Sorted by date Results 3466 - 3490 of 8169
Though 87 absentee and early votes and questioned ballots will not be tallied until Thursday, the leaders after Tuesday’s municipal election appear likely to win on the final count. Borough assembly candidate David Powell led Don McConachie Sr. by 47 votes after Tuesday’s election. School board candidates Brittani Robbins and Angela Allen were ahead of their challengers by about 100 votes for two open seats. And Jessica Whitaker led Julia Ostrander by 44 votes — 215 to 171 — for a one-year school board term. Races for two other assembl...
Wrangell will share a tire cutter with other Southeast communities, intending to cut down on the thousands of tires stacked at the dump by making it easier to ship out the smaller pieces. The borough assembly last Tuesday approved a resolution to share the equipment with the Southeast Alaska Solid Waste Authority. The mobile unit can separate tires from rims and then, using a powerful cutting arm, chop up the rubber into smaller, more easily transportable chunks. The tires stacked at the...
The first rule of Tech Club is talk about Tech Club. Science teacher Heather Howe wants the students who attend Wrangell High's newly formed program to share what they're learning and doing to interest more kids in attending. The T3 Alliance -often referred to as Tech Club - is a program designed to supplement the U.S. Department of Education's Upward Bound program, which helps students increase their ability to complete a secondary education, whether college or a technical school. Not all membe...
Wrangell Medical Center this week welcomed eight temporary out-of-state health care workers assigned to the hospital under a state-financed program to bring as many as 473 professionals to help relieve staffing pressures across Alaska. The state is spending $87 million in federal money to bring in the workers, allocating them to 14 hospitals and care centers around the state, as many of the facilities are at or near capacity amid a surge in COVID-19 patients the past month. Some school districts also are included in the program for nurses. The...
Wrangell has begun its search for a new borough manager. On Friday, the assembly accepted the resignation of Lisa Von Bargen from the post, effective Oct. 29. “It is with sadness I submit my letter of resignation as borough manager for this amazing community. The strain of the past year and a half has helped me realize I need to take a pause and focus on the needs of my family and myself,” Von Bargen wrote in her resignation letter, dated Sept. 28. She has been on the job since July 2017, moving to Wrangell from Valdez, where she was com...
The state has activated emergency crisis protocols that allow 20 hospitals to ration care if needed as Alaska reports among the nation’s worst COVID-19 infection rates of recent weeks, straining the state’s limited health care system. The declaration last Saturday covers three facilities that had already announced emergency protocols, including the largest hospital, Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, and facilities across the state, including hospitals in Wrangell and Petersburg. Though Wrangell Medical Center is covered under the o...
There are no changes to moving first-class mail in and out of Wrangell — that will continue by air, according to a U.S. Postal Service official. But service out of state could be slower, depending on how far the mail is coming or going. And it will cost more to mail packages now through Christmas as the Postal Service tries to improve its finances. Through Dec. 25, customers will pay an additional 25 cents to $5 to ship a parcel through the Postal Service, depending on the level of delivery service they select and the distance the package w...
A story in the Sept. 23 issue of the Sentinel incorrectly reported that Ivy Patch Produce sells its goods to the Stikine Inn. Owner Katherine Ivy said she only sells to Zak’s Cafe and individual consumers. A story in the Sept. 30 Sentinel reported that an oyster farm operation was established at Blashke Islands in 1990. It was established in 1983....
Tracy Churchill believes in "Keeping it Authentic." That's the tagline the graphic designer uses to celebrate the uniqueness of Wrangell, the community that inspired her Compass Line brand and led to the opening of a gift shop by the same name. "We wanted to initially do some designs to sell in the other shops, and then decided at that time we might as well try to just carry some things nobody else has in town," Churchill said. The space at 321 Front St. became available in 2017, and the...
Most of the six proposed legislative redistricting maps under consideration would keep Wrangell and Ketchikan in the same district, but one proposal would separate Wrangell from its longstanding share with Ketchikan and move it into a state House district with Sitka. A couple of the options would put Petersburg in the same district as Wrangell and Ketchikan, but half would assign Petersburg to a stretched-out House district from Prince of Wales Island to Yakutat. The Alaska Redistricting Board is traveling to communities statewide to show the...
The new coordinator of the Nolan Center and Wrangell Museum wasn't a fan of the big city. So, Tyler Eagle left Spokane, Washington, right after graduating in 2018 from Gonzaga University and came back to Wrangell. Eagle did a few odd jobs in town: fishing, working as a paraprofessional at the schools, until a job came up that was the perfect application for his degree in history. "A notification went out on the 'Friends of the Museum' mailing list," Eagle said. "They were looking for a...
The Wrangell and Petersburg region took the top spot for Southeast commercial crab catches this past summer season, according to the Department of Fish and Game. Even better, it was a record year for prices. From June 15 to Aug. 15, 680,000 pounds of Dungeness crab was harvested in District 8, which includes the waters north and west of Wrangell up past Petersburg. Sixty-nine permits were issued for the district. For all of Southeast, 3.09 million pounds of crab were harvested with 205 permit holders reporting. The catch equates to $13 million...
The U.S. Forest Service got to most of its Wrangell-area work projects this past summer, with one big job pushed into next spring. The Anan Wildlife Observatory- which has reached the end of "its structural lifetime and needs replacement," the agency's website says - was supposed to be torn down in October, Corree Delabrue, U.S. Forest Service information assistant at the Wrangell Ranger District, said. Tory Houser, the recreation, lands, minerals and heritage staff officer for the Wrangell and...
The borough is taking a closer look at the cost of shipping goods by barge to Wrangell. The assembly last Tuesday approved a $7,300 study by Rain Coast Data, prompted, in part, after Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised “the very serious issue of shipping rates as a concern” when she was in town earlier in September. “The senator asked if the borough had documentation of the increases. The answer is no,” borough officials reported to the assembly for its consideration of the rate-history contract. Mayor Steve Prysunka had requested a shippin...
The borough is continuing its voluntary requirement that unvaccinated individuals arriving from out of state whether by plane or boat must have proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of their departure for Wrangell or take a test on their arrival in town. The requirement does not apply to Alaska residents. The rules match the state of Alaska's travel requirements. The borough assembly approved an extension of the travel requirements at a special meeting last Friday, the day afte...
SEATTLE (AP) — Alaska Air Group has told its 22,000 employees they will be required to get a COVID-19 vaccination. There are some exceptions to the policy, which has shifted since last month, The Seattle Times reported. In an email Sept. 30 to all Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air employees, the Seattle-based company said employees will now be required to be fully vaccinated or approved for a reasonable accommodation. Officials said the new policy would be in accordance with the White House executive order that requires all federal contractors t...
JUNEAU (AP) — The state plans to emphasize telework for many of its 14,000 employees this month as the COVID-19 pandemic strains Alaska’s health care system. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a memo to state department leaders, said the state “must take measures to protect its health care infrastructure while still providing essential government services to its residents.” He wrote that effective Sept. 27, the state will emphasize telework “to the maximum extent practical,” while still maintaining public services. The policy will remain in effect unti...
The Biden administration is stepping up its work to figure out what to do about the thawing Arctic, which is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. The White House said Sept. 24 it is reactivating the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, which coordinates domestic regulations and works with other Arctic nations. It also is adding six new members to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, including two Indigenous Alaskans. The steering committee had been moribund for the past four years, not meeting at a high level, said David...
TANACROSS — One Alaska Native village knew what to do to keep out COVID-19. They put up a gate on the only road into town and guarded it round the clock. It was the same idea used a century ago in some isolated Indigenous villages to protect people from outsiders during another deadly pandemic — the Spanish flu. It largely worked. Only one person died of COVID-19 and 20 people got sick in Tanacross, an Athabascan village of 140 whose rustic wood cabins and other homes are nestled between the Alaska Highway and Tanana River in the state’s Inter...
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The number of sockeye salmon making it to central Idaho from the ocean this year is one of the worst returns in the past decade, with only 43 fish so far, state wildlife managers said Sept. 28. But the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said a hatchery program intended to prevent the species from going extinct allowed the release of 1,211 sockeye into Redfish and Pettit lakes to spawn naturally. The agency in August also started an emergency trap-and-truck operation at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River in Washington due t...
JUNEAU (AP) — A Canadian mining company has been looking for precious metals on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska. Millrock Resources, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company, several years ago applied to the U.S. Forest Service for drilling permits to renew exploration on claims that once comprised the historic Apex and El Nido gold mines. However, the exploration never happened. CEO Gregory Beischer said the company wasn’t able to secure financing. The mines produced precious metals in the early 20th century. “But it really has been...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged three men with leaving a special viewing platform and getting too close to bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. The remote park on the northern Alaska Peninsula, about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage, protects some of the highest densities of bears in the world and requires visitors to abide by special rules. Mature male brown bears at Katmai can weigh up to 900 pounds. The U.S. attorney’s office filed charges last month in the August 2018 incident. Spokesperson Lisa Hough...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A U.S. District Court judge has ruled against plans by the Native Village of Eklutna to build a tribal gaming hall about 20 miles north of downtown Anchorage. The tribe had intended to offer pull-tabs, bingo and lotteries at the site, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The tribal government said the gaming hall would support jobs, tourism and the economy. The U.S. Department of Interior in 2018 concluded the tribe does not have jurisdiction over an eight-acre allotment where it has sought to build the gaming hall. Members of t...
STEVENS VILLAGE — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them. This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote c...
The borough reported a new COVID-19 case in the community Friday afternoon, just the second case this month. The individual is a Wrangell resident with "no history of recent travel," the borough announcement said. The individual is the only active COVID-19 case in the community. Wrangell has tallied 143 cases since the pandemic count started in March 2020, with August the worst month at 48. September was much improved, with 14 reported cases, and now just two so far in October. Though the infection rate in Wrangell is much improved, statewide...