Sorted by date Results 2462 - 2486 of 7954
On a sunny afternoon, Ketchikan International Airport got a surprise visit from some unusual guests. At about noon on June 7, five U.S. Navy F-18 Super Hornets touched down at the airport for about two hours to refuel on their way north to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks. Lt. Cmdr. Brandon Hempler, one of the Hornet pilots, spoke with the Daily News by phone after the jets touched down at Eielson, where they will participate in RED FLAG-Alaska, a joint training exercise that takes place over the course of about 10 days. They’ll remain a...
Wrangell is one of nine Alaska communities operating under old federal permit waivers from costly secondary treatment for its sewage water discharge, and officials expect the upcoming permit reissuance will require the community to disinfect its wastewater before piping it into Zimovia Strait. “Everyone says the same thing … disinfection is coming,” Tom Wetor, the borough’s Public Works director, said last Friday. “It’s been reiterated to us multiple times.” Construction and installation of a disinfection system could cost around $2 million, s...
After 56 years of service in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet and almost three years tied up at a Ketchikan dock, unused and in need of costly repairs, the Malaspina is headed to another career as a privately owned floating museum and employee housing. Plans also call for using the ship as a classroom for maritime industry jobs. The state last week accepted $128,250 for the 408-foot-long passenger and vehicle ferry from the recently formed Ketchikan company M/V Malaspina. The company is a...
The borough has listed the former Wrangell Medical Center for sale to the highest bidder until June 30, at a minimum bid of $830,000, the value assigned by an April appraisal. The hospital has been vacant since health care provider SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium moved into its new building in February 2021. The borough has been spending close to $100,000 a year to heat and insure the empty structure, and the assembly has decided to sell the surplus property. The lot is 1.95 acres, o...
It was the fundraiser that almost wasn't until one ambitious teen decide to set another goal. Each year, the chamber of commerce uses the Fourth of July royalty contest to raise money to pay for the following year's events. Nobody had entered this year's competition until Tyson Messmer stepped up mid-May to help. Messmer, who graduated high school this year, will attend the University of Miami in Florida. Though the school awarded him a scholarship, he still needs to raise money for his schoolin...
A new totem pole in Juneau is 22 feet tall, almost 4 feet wide at the base and about 7 to 8 feet wide where Raven and Eagle are carved. You have to walk around it completely to see all of the elements. Unlike most poles that are carved on one side, the Sealaska Cultural Values totem pole is carved all the way around, a full 360 degrees. According to Sealaska Heritage Institute, there are only three others like it, all in Canada. Now, there's one in Alaska. "They're pretty rare, done within...
Closing on the borough’s $2.6 million purchase of the 39-acre former sawmill property at 6 Mile has been delayed until June 20, Borough Manager Jeff Good said June 1, the day the sale was supposed to close. The sale is delayed until the seller can resolve a contractor lien on the property. William “Shorty” Tonsgard Jr., owner of Channel Construction, a scrap metal collection company that runs a barge south for disposal or recycling, on March 18 filed a $701,654 lien against Kelso, Washington-based DB AK Enterprises, owned by Betty Buhle...
Don’t let this be the one that got away. The Wrangell King Salmon Derby gets underway on June 15 and runs through July 3. At stake is $7,900 in cash prizes. The heaviest king salmon will get the biggest prize, as first place in the derby wins $3,000; second place wins $2,000; and third place wins $1,000. If two people land fish that weigh the same, the person who gets it weighed first will win. There will also be a $500 prize for the biggest fish caught on opening day, a $500 prize for the biggest caught on Father’s Day, two $250 random wei...
Hunters no longer need to hunt the web or search for printed copies and anglers no longer need to fish for necessary information, especially when they're in the field. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently launched an app for mobile phones running on Apple or Android operating systems. It gives users instant access to their licenses, permits, tags and information like regulations and boundaries. Since launching the app in late May, there have been 14,000 downloads of the app on the...
Work on an outdoor deck at Chief Shakes Hot Springs up the Stikine River has been delayed until next spring, after federal funds the Forest Service expected for the project have yet to arrive. The site, which consists of two hot tubs — one indoor and one outdoor — was supposed to get a facelift this month, favoring a higher river and tide levels for easier access at this time of the year. The project, which had been estimated at $190,000, received $81,200 from the Great American Outdoors Act — or so the Forest Service had been told, Distr...
A new report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides the most comprehensive look so far at the disproportionate toll COVID-19 is taking on Alaska Native and American Indian people living in Alaska. Overall, Alaska Native and American Indian people have made up just about a fifth of the state’s population but nearly a third of all deaths, the report found. Between the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and last December, Indigenous Alaskans were hospitalized with the virus and died from it at rates three times t...
When Christi Slaven's kids were tiny, she set her typewriter down on the breakfast bar in her parents' house and wrote a novel. She burned all 300 pages when she was done. "It was terrible," Slaven said. But she felt better afterward, because she was "going nuts" taking care of her two young daughters. Writing gave her a creative outlet. Her daughter, Kelly Ellis, who lives and works in Wrangell, remembers that time. "I was little, 2, 3, 4?" Ellis recalled. "She had a typewriter, and she had a k...
In a May 31 budget work session to consider borough finances for the fiscal year that starts July 1, Finance Director Mason Villarma advised the assembly that the borough is working toward accepting credit card payments for property and sales taxes but will charge a fee to accept the cards. “We are still finalizing our process and we may establish fees at a certain dollar threshold,” Villarma said last Friday. “We will be sure to give folks ample notice,” he added. “This will not apply to utility or moorage credit card payments,” Villarma wr...
JUNEAU (AP) —Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office has issued a consulting contract to a former Dunleavy campaign manager who later served as a staffer to the governor for up to $50,000 in part to advise the administration on what legal fights to pursue against the federal government. The contract with Strategic Synergies was signed in April and released by Dunleavy’s office last month. Brett Huber is listed on the contract as the firm’s sole owner. The contract runs through Oct. 24. Alaska has long had a contentious relationship with the federal...
All of the nearly 11,000 Alaska households that applied for financial aid under a state-administered, federally funded program — including 40 in Wrangell — will receive some level of assistance toward mortgage payments and utilities bills. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp., which is running the $50 million pandemic-aid program, announced last week it had completed its initial reviews of the applications, determining their income eligibility for assistance, and now will evaluate individual homeowner’s financial needs. Depending on each appli...
About one-third of Alaska’s legislators could be new to their job next year as multiple incumbents have decided to retire or seek higher office. The candidate filing deadline for the Aug. 16 statewide primary election was June 1. In addition to the state Senate president, Soldotna Republican Peter Micciche, and Senate Democratic minority leader Tom Begich, of Anchorage, eight other legislative incumbents have decided it is time to retire or take a break from elected office. In addition to those 10 who decided not to seek reelection, eight m...
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska voters are facing an election unlike any they have ever seen, with 48 candidates running to succeed the man who held the state’s only U.S. House seat for 49 years. While some of the candidates in this week’s special primary have name recognition, including former Gov. Sarah Palin and Santa Claus — yes, Santa Claus, and he lives in North Pole, outside Fairbanks — many are relative unknowns or political novices — a fishing guide, a contractor, a gold miner who went to prison for allegedly threatening federal land managers. T...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The only oil company to bid in last year’s controversial federal lease sale for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has canceled the lease it bought and asked for a refund of its almost $800,000 payment. Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of Australia-based 88 Energy, was one of three bidders that won leases during the rushed sale held in the waning days of the Trump administration. It was the first-of-its-kind sale for the refuge’s coastal plain. Activity on the leases has been held up by a Biden administration envir...
Devyn Johnson watches as her son, Nolan, 5, steps down from the cab of a Hitachi backhoe during the Touch a Truck event at Volunteer Park last Saturday. Johnson began the event a few years ago, getting the idea from her sister, who takes her children to a similar event in eastern Washington state. "I figured, my husband is on the fire department and does construction, so my kids have the opportunity to check those vehicles out all the time," she said. "We know kids in town who don't have that...
NEW YORK (AP) — The judge who presided over Sarah Palin’s libel case against The New York Times denied her request May 31 for a new trial, saying she failed to introduce “even a speck” of evidence necessary to prove actual malice by the newspaper. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made the assertion in a written decision as he rejected post-trial claims from Palin’s lawyers. Her attorneys had asked the judge to grant a new trial or disqualify himself as biased against her, citing several evidentiary rulings by Rakoff that they said were errors. T...
PHOENIX (AP) - Mary Francis had no qualms about being a poster child for COVID-19 vaccinations on the Navajo Nation, once a virus hot spot. The Navajo woman's face and words grace a digital flyer asking people on the Native American reservation to get vaccinated "to protect the shidine'e (my people)." "I was happy to put the information out there and just building that awareness and in having folks feel comfortable enough, or curious enough, to read the material," said Francis, who lives in...
The issue of whether public school funds can go toward private education is currently being reviewed by the Alaska Department of Law. Specifically: Can families enrolled in a state-funded correspondence program use their allotment to pay for private school classes? A state statute paves the way for it, there are families in Alaska excited about the option, and at least one correspondence school in the state already allows it. But the Department of Education is unclear if it’s allowed under state law, and opponents of the practice say it v...
Claire Houlton, of Tucson, Arizona, prepares to paint a portion of the seiner Norsel in Heritage Harbor last Friday. Houlton, 28, has worked on tenders and other fishing vessels in the past but this is her first time on a seiner. Skipper Amy Schaub said she and her four crewmembers will set out for Sitka to pick up the Norsel's skiff, net and power block before going out fishing....
Above: Caroline Bangs, left, narrowly avoids Mitchell Ludwig as he slides into second base during the next-to-last adult softball game of the season last Friday. Tristan Botsford looks on from the outfield at the Volunteer Park baseball field. Right: Issabella Crowley, of team Slug-n-Chug, swings at a pitch last Friday during their final game of the adult softball season against Wrangell IGA, which won the game 13-4. IGA then played Vicious & Delicious, which defeated the grocers...
For the first time in four years, Celebration, one of the largest gatherings of Southeast Alaska Native peoples to celebrate their culture, will be held in person in Juneau from June 8-11. The gathering, sponsored by Sealaska Heritage, drew about 5,000 people pre-COVID, including more than 2,000 dancers. The Wrangell tribe will lead the way next week. Every Celebration features a lead dance group and this year it will be Shx'at Kwáan (People Near the Mainland) of Wrangell, Sealaska Heritage...
