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By Scott Bowlen Ketchikan Daily News Pure & Wild, a 44-foot monohull sailboat, won the 2022 Race to Alaska on June 20, sailing into Ketchikan four days, four hours and 32 minutes after departing Victoria, British Columbia. Team members Jonathan McKee, Matt Pistay and Alyosha Strum-Palerm gathered at the Alaska Fish House, where their first-prize winnings of $10,000 cash had been nailed to a high beam on the back wall. Pistay climbed up to the beam and used a small crowbar to pry the prize money...
Following the death of her son to an opioid overdose in January, Sitka state public health nurse Denise Ewing and her husband, Gary Johnston, sought to prevent others from suffering the same loss. Named after her son, Gabe Johnston, Project Gabe seeks to place opioid overdose kits at seafood processors across Southeast, aiming to protect the high-risk population from avoidable deaths. “Gabe … had struggled with opioids for many years,” Ewing said in an interview. “When he passed, we said, ‘We have to stop this. This is stoppable...
After finding a solution to a contractor lien against the property owner, the borough this week completed the purchase to take over ownership of the former sawmill property at 6 Mile. “The intent is not to hold on to the property,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said at the June 14 assembly meeting. The purpose in buying the 39 acres is to guard against the seller further piecing out the land in small parcels that could hinder future large-scale development. “Site control of this area has been really important,” he said. The owner has been “chunki...
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium has placed its order with the state for COVID-19 vaccination doses for children as young as 6 months old, and could start distributing them to its facilities across the region this week. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday approved the children’s doses of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. “At this point in time we do not have pediatric vaccine clinics scheduled, as we are waiting for approval and a definite timeframe for receiving our supply of vaccines,” Randi Yance...
Most will recognize Joshua and Clarissa Young as the owners and operators of the popular lunchtime spot J&W's Fast Food. Now the couple are tackling another business: Innkeepers. Most will recognize the inn they are keeping as the Sourdough Lodge at 1104 Peninsula St. Under their ownership, the lodge is being renamed the Cedar House Inn. The 15,000-square-foot building has been in the Harding family since it was built by Lloyd Harding and his sons in 1984. It's now owned by Bruce and Darlene...
A babbling creek and screeching eagles weren't the only music that could be heard among the swaying trees at Shoemaker Bay. The first Music in the Parks concert was held at Shoemaker Park last Wednesday evening, with about 200 people listening to the tunes played by artists Kaylauna Churchill-Warren and The Powers. First Bank and Alaska Marine Lines sponsored the free concert, which was organized by the Parks and Recreation Department. The Wrangell Police Department donated 250 hamburgers and...
Plans to make the almost-century-old U.S. Forest Service Chugach Ranger workboat a permanent display at the Nolan Center are slowly moving forward, but until then the 62-foot wooden vessel will be temporarily on display for the Fourth of July weekend. The protective wrapping on the boat will be removed by next Sunday so the vessel can be inspected and assessed in order to proceed with plans to eventually build a protective shelter and walk-around ramp for easier viewing. Those who want to see th...
Alaska state ferry service between Ketchikan and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, resumed on Monday afternoon. The last state ferry voyage to the Canadian port city was in late fall 2019. The Matanuska made a quick round trip Monday and is scheduled for another voyage on Friday. “(The) Matanuska made a test sailing to Prince Rupert about a week ago and all went to plan,” state Transportation Department spokesperson Sam Dapcevich wrote in a Friday email. This summer’s service is limited, with two round trips scheduled the third week of July,...
August Schultz Jr. was born June 23, 1960, in a hospital that's now an apartment building in Wrangell. He grew up in a house up behind that hospital, surrounded by family. Schultz, known to friends as Augie, still lives in the same house, though alone, being the last living member of his immediate family. Though it's been hard, he has found healing through the town's history in the form of a Facebook page. At his therapist's suggestion, Schultz created "Wrangell yesterday - place where old...
Garbage trucks are no different than all the other things consumers order but have to wait an extra-long time to arrive. The borough is spending almost $300,000 on a new garbage can and dumpster picker-upper and trash-hauling truck. The company told the borough it could be a year before arrival. “They can’t even get the chassis from the manufacturer to make the truck,” Borough Public Works Director Tom Wetor said last week. A 16-cubic-yard, automated side-loader will be installed on a Freightliner chassis. It’s basically the same as the bor...
Eric Halstead was at the top of the Wrangell King Salmon Derby scoreboard with a 43.4-pound catch as of Sunday evening, five days into the competition. The derby runs through July 3, with $7,900 in cash prizes. As of Sunday evening, 27 salmon had been entered, according to the chamber of commerce, which sponsors the event. Halstead hooked his salmon last Friday, near Blake Island. Stanley Johnson, of Wyoming, was in second place, with a 41.8-pound king that he caught near Found Island on Sunday. He won $500 for catching the largest fish on...
A state Superior Court judge signed a scheduling order on June 7 that will put former Anchorage Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux on trial later this summer for voter misconduct. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 12. The trial is expected to last 10 days; a start date has not yet been set. “I’m looking forward to it because it’s been a long time, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to clear my name,” LeDoux said last week. State prosecutors have accused LeDoux and two others of encouraging illegal votes in the 2014 and 2018 state legislati...
Gavia Delabrue, and her mom, Corree Delabrue, fish at Pats Lake during Family Fishing Day last Saturday. The day started in 2010 as part of a Boy Scouts event. This year's fishing landed about 16 fish, according to event organizer Shirley Wimberley. There were 27 children and about 28 adults signed up, with 11 staff and volunteers overseeing activities such as making lures and painting T-shirts. Claire Froehlech, an intern with the U.S. Forest Service, guides Wyatt Thomassen, 7, as he fishes at...
A dozen children and two adults were served floor sealant instead of milk at a day care summer program at a Juneau elementary school last week after workers poured from the wrong container. Several students complained of burning sensations in their mouth and throats, and at least one child was treated at a hospital after the incident on the morning of June 14, Juneau Schools Superintendent Bridget Weiss said. Juneau police are leading the investigation of how the mix-up occurred, “not really because we believe there’s anything criminal or mal...
Breaking news: Al Gross late Monday withdrew from the race for U.S. House. Gross, who had finished third in the primary election, did not give a reason for his decision. The Alaska Division of Elections on Tuesday said the August general election to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young will proceed with just three candidates, not four as had been expected. The division said state law does not allow for the fifth-place finisher, Tara Sweeney, to move up to fill out the four finalists for the general election for the seat. The...
Though sales boomed for Sitka Salmon Shares during the pandemic, the direct-to-consumer fish seller and processor has been unable to continue that success into 2022 and shut down its Sitka processing plant on June 6, laying off 40 workers. Company co-founder Marsh Skeele, of Sitka, said that despite the closure of its processing plant, the company plans to continue buying and selling fish, working with fishermen and other processors. Skeele said problems that led to the shutdown of the plant became apparent in December, when the expected...
One of Alaska’s largest private COVID-19 testing providers plans to close its public testing sites in the state by the end of June. The decision by the private company will not affect SEARHC’s continuation of testing services in Wrangell. The decision by Capstone Clinic is mainly driven by financial considerations, said Matt Jones, Capstone’s director of non-clinical operations. Jones said it began with an abrupt move by the federal government earlier this year to no longer cover the costs of COVID-19 tests or treatments for those without healt...
As election officials count votes in Alaska’s first-ever statewide election by mail, they have rejected thousands of submitted ballots, including one in six from a Western Alaska state House district, causing concern from observers who say the state’s process is disenfranchising voters, particularly Alaska Natives. At last week’s meeting of the National Congress of American Indians in Anchorage, Michelle Sparck delivered a speech on behalf of a group whose mission is to improve Alaska Native voting rates. When she described the issue, “ther...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has appointed a philanthropist-businesswoman to the six-member board of trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which manages the $79 billion investment account that pays for a huge share of public services and the annual dividend to Alaskans. Lawmakers and Dunleavy’s critics have been closely watching the corporation’s board in recent months, after members voted in December to fire its former chief executive, Angela Rodell. That move came amid disagreements over the fund’s management, and how much lawmakers can susta...
The Ketchikan Public Library last Friday morning held a Drag Queen Storytime event that attracted so many participants that library staff held three readings. The reading room is able to hold 25 people, Children’s Library Assistant Anne Marie Meiresonne said, and it was brimming for each reading. The event has attracted much controversy in recent weeks, with supporters and detractors attending Ketchikan City Council and Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly meetings to share their support and opposition, as well as debating the issue on social m...
PALMER — The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District board on June 15 approved Alaska’s first local ban on transgender girls participating in girls sports and other school-sponsored activities. The change requires schools designate school-sponsored athletic teams or sports as male, female or coed, and requires participation in a female sport to be based on the participant’s biological sex at birth. Officials say the Mat-Su policy will not apply to visiting teams from other districts. The Mat-Su proposal’s language mirrors the wording in a bil...
Western Alaska villagers have endured the worst chum salmon runs on record, several years of anemic Chinook salmon runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, harvest closures from the Bering Sea coast to Canada’s Yukon Territory and such dire conditions that they relied on emergency shipments of salmon from elsewhere in Alaska just to have food to eat. Many of those suffering see one way to provide some quick relief: Large vessels trawling for pollock and other groundfish in the industrial-scale fisheries of the Bering Sea, they say, must stop i...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Challenges have been filed to keep Wasilla Republican state Rep. David Eastman’s name off the ballot in his reelection bid, arguing that his affiliation with the far-right Oath Keepers disqualifies him under the state constitution. Several people said they filed complaints related to a section of the constitution that prevents from holding public office anyone who “advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the Unite...
Wrangell's 10-year-old Quinn Davies was "super nervous" to dance for the first time at Celebration - a biennial dance-and-culture festival of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures, held in Juneau last week. "I'm using my dad's regalia that he used when he was in Celebration, and I'm using his hat that he also used," Davies said June 8, opening day of the four-day event. His sister Madelyn Davies, 12, said being at Celebration is "kind of mind-blowing." "It's a lot of people. We're all together....
Culturally significant objects formerly in collections of the Portland Art Museum arrived in Juneau on June 8 on their way back to Wrangell, whose Tlingit artisans had fashioned them. After years of negotiations following a claim originally filed in 2002 and accepted by the museum in 2019, the objects, including a Killerwhale Hat, have been repatriated to the Naanya.aayí clan in Wrangell, where they had originated. COVID-19 complications delayed the transfer until now, according to a museum...
