Sorted by date Results 2241 - 2265 of 8063
Tribal members from both sides of the U.S.-Canada border — the headwaters and downstream region of the Stikine River — talked about strengthening their relationship when they met at the recent Sharing Our Knowledge conference in Wrangell. One of the common interests bringing the Indigenous people together is their concern for the river — protecting and preserving its salmon runs that have fed tribal members for generations. The discussions during the conference were about “connecting and cementing those relationships,” said Christie Jamieson,...
Winston Davies is running for an uncontested three-year term on the port commission to give back to his community and support Wrangell's commercial fishing industry. He has no previous experience in public office, but when he heard KSTK's plea for candidates to fill the empty port commission seats, he decided to "step up to the plate." Davies is a teacher during the school year and a commercial fisherman in the summer. He has taught a variety of subjects in his 18 years in education, including...
John Yeager, sport fishing guide and commercial halibut fisherman, plans to keep promoting sustainable growth in Wrangell during his upcoming three-year term on the port commission. "Fortunately, I have been on the port commission to see a lot of our projects started, like the Marine Service Center and a lot of our harbors," he said. "I want to stay on and see Wrangell's continued growth." Yeager has served on the commission for six terms already, totaling 12 years. He believes that the...
David Wilson has served two three-year terms on the Wrangell school board and is seeking re-election for a third. He is serving as board president during his second term. Since being elected to the board, Wilson, 67, said he believes the schools are "headed in the right direction," despite the challenges the schools face. When he originally ran for the board, the semi-retired cabinet maker said he was unhappy with how things were being run in the schools. "I wanted to see our education...
Elizabeth Roundtree is running for one of two three-year seats on the Wrangell school board, and her main focus is creating more opportunities for students through funding. One of her main concerns, like many involved with the schools, is the budget. That, and lunches. Roundtree, who went to school for accounting and is now the office administrator for Wrangell IGA, wants to find solutions to keep the school funded. Declining enrollment has reduced state funding for the schools, creating holes i...
Esther Ashton sees an opportunity to strengthen partnerships between the school district and entities such as the borough and U.S. Forest Service. She is running unopposed for a one-year seat on the school board. Ashton, 45, is the tribal administrator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association and had held the position for five years. She's been with the WCA since 2014. She has also served on multiple parent committees and is the chair for the Indian Education Committee. In the past, she was on...
After nine years in public service across four different councils, commissions and committees, Patty Gilbert is running for Wrangell's highest elected office. Gilbert is a retired math and science teacher who left the Wrangell School District in 2018 after 23 years. The mayoral candidate has since served in a wide variety of government organizations, including the borough assembly, where she is vice mayor, and the school board, where she served a two-year term as vice president. She also sits...
Terry Courson, a firearms instructor and retired police officer, is running for borough mayor. Though he declined interviews with KSTK and the Sentinel, he has posted flyers around Wrangell outlining his stances and experience. Courson served on the borough assembly from 2020 to 2021. He is a fiscal conservative and plans to vote no on the bond issues on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot, which would finance repairs at the schools and Public Safety Building. Officials believe that the borough can cover the annual debt payment on the $3.5...
Alaska officials are asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide 100% of the funds necessary for Western Alaska communities to recover from damages inflicted by Typhoon Merbok. That would match the 100% funding that was committed to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Fiona in President Joe Biden’s federal disaster declaration. Typically, FEMA covers 75% of disaster-relief costs, leaving the remainder to be matched by state, local or tribal governments. For Western Alaska, “we feel that that’s just not acceptable, parti...
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is preparing a new program that would allow Alaska sawmills to sell lumber for local construction without having that wood graded for quality by an Outside inspector. The program was announced by Alaska State Forester Helge Eng on Sept. 13 at Southeast Conference, a gathering of Southeast Alaska political and business leaders. Eng said the program, which may take two years to implement, would encourage the growth of Alaska’s lumber industry by making it easier to use locally produced lumber. Many resid...
The busy cruise ship town of Skagway is looking for a solution to the rockslides that continue to roll down on its largest cruise ship dock. It also hopes to prevent a major rockslide that experts are calling inevitable. And as winter approaches, the window to execute a workable solution gets smaller and smaller. The forward berth of the town’s largest cruise ship dock was shut down earlier this summer, about a week before a large slide hit the area. The town has been operating only three out of four berths ever since. That has resulted in t...
In a Sept. 21 candidate forum hosted in Fairbanks by the Alaska Chamber of Commerce, Democratic governor candidate Les Gara and independent candidate Bill Walker said that if elected they would seek new state revenue to pay for a variety of projects and reverse years of cuts to state services. Both men are seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has advocated cuts to public services and opposes any new taxes unless approved by a statewide vote of the public. Also competing in the Nov. 8 general election is Republican...
JUNEAU (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is extending until Dec. 2 the timeline to decide whether to proceed with proposed restrictions that would block plans for the controversial Pebble copper and gold mine in Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay region. The agency, in a recent notice, said this would “help ensure full consideration of the extensive administrative record, including all public comments.” The public comment period ended Sept. 6. The EPA earlier this year released a proposal that it said would bar discharges of dred...
Millions of federal dollars are going to Alaska Native organizations and entities across the state for education projects. The U.S. Department of Education has announced it awarded funds totaling more than $35 million dispersed over three years to support Alaska Native education programs statewide. Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska were among the 30 organizations that were awarded the funds. The program aims to improve curricula, education programs and education needs for Alaska...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A former Alaska attorney general has been indicted by a state grand jury on three felony counts of sexual abuse of a minor, a special prosecutor announced Sept. 21. The allegations against Clyde “Ed” Sniffen involve an Anchorage West High School student while Sniffen was in a position of authority in 1991, according to a statement released by the attorney general’s office on behalf of Gregg Olson, the special prosecutor. Sniffen was arraigned Monday. Olson in May filed the charges against Sniffen, 58, and the grand jury returne...
Before departing Sitka on a recent cruise stop, The Serenade of the Seas took more than passengers aboard — it took 2,000 pounds of fresh Sitka seafood. It’s the latest development in a collaborative effort that started decades ago among seafood processors, cruise lines and their chefs, and the industry organization Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska. “We’ve had fish come off the (fishing) boats, into the processing room and onto the cruise ships within one and a half hours,” said Fred Reeder, Sitka port director for Cruise Line Agencies....
An Anchorage judge said last Thursday that based on the limited evidence presented, Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman is likely ineligible to hold public office, but his name will stay on the general election ballot until a trial scheduled for December is held. Former Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assemblymember Randall Kowalke, who filed the lawsuit, has argued Eastman’s membership in the Oath Keepers runs afoul of the state Constitution’s disloyalty clause, which bars a person from holding public office in Alaska who advocates for the overthr...
Officials believe the borough can cover the entire annual debt payment on $3.5 million in school maintenance bonds by taking advantage of strong sales tax revenues and higher federal aid payments — without turning to property taxes. State lease payments for the community’s jail and investment earnings from Wrangell’s $10 million permanent fund savings account could help reduce the tax cost of the other bond issue on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot — $8.5 million for rebuild and repair to the rot-damaged Public Safety Building — according...
Wrangell will be without ferry service from Jan. 10 to Feb. 3 under the fall/winter schedule released by the Alaska Marine Highway System last week. The rest of the seven months covered by the schedule includes a weekly stop in each direction in Wrangell, with the bonus of a second northbound and southbound sailing one week a month when the ferry travels only as far south as Prince Rupert, British Columbia, instead of the longer round-trip voyage to Bellingham, Washington. The three-week break in service to Wrangell in January is scheduled as...
A nine-course lunch in 1965 left an indelible mark on the memory of a young teacher from Denver. Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8 at the age of 96, but she left an historical legacy that included a meal with Jacquie Dozier. Though it was just an afternoon in the 70-year reign of Britain's monarch, it profoundly affected Dozier and created a memory to last her lifetime. Dozier, now retired and living in Wrangell, began her teaching career at the age of 19. She was born in Michigan, made her...
A federal appeals court has ruled that Metlakatla tribal members shouldn’t need state permits to fish in waters they’ve traditionally relied on — even outside their reservation’s boundaries. The decision is a major victory in the tribe’s decades-long fight for fishing rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 28-page opinion on Sept. 8 is broad and unambiguous: The 1891 law that created Metlakatla’s reservation gives tribal members the right to fish in areas near Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island, outside the boundaries of the Annett...
Exuberant shouts resounded in the Evergreen Elementary gym last Thursday night as a group of nine young runners, between the third and fifth grades, bounded into the room for another session of I Toowú Klatseen, a running program for youth that combines athletic activity with Tlingit language learning and cultural education. The group settled into a circle to learn about the Tlingit subsistence lifestyle, healthy foods and the importance of having respect for the plants and animals we eat. Kim Wickman, a program volunteer, instructed the...
Last Thursday afternoon, Tanner Thomassen, 27, shot Wrangell's first moose of the season on Andrew Island in the Stikine River. The moose is also Thomassen's first - he has been trying to bag one since the fifth grade, and after 15 years of effort, he was finally in the right place at the right time. "I was in a tree and I saw a calf," he said. "I thought that was all there was, so we were ready to crawl down the tree and go down to another spot." Thankfully for Thomassen, he stayed put long eno...
As he neared the end of an ocean swim just south of Sitka earlier this month, Dean Orbison felt a pain in his foot and thought he’d kicked a rock. But when the pain recurred, he stopped to look around and was startled by what he saw. A river otter was in hot pursuit and biting at his feet. “I was about 50 yards from the boat on my way back and I felt something bite at my foot and I turned around and thought, ‘That was weird.’ But I didn’t see anything. I thought I must have just kicked a rock, because I was in a really shallow rocky place. ...
A team of scientists exploring an underwater region of southern Southeast Alaska has discovered what might be the oldest stone fish weir ever found in the world. The existence of the fish trap, which is thought to date to at least 11,100 years ago, was confirmed earlier this year by a group of university academics and Sunfish Inc., a robotics company specializing in undersea exploration and inspection. The scientists, in partnership with Sealaska Heritage Institute, are using artificial intelligence to explore ancient, submerged caves in the...