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If visitors read the bear-sighting sheet at Anan Wildlife Observatory, which the workers fill out every season, bear names would sound more like tax forms: 7-05-A, for the first bear spotted on the stream to fish on July 5, and 7-05-B, for the second bear spotted on July 5. Well, humans only do so well with numbering systems before our penchant for nicknames kicks in: Casino, Crack and Scuba Sue, to name a few. Bear naming can be a controversial issue, Dee Galla, outdoor recreation planner at...
The state budget plan adopted by the House last weekend includes an additional $143,000 in one-time funding for Wrangell schools, almost a 5% boost from a state aid formula that has not changed in five years. The district has been relying heavily on federal pandemic relief money and reserves to fill budget holes the past couple of years, and plans to do the same for the 2022-2023 school year. District officials acknowledge it’s not a sustainable financial plan. State funding to school districts is based on a per-student formula, and Wrangell h...
Tribal members can apply for a fourth distribution of federal pandemic relief funds administered by the Wrangell Cooperative Association. This round of financial aid is limited to $2,000 per household. The application period closes May 16. Tribal members can select to receive the assistance for utilities, groceries, heating fuel or gasoline, or a combination of any of the four choices in increments of $500, $1,000 or $2,000 if the applicant prefers that the aid go all to one category. Previous rounds were limited to covering utility bills or...
Art students are decking out their deck shoes. Wrangell High School was one of 250 schools across the country picked to participate in the Vans Custom Culture art contest and could win up to $50,000. It was an opportunity that almost didn't happen. "We were supposed to get the shoes mid-February. (Vans) sent them but they got lost," said art teacher Tasha Morse. She contacted the company, which told her to keep a lookout for the shoes. If the two pairs didn't arrive, they would send...
The Alaska Marine Highway System has been hoping since last August to bring back the Columbia to service this year after an almost three-year absence, but with the start of the summer schedule only weeks away the state has not announced a decision on the ship. The Columbia’s summer return is contingent on hiring enough crew to replace staff that were laid off, retired, quit or moved to other ships since the state’s largest ferry was pulled out of service in the fall of 2019. “We’re pouring a lot of effort into recruitment, but headway has bee...
The Port and Harbors Department wants to strengthen municipal code to lessen the burden of paying for derelict and impounded vessels. It drains the department’s coffers when clunkers take on water or sink, leading port staff to foot the cleanup efforts and the department to foot the bill. The port commission is asking the borough assembly to amend municipal code to hold boat owners liable for disposing of derelict boats. The commission has also begun discussing whether to require boat owners to have insurance if their vessel is moored in a W...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court last Thursday, shattering a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black female justice. Cheers rang out in the Senate chamber as Jackson, a 51-year-old appeals court judge with nine years experience on the federal bench, was confirmed 53-47, mostly along party lines but with three Republican votes. Alaska’s two Republican senators split on the issue. Sen. Lisa Murkowski was one of only three Republicans to vote in favor of confirming Jackson. Oth...
Longtime Anchorage civic activist and trailblazing politician Arliss Sturgulewski died last Thursday, her family said. She was 94. Raising a young son after her husband died in a plane crash, Sturgulewski became involved in Anchorage politics in the 1970s and later served as a state senator for more than a decade, shaping important institutions of modern Alaska with a collaborative, moderate approach. In 1986 she became the first Alaska woman to head the ticket for a major political party’s gubernatorial campaign. The moderate Republican’s cam...
The Port and Harbors Department plans to select a company this month to design a surveillance camera system for installation at Wrangell harbors by the end of the year. The department has about $407,000 from two federal grants — $148,000 in fall 2020 and $259,468 in fall 2021 from the Department of Homeland Security — for the design, purchase and installation of a security camera system. It’ll help keep an eye on things, and prevent theft and illegal dumping of garbage, such as a ‘70s-era Volkswagen Beetle chopped into pieces found in a dumps...
An official with a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that has awarded more than $820,000 to the Wrangell borough, Forest Service and tribe said more could be on the way. The Wrangell Cooperative Association was awarded $620,000 from the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, part of a $25 million federal grant program intended to help diversify the economy of Southeast communities. The borough was awarded $100,000 to manage lands for the improvement of wild blueberry harvests and $103,000 for trail upkeep. The program also provided...
Picking a senior project was just like ringing a bell for Caleb Garcia. Since 2013, the 17-year-old has been involved with The Salvation Army, so being the volunteer coordinator of the nonprofit's Red Kettle fundraising effort made perfect sense. Born in Indio, California, in the Coachella Valley, Garcia grew up in southern part of the state around Los Angeles, where there's no shortage of people in need. His mother, Lt. Rosie Tollerud, of The Salvation Army, said her son was always ready to...
A new plasma torch purchased by the school district will provide shop class students with a more versatile way to cut and build metal projects - and it won't cost the district a penny of borough funds. The new computer numerical control (CNC) machine is like the shop's current CNC machine, a computer-driven router, but it uses a plasma torch, which cuts with electrically charged, superheated gas. It will give students much more choice in projects, according to shop teacher Winston Davies. "I've...
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A subsidiary of one of the largest U.S. providers of renewable energy pleaded guilty to criminal charges and was ordered to pay more than $8 million in fines and restitution after at least 150 eagles were killed at its wind farms in eight states, federal prosecutors said April 6. NextEra Energy subsidiary ESI Energy was also sentenced to five years probation after being charged with three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act during a court appearance in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The charges arose from the deaths o...
Concerned that a contentious, political rewrite of the state constitution could destabilize Alaska and jeopardize private investment, a new bipartisan group has launched a campaign to convince voters to reject a convention to change the state’s founding set of laws. Voters will be asked in November whether they want to convene a convention to rewrite the constitution, a question which the constitution requires go before voters every 10 years. In a meeting with reporters on April 7, co-chairs of Defend Our Constitution announced more than 150 A...
A Delta Junction man who threatened to assassinate both of Alaska’s U.S. senators in a series of profane messages left at their congressional offices was sentenced last Friday to 32 months in prison. Jay Allen Johnson was also fined $5,000, ordered to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence, and is barred by a protective order from contacting Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, their family and staff members for three years. “Nothing excuses this conduct, threatening our elected officials, an act that attacks our...
As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis’ historic apology for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of operating such schools. Church schools are likely to feature prominently in a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior, led by the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, due to be released later this month. The report, prompted by last year’s discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at...
JUNEAU (AP) — Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, plans to visit Alaska this month, with a planned visit to the community at the center of a long-running dispute over a proposed land exchange aimed at building a road through a national wildlife refuge. Haaland had planned to visit King Cove last year, but the trip never happened. The Interior Department on April 4 said Haaland planned to visit several communities and sites in Alaska the week of April 17, including Anchorage, Fairbanks a...
JUNEAU (AP) — Political donors have sued over state campaign finance rules enacted under a 2020 voter initiative, arguing the donor disclosure rules are burdensome and could lead to reprisals against them and their business interests in a climate of “cancel culture.” The disclosure rules were part of a ballot measure that overhauled Alaska’s elections system and was passed by voters in 2020. Provisions of the measure calling for open primaries and ranked-choice voting in general elections were challenged previously in state courts and upheld. A... Full story
JUNEAU (AP) — The Alaska House has voted to cut the state Medicaid budget in a bid to eliminate state funding for abortions in spite of constitutional questions. House members voted 21-18 on April 6 to zero out $350,000 in funding for Medicaid services related to abortions. The vote came during debate on the state operating budget. The budget bill must go to the Senate for review, and the two chambers must agree on the same numbers and same provisions before it can go to the governor for his consideration. Lawmakers previously have sought to r...
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Local, state and federal officials must do more to ensure Native Americans facing persistent, longstanding and deep-rooted barriers to voting have equal access to ballots, a White House report said. Native Americans and Alaska Natives vote at lower rates than the national average but have been a key constituency in tight races and states with large Native populations. A surge in voter turnout among tribal members in Arizona, for example, helped lead Joe Biden to victory in the state that hadn’t supported a Democrat in...
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has made a historic apology to Indigenous Peoples for the "deplorable" abuses they suffered in Canada's Catholic-run residential schools, and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church's misguided missionary zeal. Francis begged forgiveness during an audience April 1 with dozens of members of the Metis, Inuit and First Nations communities who came to Rome seeking a papal apology and a commitment from the...
Former Alaska governor, former vice presidential candidate and former reality TV personality Sarah Palin added her well-publicized name to the list of four dozen candidates seeking to fill Alaska’s only seat in the U.S. House, hoping to take over for Rep. Don Young, who died last month. “Public service is a calling,” Palin said in a statement on social media. Palin, a Republican, quit as governor of Alaska in 2009 after she and presidential running mate Arizona Sen. John McCain lost the 2008 election to Democrat Barack Obama and Joe Biden...
Betty White was a veteran of the armed forces. Ruby Bridges was the subject of a Normal Rockwell painting. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles is 4-foot, 8-inches tall. Libby Riddles was the first woman to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. These are just some of the facts learned by Evergreen Elementary students during a March art project for Women's History Month about famous and not-so famous women who have left their mark in the world. The art project began last year, with 20 children from the...
When contractor Jesse West said, "we destroyed everything," it sounds pretty bad, out of context. But that's exactly what his Petersburg company Rainforest Contracting was hired to do - pull down the old Anan bear viewing deck and walkway and put up a new one for the U.S. Forest Service. "So far we've demo-ed everything that was up there," West, president of Rainforest Contracting, said March 29. "It's all stacked in piles and ready to get taken out of there." The concrete and wood and metal...
Just like migrating birds, the Stikine River Birding Festival is coming back to Wrangell. This year, instead of just one weekend, the festival is spreading its wings to three weekends in a row from April 22 to May 7 with a focus on education. "Instead of having one intensive weekend, hoping to capitalize on visitors, I think we recognized it was never really attracting a huge amount of tourists," said Corree Delabrue, district interpreter for the U.S. Forest Service Wrangell office. She also...