Sorted by date Results 2749 - 2773 of 8063
Juneau-based Alaska Seaplanes will add Wrangell to its route map starting May 26. The company, which operates a fleet of 14 single-engine aircraft, mostly nine-passenger planes, will run a daily flight from Sitka to Petersburg to Wrangell and back to Sitka. Encouragement from SEARHC “was instrumental” in starting the Sitka-Wrangell service, Andy Kline, Alaska Seaplanes marketing manager, said last Wednesday. SEARHC is based in Sitka where it operates the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, providing acute, specialty and behavioral health care ser...
When Michelle Lopez opened Taste of Asia nearly seven years ago, it was after her boyfriend had become her ex-boyfriend. She had come to Wrangell to be with him from Juneau, where her parents had moved from the Philippines 30 years ago. She stayed in Wrangell to make a life for herself and her kids. When she came here, there were no places that served rice, she said. "I was so hungry. I thought maybe I should look for a place to put a little business." The owner of the Front Street building Tast...
The borough is moving to solve the problem of dwindling burial space in town. The community this summer will get a new columbarium, a structure for keeping urns, and the borough assembly has approved an expansion to Sunset Gardens Cemetery. The expansion, in two phases, will add 100 burial plots. Only three plots remain in Sunset Gardens at 1.5 Mile Zimovia Highway, on the uplands side of the highway, and four in Memorial Cemetery at 1 Mile, on the water side of the highway. But even that number is iffy. “The borough has been reluctant to s...
The commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Revenue was called into a special meeting last month to discuss a problem: The Permanent Fund Dividend Division was under cyberattack. In a short period of time, more than 800,000 attempts were made to get into the division’s systems, which are in charge of paying the annual dividend to Alaskans. The division shut down its computers, the department’s firewalls held, and “no Alaskans’ data was accessed,” said Anna MacKinnon, director of the division. “Our system repelled, as it should, the assault o...
The Alaska Board of Fisheries has adopted a revised king salmon Southeast management plan in a compromise that will see sport fishery limits set before the start of the season based on a tiered system of abundance instead of changing during the season. The revised plan is expected to be in place by the 2023 season. The hope is that the 80/20 split between the commercial troll and sport fisheries will be maintained, while allowing non-residents who travel to Alaska to catch king salmon the opportunity to do so, rather than being shut down at a...
For the sixth year in a row, federal managers have closed the Stikine River chinook subsistence fishery to help preserve weak runs of the returning salmon. Clint Kolarich, Wrangell District Ranger with the U.S. Forest Service, announced the decision last week, under authority delegated by the Federal Subsistence Board. The closure will run from May 15 through June 20. “The preseason forecast for the Stikine River is 7,400 large chinook salmon (greater than 28 inches in total length), which is below the escapement goal range of 14,000 to 2...
The Alaska Volcano Observatory said that as of last Thursday the number of earthquakes under Mount Edgecumbe was declining. The earthquake activity is beneath the 3,000-foot high dormant volcano 15 miles west of Sitka on Kruzof Island. The volcano observatory sent out an information statement a day earlier about the "swarm" of small earthquakes under Mt. Edgecumbe, with an accompanying message that there is no cause for alarm by the public. "We're getting information out and trying not to alarm...
A federally funded mortgage relief program to help homeowners hurt financially by the pandemic drew 10,737 applications in Alaska, with 43 from Wrangell. The state received $50 million in federal funds under a nationwide program to help homeowners who lost their jobs or income due to COVID-19 shutdowns or cutbacks. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp. is administering the statewide program, reviewing the applications to ensure people meet the income loss and other criteria in preparation to start disbursing aid. The 10,737 applications represent...
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has determined that about 5,300 gallons of diesel spilled from the March 21 grounding of a tugboat in Neva Strait, near Sitka. The agency calculated that about 700 gallons were recovered by surface skimmers after the accident that left the tug Western Mariner stranded on the beach and leaking fuel. Additional fuel was removed from the water by deployment of absorbent materials, the state said. Before the tugboat was refloated on March 30, all of the fuel in the undamaged tanks on the vessel...
The Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery closed April 10 with a final tally of approximately 26,350 tons harvested, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It was just over half of the 45,164-ton guideline harvest level, but over 10,000 tons more than last year’s catch. In the final five days of openings, approximately 6,990 tons were harvested in the waters off of Baranof Island to the south of Sitka. OBI Fleet Manager Don Spigelmyre wrote that this year was “our best season ever,” and that the company purchased just over 3,500...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The two co-chairs of the late-U.S. Rep. Don Young's reelection campaign have earned competing endorsements in their bids to replace Alaska's lone member of the U.S. House. Republicans Josh Revak and Tara Sweeney are among a field of 48 candidates running in a June 11 special primary. The four candidates who get the most votes in the special primary will advance to an Aug. 16 special election to determine who serves the remainder of Young’s term, which ends in January. Young, a Republican, died last month at age 88. You...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski continues to have a substantial cash advantage over her opponent backed by former President Donald Trump. Murkowski, in office since 2002, brought in more than $1.5 million in the three-month period ending March 31, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. Murkowski ended the quarter with $5.2 million on hand with no debt, the records show. Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is challenging Murkowski, raised $673,383 during the last...
After two years of COVID-19 closure, an easing of restrictions at the border between Skagway and Yukon Territory will make it possible for tour companies to run cross-border excursions this summer. That’s good news for many Skagway tour operators that take cruise ship passengers into Canada. But Skagway’s largest tour operator, the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, said its trains won’t cross the border despite relaxed COVID testing rules and faster processing times. On April 5, the railway notified its partners that it would not opera...
JUNEAU (AP) — The appointed board tasked with drawing Alaska’s legislative district boundaries has approved new state Senate districts for the Anchorage area, with the two members who opposed the plan calling it political. The new plan puts Eagle River, north of Anchorage, and Girdwood, south of Anchorage into the same Senate district, separated by about 25 miles of uninhabited Chugach State Park. The Alaska Redistricting Board adopted the plan by a 3-2 vote on April 13. The board had gone back to work after the state Supreme Court ruled tha...
MIAMI (AP) - A U.S. ban on seafood imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine was supposed to sap billions of dollars from Vladimir Putin's war machine. But shortcomings in import regulations mean that Russian-caught pollock, salmon and crab are likely to enter the U.S. anyway, by way of the country vital to seafood supply chains across the world: China. Like the U.S. seafood industry, Russian companies rely heavily on China to process their catch. Once there, the seafood can be...
WASHINGTON (AP) — In southwestern Pennsylvania, eight locks and dams that for decades helped barges move goods along the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers will in a few years also generate enough power for 75,000 homes. Rye Development, a Boston-based hydropower company, is retrofitting the dams with turbines to generate electricity and says the upgraded structures will limit damage to the rivers’ water quality and fish. The project reflects a recent thawing between the industry and conservation groups, which had long opposed dams tha...
Of the more than 4.8 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled their country since Russia's invasion started in late February, one, an 82-year-old woman from Odessa, is now living in the Upper Chilkat Valley with no return ticket home. Alla Blazhko-Getman is living with her daughter and son-in-law, Natalia and Hans Baertle, at 26 Mile Haines Highway. Natalia Baertle, a former high school teacher in Ukraine who moved to Alaska in 2010 after marrying, said she attempted to fly her mother out of...
PORTLAND (AP) - Farms that rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake on the California-Oregon border, along with a Native American tribe fighting to protect fragile salmon, will both receive extremely limited amounts of water this summer as a historic drought and record-low reservoir levels drag on in the U.S. West. More than 1,000 farmers and ranchers who draw water from a 257-mile-long river that flows from the Upper Klamath Lake to the Pacific Ocean will have access to...
ABOARD THE SOUNDGUARDIAN, Puget Sound (AP) — Over the side it goes with a splash: three ears tuned for the sounds of orcas, and the noise that threatens their survival. In the deep, this trio of hydrophones rests on the sea bottom, recording the sounds of Washington's Puget Sound, including endangered southern resident orcas. The listening array, developed and deployed in March by SMRU Consulting, is attached to a buoy that marks its location, just about a mile offshore, north of Carkeek Park. The equipment will be in place for three months, in...
JUNEAU (AP) — Juneau has purchased a gondola in Austria for the city-owned ski area, but questions remain about long-term plans. Officials have expressed interest in working with the Goldbelt Native corporation on the project. City officials recently signed a purchase agreement to buy the gondola system for $1.33 million. Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the city is seeking bids from transport companies to bring the gondola to Juneau. Eaglecrest Ski Area has been looking for ways to expand summer operations and create opportunities for a m...
The Alaska House of Representatives voted Saturday to turn an oil-price surge into money for schools, repayment of tax credits the state has owed to oil explorers for years, and $2,600 payments for Alaska residents this fall. The House voted 25-14 to send its state operating budget proposal to the Senate, which is developing its own version. The two budget plans, which set spending for public services starting with the new fiscal year on July 1, will be negotiated into a compromise bill and sent to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who can accept or reject...
In a special session last Saturday, the school board approved the contract for a new elementary school principal. Board members unanimously accepted the contract for Ann Hilburn as Evergreen Elementary School principal beginning the 2022-23 school year. Hilburn is in her first year as the special education teacher at the high school and middle school, having moved to Wrangell from Mississippi last fall. Hilburn was part of an applicant pool of more than 30 people, which was narrowed down to eight to 10 applicants. Schools Superintendent Bill...
Schools try to prepare students for life beyond the walls of academia and sometimes that requires more than classroom education. Last Tuesday, high school and middle school staff held a health fair that centered around not only physical and mental health but financial health and planning for the future. Separate sessions were held for the high school and the middle school and each was brimming with students actively going to various tables, asking questions, playing games and competing with...
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...