Sorted by date Results 2015 - 2039 of 7954
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...
Dozens of hands small and large held a firm grip on the 30-foot-long dugout canoe they pushed down Angoon's Front Street despite their shoes slipping on the rain-soaked road. Neither the potholes on the road nor the rain on Oct. 26 seemed to discourage the more than 50 Chatham School District students and Angoon residents from pushing what was the first dugout canoe made in Angoon since the U.S. Navy bombardment 140 years ago. The 1882 bombardment destroyed all but one of its fleet of dugout...
Backers of a proposed copper and gold mine in Southwest Alaska “tried to trick regulators by pretending to pursue a smaller project with the intention of expanding” after the project was approved, a report released Oct. 28 by a U.S. House panel said. The report makes several recommendations, including environmental review process changes to ensure a more inclusive review “of cumulative impacts of projects.” Mike Heatwole, a spokesperson for the Pebble Limited Partnership, which is seeking to develop the Pebble Mine, said the company has not...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested a federal disaster declaration and U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has requested $250 million in relief funding after the failure of this year’s Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries. Last week, Peltola asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee to include relief funding for crab fishermen and the crabbing industry in Congress’ year-end appropriation bill. Disaster relief funding could be available if Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo declares a f...
Alaska’s minimum wage will rise 51 cents, to $10.85 per hour, starting next year. The adjustment, announced last month by the Alaska Department of Labor, is intended to compensate for a 5% rise in the cost of living in Anchorage. Alaska law requires the minimum wage to be adjusted each year for inflation. Despite the increase, the minimum wage remains well below a widely used measure of a living wage in Alaska. In Anchorage, the median apartment rental cost is $1,339 per month, according to a survey conducted this year by the Alaska Housing F...
With Election Day less than a week away, the leading group encouraging Alaskans to vote no on a constitutional convention has raised much more money than its opponents after attracting a broad bipartisan group of supporters and a growing list of influential organizations backing its cause. Dwarfed in spending, the leading yes group is fighting on two fronts: In secular public forums, supporters are staying focused on a convention as a way to resolve Permanent Fund dividend debates. Meanwhile, some of the same conservative supporters are also...
Republican governor candidate Charlie Pierce confirmed on Oct. 26 that he will continue his campaign despite a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a Kenai Peninsula Borough employee while he served as borough mayor. “We’re in this race to the very end,” he said during a broadcast of KSRM-AM radio’s “Sound Off” program. Pierce, at 6.6% of the vote in the August primary, is far behind the other three candidates in the Nov. 8 general election for governor. “I think the honorable thing to do is finish what you start, and that’s what I...
Nick Begich, who is running against fellow Republican Sarah Palin and Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola for Alaska’s single U.S. House seat, will be in Wrangell on Friday. He is the only one of the three leading candidates to schedule a visit to the community. His conservative platform includes deregulating Alaska minerals development and bolstering the state’s role in supplying resources to the nation. Peltola won the House seat in August to fill out the unexpired term of the late Rep. Don Young until January. The Nov. 8 general election wil...
In the final debate of Alaska's U.S. Senate election, incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her principal challenger, Republican Kelly Tshibaka, argued about contentious issues including abortion and gun control, but their biggest difference was one of strategy and bipartisanship. During a fast-moving hour Oct. 27, Tshibaka criticized Murkowski for working with Democrats and the administration of President Joe Biden during her latest term in Congress, while Murkowski defended her choices...
Republican lieutenant governor candidate Edie Grunwald is withdrawing from the Nov. 8 election after her running mate, former Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, was sued over allegations he sexually harassed a former borough employee. Grunwald encouraged Alaskans to vote for fellow Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. She said "recent circumstances" surrounding Pierce had led her to make the decision to step aside. "I support and advocate for the respectful treatment of women in politics, t...
