during the Great Depression. After serving as a radar technician with the U.S. Army, he got a job with Sears Roebuck and was sent to the territory of Alaska. "So that's how I got here in 1953,"...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Fishing regulators and the seafood industry are grappling with the possibility that some once-profitable species that have declined with climate change might not come back. Several marketable species harvested by U.S. fishermen are the subject of quota cuts, seasonal closures and other restrictions as populations have fallen and waters have warmed. In some instances, such as the groundfish industry for species like flounder in the Northeast, the changing environment has made it harder for fish to recover from years of o...
The principal and several school staff members left the community of Kipnuk in Southwest Alaska two weekend ago in two chartered planes following reports of a banishment order, occupation of a school building and a brief blockade during a visit by Alaska State Troopers. As of Nov. 1, the Chief Paul Memorial School in Kipnuk remained closed for the second day in a row, with plans to switch to remote learning Nov. 2, according to the Lower Kuskokwim School District, which cited “the concern for the physical safety for students and staff” in a w...
Green might surround the Southeast Alaska village of Angoon, but it’s not that common inside the community grocery store. However, despite the challenges, students and faculty at Angoon’s Chatham School District are taking steps to change that. Angoon agroscience hydroponic cultivation class Haa Aani’: Haa Yaasi’ Haa (Our Land, Our Harvest) is in its second year of operation. Its goal, according to Ryan Smith, the teacher and project manager, is to teach the students how to cultivate healthy and sustainable foods to eventually provide to the...
The top official in the U.S. Census Bureau, Robert Santos, was in Sitka last month to talk with city and Sitka Tribe of Alaska officials about ways to improve the accuracy of Alaska’s population numbers in the national census held every 10 years. The official figures are used to determine congressional districts and some forms of federal funding, and there was a significant undercount of Alaska Natives in the 2020 census, Santos said. Ever since the census count was released, Wrangell borough officials have complained that the tally u...
The wolf hunting and trapping season for Prince of Wales Island will be the same as last year — Nov. 15 to Dec. 15 — though a number of individuals who trap wolves in the area criticized the Alaska Department of Fish and Game last week for its wolf management decisions. The department announced the limited season last Friday, just two days after a teleconference to review with the public wolf population estimates and harvest levels. Several people described seeing more wolves than deer in the area, arguing that a longer season and higher harves...
Seven months after an earthquake swarm beneath Mt. Edgecumbe led volcanologists to determine that the Sitka-area volcano is active, data collection and research are continuing. Since August 2018, magma has risen beneath the formerly dormant volcano and caused almost 3 inches of deformation annually, University of Alaska Fairbanks associate professor of geodesy Ronni Grapenthin said. An eruption is not imminent, he added. Since April’s quakes, seismic activity on the mountain has subsided, he noted, but the mountain is deforming more quickly t...
The state sued the federal government one week before Election Day, seeking ownership of part of Alaska’s most-visited tourist destination. Filed Nov. 1 at U.S. District Court in Anchorage, the case asks a federal judge to award ownership of the land beneath Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River to the state. Located in Juneau’s residential Mendenhall Valley, the lake rests at the base of the Mendenhall Glacier, within the Tongass National Forest, and is seen by more than 700,000 tourists annually, more than Denali National Park and Pre...
TRES RIOS, Brazil (AP) - Sometimes you start something and have no idea where it will lead. So it was with Eduardo Filgueiras, a struggling guitarist whose family worked in an unusual business in Rio de Janeiro: They farmed toads. Filgueiras figured out a way to take the small toad skins and fuse them together, creating something large enough to sell. Meanwhile miles away in the Amazon, a fisherman and a scientist were coming up with an innovation that would help save a key, giant fish that...
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this Wednesday on the most significant challenge to a law that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings of Native children. The outcome could undercut the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which was enacted in response to the alarming rate at which Native American and Alaska Native children were taken from their homes by public and private agencies. Tribes also fear more widespread impacts in the ability to govern themselves if the justices rule against...
SEATTLE (AP) — Big ships entering and leaving Puget Sound will be asked to slow down to reduce underwater noise this fall in an effort to help the Pacific Northwest's critically endangered orca whales. Washington state is importing the voluntary slowdown from British Columbia for container ships, tankers, freighters, cruise ships and car carriers coming from the Canadian province, Northwest News Network reported. The optional slowdown started Oct. 24 and is scheduled to run to Dec. 22 and covers the shipping lanes from Admiralty Inlet by P...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that its updated permit for the Wrangell wastewater treatment plant will contain stricter limits on the amounts of bacteria the facility can discharge into Zimovia Strait. Wrangell will need to update its treatment operation to include disinfection of discharged wastewater, which will decrease fecal coliform and enterococcus bacteria counts. The borough will have five years to comply with new requirements. Disinfection will be “a major project for us,” said Borough Manager Jeff Good. He est...
Name calling. Spreading rumors. Shoving, tripping. Excluding. Those are just a few of the ways bullying can be perpetrated, and staff at Wrangell schools are working to prevent it and the damage and lasting trauma that can stem from it. About 20% of students ages 12 through 18 across the country reported being bullied, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ stopbullying.gov website. Of those students, 56% said they believed the bully “had the ability to influence other students’ perception of them.” Fifty percent...
At first glance, the water therapy class in the Parks and Recreation swimming pool might look like a group of people just standing around in the water. But, like ducks on a pond, there's much more going on beneath the surface. Every joint from head to toe is being exercised during the class, offering a low-impact workout for participants and providing relief from the effects of arthritis. Around 32.5 million adults in the United States suffer from some form of osteoarthritis, the most common...
The Salvation Army and its companions in the Wrangell Ministerial Association are preparing to roll out their annual holiday programs, providing meals, clothes and gifts to members of the community. For Jon Tollerud, a Salvation Army Corps officer, the church’s holiday programs are a way to care for the community during a season that can be as financially burdensome as it is festive. “We’ve been helped in that same way,” Tollerud said of his family, and he hopes that the community will take advantage of what the Salvation Army has to offer....
After two months of book work, lectures and practice with plastic replicas, Winston Davies' sixth grade Alaska Skills class headed to the shooting range last week to continue their training in hunter safety. "This is a state curriculum," explained Davies, who has been drilling safety rules with his students "almost every day" to prepare them to shoot live firearms at the range. "The kids walk around the shop (with dummy firearms) and they practice carrying them, working the actions on them."...
Restoration of Inter-Island Ferry Authority service from Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island to Wrangell and Petersburg would take money. The service ended in 2008, and the two communities will talk about what it would take to bring back the run, how much it would cost and who would pay. The Petersburg borough assembly last month voted unanimously to send a letter to the Wrangell assembly to start talks on possibly restoring the route. Wrangell assembly members at their Oct. 25 meeting directed Borough Manager Jeff Good to talk with his...
The wheels on the bus go round and round, but you might not hear them. Wrangell was the only school district in Alaska to be awarded with a $395,000 grant last month to purchase an electric school bus through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program. The awards are the first year of a five-year program totaling $5 billion created by the Infrastructure Act signed into law a year ago. John Taylor, co-owner of Taylor Transportation, had been approached by a school bus manufacturer in Anchorage about the grant. Taylor T...
When Matthew Gore arrived in Wrangell on the evening of Oct. 21, he took his dogs for a walk in the park before getting on his boat, the Andromeda, which he had been storing at the Reliance Float since late June 2021. Immediately, something “felt off.” As he walked down the stairs, he tripped over objects that he didn’t remember placing there. After inspecting the entire vessel, he discovered that it had been stripped. The generator, charger, batteries, fans, power cable, laminate flooring and more had all been removed and the anchor had been...
The coronavirus led to many business closures in 2020. Of those that were able to adapt and weather the financial storm caused by the pandemic, many are still struggling to recover. To that end, the Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska has reopened its federally funded small business relief grant program to help small businesses owned by tribal citizens. The council also has introduced a grant program for 2022 start-ups. The relief grants have been awarded since 2021, with $200,000 total being awarded to 40 businesses in...
Since 2018, an ongoing insect outbreak has been killing the foliage of hemlock and Stika spruce in the Tongass. The Wrangell area is among the most affected. Though residents have expressed concern at the island's gray and red-spotted hillsides, state entomologist Elizabeth Graham shared reassuring news with the Wrangell and Petersburg communities at an online forum last Wednesday. The hemlock sawfly and western blackheaded budworm populations have likely reached their peak, and though the...
