Sorted by date Results 2808 - 2832 of 7954
The high-pitched grinding of metal on metal, the whirr of saw blades ripping through cedar, the crackle of a welding arc on aluminum are all sounds of building in progress and a brighter future for Wrangell's students. Fabrication classes, whether woodworking, metalworking or welding, give kids an alternative avenue when it comes to life beyond high school, bucking the traditional pathway of enrolling in college. According to Alaska Department of Labor, construction managers earn an average of...
Sitka will be the next Southeast airport to make the switch from free to paid parking. Petersburg made the move in December, when a private operator leased state airport property that had been used for free parking and converted it to a paid long-term lot. The Alaska Department of Transportation said parking management at the Sitka airport “has become an increasing challenge” for its crew. The department plans this month to advertise “to find a professional parking management company” to manage the lot in front of the terminal. The effort...
Public officials, community leaders and businesspeople from Wrangell and Juneau met online Feb. 11 to discuss possible solutions to Wrangell’s lack of child care options. Representatives of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the Wrangell borough, SEARHC, Sealaska Corp. and Little Eagles and Ravens Nest (LEARN) talked through the problems. WCA IGAP Coordinator Valerie Massie, one of the meeting attendees, said she and others “saw child care and housing as the two main hur...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association was told last month it will receive $620,000 in federal funding from the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, a $25 million U.S. Forest Service investment to diversify the economy of Southeast communities. The tribe plans to spend $500,000 on a project to carve new totem poles, $60,000 on a cultural symposium and $60,000 toward cultural preservation, such as promoting traditional, healthy foods and adding the Tlingit names to signs around town. WCA plans to hire a master carver and obtain the logs to...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association has announced the candidates for its March 8 tribal council election. There are 11 candidates for four seats on the eight-member council: Heidi Armstrong, Lavina Brock, Robyn Byrd, Samuel Campus, Frank Churchill Jr., Caroline Demmert, Timothy Gillen Sr., Olivia Main, Edward Rilatos Jr., Amber Lynn Wade and Asia White are on the ballot, according to a list provided by tribal administrator Esther Reese last Friday. Rilatos, Churchill and Brock currently serve on the council. Voters are instructed to vote for n...
An annual 200-acre treatment limit on the U.S. Forest Service's invasive plant management program in the 3.7-million-acre Wrangell-Petersburg district has the agency revamping and possibly expanding its efforts to eradicate foreign weeds that could damage the ecosystem and economy. Since 2015, the Forest Service has been pulling, digging and spot-spraying plants like knotweed and canarygrass that are not naturally occurring in Southeast. But project managers say it's not enough and they need to...
Sweet Tides Bakery co-owners Shawna Buness and Devyn Johnson, who have been working together almost a year, will open their new shop Thursday, offering cakes, sourdough loaves and pastries, along with deli sandwiches featuring cheeses and meats smoked on-site and served on freshly baked bread. The store also will carry its own sauces and aiolis. A ribbon-cutting at 11:45 a.m. will precede the opening at noon Thursday. They plan to open for breakfast at 7 a.m. the next day. The bakery is in the...
The cost to cap a hole and rebuild the flotation tanks at the barge ramp has escalated since the problem was discovered last fall. The borough assembly on Feb. 22 approved a $211,220 contract with the only bidder for the job — Dave Miller, of Dave’s Welding & Repair. “The repair work includes sandblasting and recoating the inside and outside of both tank sections and their uprights and welding 3/8-inch-thick double plates to the bottom of the larger tank,” staff reported to the assembly. The assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting authorized $115,00...
Looking to possibly boost returns with minimal risk, the assembly has voted unanimously to amend municipal code to allow investment of the borough’s enterprise funds in stocks and bonds. The collective balance of the five generally self-supported enterprises funds was more than $9 million last month — Municipal Light & Power, the water system, sewer system, sanitation services and port and harbors funds. Those five accounts are maintained separately from general fund government expenses. Finance Director Mason Villarma told the assembly on Feb...
What dog doesn’t love finding scraps of dead salmon. Usually it’s a smelly cleanup for the dog’s owner, but this time it was a real treasure. In Haines, Lilly Ford’s Siberian Laika puppy Sacha sniffs everything, which is how Rebecca Brewer’s lost wallet was retrieved from a snow berm along Chilkat Inlet. Brewer had noticed her salmon-skin wallet missing in early February. She posted notices around town at places where she may have left it behind. She notified the police. After a few days, she canceled the credit cards inside. “I thought I’d nev...
One of the goals of high school senior projects is seeing a need in the community and filling it. That's just what Ryan Rooney and Emma Martinsen are doing. The two teamed up when their shop teacher Winston Davies told them that boat carts had fallen into disrepair. They saw it as an opportunity to put their welding skills to use by building new carts for people hauling supplies to and from their boats. "It seemed pretty straightforward, and it didn't seem like there were very many carts...
Nick Allen, a 16-year-old high school junior, likes to draw boats. "I live in a fishing community," Allen said. "Been around boats my entire life. Drawing them was even cooler." Allen said he started drawing around the age of 12. First it was speedboats. About a year and a half ago he "moved into the commercial fishing side of art." "I drew a seiner first and it was terrible," he said. "To see the progress over a year and a half, it's insane." He's now making stickers of his artwork, and...
JUNEAU (AP) — A Sitka lawmaker broke two bones in his right leg after crashing his paraglider in Anchorage on Feb. 19. Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins returned to Juneau on Feb. 23. He had been recuperating in Anchorage following surgery and attending committee meetings remotely. He will be on crutches for about six weeks. Anchorage Rep. Laddie Shaw was out paragliding with Kreiss-Tomkins when the accident occurred at Flattop Mountain. “We just got together and went for a little hike on Flattop Mountain,” said Shaw, a former Navy SEAL who regul...
A mixed martial artist who was the inaugural flyweight champion on a 2017 television show - and made history as the first American Native woman Ultimate Fighting Championship title holder - punched in a short visit to Wrangell in February. The purple-belt jiu jitsu holder, who was in town to visit a friend, made a surprise drop-in on a Wrangell class Feb. 16 without telling the participants who she was, at first. "Normally, it's been Victoria Carney and I," Wrangell jiu jitsu instructor Matt...
This year’s king salmon catch limits in the Wrangell-Petersburg area are tighter for Alaska residents and nonresidents than the numbers that were in effect at the start of last year’s sportfishing effort. However, they are essentially the same limits as mid-season catch restrictions imposed last June to manage the runs. The sportfishing regulations announced last month close off most of the waters around Wrangell and Petersburg to retention of king salmon starting April 1 and continuing to either June 14 or July 14, depending on the area. It...
The Elks Lodge has presented four nonprofits with $7,500, bringing national grant funds to town. Last Friday, lodge members presented Wrangell Head Start and Little League with $1,000 each, $3,500 to the senior center and $2,000 to The Salvation Army food pantry. Lodge member Dawn Angerman said the grant money came from the Elks National Foundation, which funds the grants using member dues and donations. There are 444 Elks members in Wrangell. Angerman said if lodges meet their required member dues and exceed member donations, they could be...
The Ketchikan High School pep club’s “country” theme, for which some students dressed like cowboys for a basketball game against Metlakatla, wasn’t intended to be “racially provocative” but it had a negative effect that was “predictable and should have been prevented,” according to an investigation of the incident. The investigation, released last Friday, was conducted by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District following a Feb. 5 game between the Ketchikan Kings and the Metlakatla Chiefs. The report from the borough school board an...
A 45-page bill to restructure the Alaska Marine Highway System as a state-owned corporation, run by an appointed board of directors, similar to the Alaska Railroad, is going to take longer than one legislative session to review, amend and adopt — if even then. “This is going to take a big lift,” said Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, an economic and community development nonprofit for the region that supports the concept of a ferry corporation. “This is aspirational,” he said Feb. 23, a day after the Senate Tr...
A former nominee to the Alaska Board of Fisheries and a prominent Cook Inlet commercial fisherman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of unsworn falsification on Feb. 18, ending a six-year legal struggle that saw him accused of multiple counts of Permanent Fund dividend fraud and improperly obtaining resident fishing licenses. Roland Maw, nominated by former Gov. Bill Walker to the Fish Board in 2015 but never appointed, will pay a $500 fine and restitution of $9,582. He had been facing 12 felonies and five misdemeanors. The remaining...
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Three states, including Alaska, that would be affected by a proposed 6-cent-per-gallon tax on fuel exported from Washington state are pushing back on the plan, and threatening to retaliate if it is signed into law. Most of Alaska’s North Slope crude oil production is tankered to West Coast refineries, including several in Washington state, which ship refined products back to Alaska. The tax — part of a $16.8 billion transportation revenue package that has cleared the state Senate and is working its way through the House...
JUNEAU (AP) — Legislative leaders are pursuing the idea of converting a building across the street from the Capitol into 33 apartments that could be used for lawmakers and staff during sessions in Juneau. The Juneau Community Foundation last year donated the building to the Legislature. The three-story building currently is used for private offices and for COVID-19 testing for lawmakers and staff. Tenants have been told their leases will not be renewed. Estimates prepared for the Legislative Council, a panel of House and Senate leaders, s...
The Wrangell school board will continue to evaluate its COVID-19 mitigation plan at its next meeting, scheduled for Monday. As case numbers continue to decline from the severe spike caused by the Omicron variant in December and January, some Alaska districts have voted for optional masking on school grounds. Effective Feb. 28, the Anchorage School District will make face masks optional for students and staff, Superintendent Deena Bishop announced last Friday in a letter to families. “As a career educator, I understand how critical it is to focu...
The Alaska Department of Transportation is asking anyone interested in taking ownership of the nearly 60-year-old Malaspina to speak up by March 7. The state has been spending about $75,000 a month to keep the unused ferry moored and insured at Ward Cove in Ketchikan for more than two years. The ship has not carried passengers or vehicles since late 2019, and requires tens of millions of dollars of repairs, steel replacement work and new engines to go back into service, according to the Transportation Department. “Holy crap, why don’t we sel...
An award-winning film chronicling the Metlakatla boys basketball team's run to the 2018 state championship will make its Wrangell screening debut next month. "Alaskan Nets" plays at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 5, at the Nolan Center. Tickets are $20. Californian Jeff Harasimowicz, director and producer of the documentary film, said he got the idea in 2017 when he was scrolling sports stories, which he loves, on ESPN.com and came across a 2016 photo story by photojournalist Samuel Wilson about the...
The borough is considering purchasing the 38.59 acres at the former sawmill site at 6-Mile Zimovia Highway for a possible tourism or other collaboration with Sealaska, the regional Native corporation for Southeast. Finance Director Mason Villarma said the borough met with Sealaska CEO Anthony Mallott on Feb. 9. Discussions, which are still in a very preliminary stage, included a potential partnership with Sealaska for the property as a deep-water port for tourism or a specialty mill for the corporation’s wood products division. Sealaska o...
