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When Gene Meek started as police chief last month, he probably didn’t expect such a lively first month on the job. Around the time of his arrival, police officers voted to unionize, a decision that will see the department’s staff join employees of other borough departments as members of IBEW Local 1547. Additionally, the borough budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 reduced full-year funding for two police officer positions. The money-saving cutback, proposed by the borough manager, would have trimmed back 24-hour staffing due to lig...
More than 130 cases of whooping cough — also known as pertussis — were reported across Alaska in the first seven months of the year, with seven confirmed cases in Southeast in June and July. The statewide case count is five times higher than the number of infections reported in all of 2023, according to an Aug. 5 alert issued by the Alaska Division of Public Health. “Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory disease that can cause severe coughing fits and difficulty breathing, particularly dangerous for infants, the elderly and those with...
On Thursday, Aug. 15, Wrangell police officers detained William Nakamura, 43, after he assaulted two officers and violently resisted arrest. The following day, Nakamura pleaded not guilty in state court to three charges of third-degree assault, two charges of fourth-degree assault, two charges of harassment and one charge of resisting arrest. The court set Nakamura’s bail at $25,000, and he will likely be held at the state Department of Corrections facility in Ketchikan, with his next court appearance scheduled for Aug. 26, according to P...
Former Wrangell resident Sarah Aslam spoke Aug. 16 to a community gathering at Island of Faith Lutheran Church on her relationship to her Islamic faith. Rather than a theological or an “Intro-to-Islam” presentation, she said she wanted to share what living day by day in her faith tradition means to her. “I’m not an expert,” she said, “just a messy, imperfect human who wants to share the beauty of my faith.” She began by noting that depictions of Muslims in movies, television and even news stories often use daily prayers as a formative ima...
Alaska teens are more likely to be depressed and have suicidal thoughts than were teens a decade ago, and some mental health problems have increased notably among girls, according to results from the state’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Administered in 2023 to nearly 1,200 high school students around the state, the survey found numerous negative trends. Of the respondents, 19% reported attempting suicide at least once over the past year, compared to 8.7% in the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The number who reported they had c...
As summer comes to an end and the school year begins, Wrangell youth will have the opportunity to brush up on their basketball skills during the first weekend in September. Team Wrangell of the Amateur Athletic Union is sponsoring a three-day basketball skills development clinic for grades 8 through 12, Friday through Sunday, Sept. 6-8, at the high school. Walk-in registration is set for 3:45 to 5 p.m. on Sept. 6 at the high school gym. Coaches and parents are invited to attend. Athletic clothing, water bottle and clean gym shoes are required....
Alaska’s congressional delegation is making a renewed pitch to the Biden administration for binding protections against potential environmental damage from British Columbia mines near Canadian headwaters of Southeast Alaska rivers. Their concerns were heightened after the June 24 heap leach pad failure at the Eagle Gold Mine near the village of Mayo in the Yukon, the delegation said in a prepared statement Aug. 16. “Without unified action from the executive branch, Canadian mining activity in this region will increasingly endanger U.S. com...
By James Brooks Alaska Beacon A three-judge panel at 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower-court decision that could have temporarily halted troll fishing for salmon in Southeast Alaska. The appellate court decision, announced Aug. 16, clears the way for the region’s troll fishery to continue. It had been threatened by a lawsuit from the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy, an environmental group. The group filed suit in 2020, arguing that National Marine Fisheries Service rules applied to the fishery were inadequate w...
Two humpback whales found dead in Southeast Alaska in July showed evidence of being struck by ships, according to a federal fisheries agency. The whales were found in Icy Strait, a popular destination for fishermen, sightseeing and cruise ship tourists that surrounds the communities of Hoonah, Gustavus and Elfin Cove. The National Marine Fisheries Services, also known as NOAA Fisheries, said a young, male humpback whale was reported floating on July 3. After it washed ashore near Elfin Cove, a necropsy found injuries consistent with a ship stri...
Formline carved paddles, beaded slippers, and a small totem were among the items returned to Kake in early August by a Quaker woman whose ancestor taught in the mission school there in the early 1900s. Joel Jackson, the tribal council president for the Organized Village of Kake, said it is nice to have the objects home. “That wasn’t meant for somebody else to display in their home as an artform or whatever. That’s sacred to us.” He said the village is working on repatriating other objects that are held privately or in museums across the cou...
A commercial icebreaker being purchased by the U.S. Coast Guard will be officially homeported in Juneau, the culmination of a years-long effort to acquire and homeport such a vessel in Alaska waters, officials announced Aug. 14. The Aiviq, a 360-foot-long U.S.-registered vessel launched in 2012 for offshore oil field work — which has been eyed by Alaska’s congressional delegation for many years since it was pulled out of Arctic waters — is expected to “reach initial operational capability in two years,” according to a press release issued by...
SEATTLE - The U.S. government has acknowledged, for the first time, the harmful role it has played over the past century in building and operating dams in the Pacific Northwest - dams that devastated Native American tribes by inundating their villages and decimating salmon runs while bringing electricity, irrigation and jobs to nearby communities. In a new report, the Biden administration said those cultural, spiritual and economic damages continue to pain the tribes, which consider salmon part...
All but seven of the 56 books the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District removed from school libraries must be reshelved, pending a trial next year, ruled U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason on Aug. 6. The banned books, including well-known titles like Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner,” were removed from schools last year without individual consideration of their content after parents and community members complained of “LGBTQ themes” or sexually explicit con...
A team of experts has been conducting research in Wrangell this week, hoping to pinpoint the cause of last November's landslides. As a part of its visit, the group gave a well-attended presentation on Saturday evening at the Nolan Center to keep the community informed on their findings. The team's research is funded by a National Science Foundation rapid response research grant, known as RAPID. Led by Margaret Darrow, a professor in geological engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,...
Fire Chief Jordan Buness grew up in a volunteer fire department family. "It's something I knew that I always wanted to do," he said of serving as chief. "I wanted to earn my way into that," taking every training class he could over the past 20 years. He got his chance when his father, Tim Buness, retired on June 5 after 35 years as chief. Jordan's grandfather, Gordon, was the first of the three Buness generations to lead the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department. "My dad ingrained that (community...
School is back — at least it will be in a week. On Aug. 22, students will walk through the doors of Evergreen Elementary, Stikine Middle and Wrangell High, marking the start of the 2024-2025 school year. Superintendent Bill Burr said this year’s projected enrollment of 260 students is an estimate, nearly identical to last year’s average daily tally of 259.5. Though school might not feel all that different for students walking the halls, the upcoming school year will not be without some changes. In personnel, Jamie Wollman and Greg Clark will...
Separate from the borough general fund that pays for police, the local contribution for schools, the Nolan Center, recreation programs and other public services, the borough maintains three accounts dedicated to industrial and residential development. The combined balance of the three accounts could total about $2.3 million by the end of the fiscal year next June 30, assuming expenses and planned land sale revenues come in as expected. All three funds date back to the 1990s and are focused on making borough property available for private develo...
"Every room has water in it and mud," Debora Gerrish said at her home on Emily Way in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley, several hours after the Mendenhall River had receded from record flooding on Aug. 6. "Everything on the floor is destroyed. I'm trying to save my grandmother's hope chest from 1913." A similar glacial outburst flood last year only filled the ditches on her street, though it did knock down several residences along the river. But this year's flood saw the river crest more than a foot...
It never hurts to get more gigahertz. The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida’s broadband service, Tidal Network, will build a 5G cell tower at 3-Mile this winter for its wireless internet service. Eventually, Tidal Network plans to build a second tower on the island, but plans are not finalized, said Tidal Network Director Chris Cropley. These projects all come on the back of a $50 million federal grant as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. In total, Tidal Network will build over 20 towers in 20 Southeast communities w...
Expectations were low this year for the pink salmon runs that power Prince William Sound’s commercial fishing industry. But no one expected them to be as bad as they’ve been. With just a few weeks left in the season, the sound’s seine fleet has harvested just one-fourth the number of pinks that it would have caught by now in a typical year. The small runs have forced managers to close fishing for longer periods than usual. And even during openers, fishermen are reporting abysmal harvests. Some have quit early. Others are thinking about new j...
Heavy fishing on chinook salmon by sport fishermen — including nonresident charter customers — is taking away fishing time from Southeast Alaska’s commercial troll fleet this summer. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Aug. 6 that trollers in August and September will likely lose out on the remainder of the summer troll fishery allocation for chinook because sport fishermen across Southeast are on track to exceed their summer 2024 allocation by about 14,000 chinook, and because of a regulation change that the department imple...
Between books, a laptop or tablet, lunch and whatever else students stuff into their backpacks, the load can add up to some serious weight. It also can add up to a sore back, shoulders and neck. It’s easy to overload a school backpack, said Kathleen Hansen, an occupational therapist with SEARHC in Juneau, where she works with children and adults. “Many people are very surprised to find out how much their backpack weighs,” she said. Her advice is to “pack smart as they ready for school.” The new school year in Wrangell starts Aug. 22. “There is...
With school a week away, SEARHC nutrition services manager Tara Farley has healthy advice for parents who are starting to think about packing and preparing snacks and lunches for their children. But, she adds, “You are never going to hear me say don’t eat this and don’t eat that.” Rather, she talks of picking the best foods, moderation, cutting back on sugars and refined carbohydrates — and getting kids involved in making decisions about what to eat. “Involve kids in packing their own lunches,” Farley suggests. For example, parents and t...
Alaska state law requires children to get vaccinated against multiple serious diseases to attend school, but it’s about more than keeping students and their classmates healthy, said the chief medical officer for SEARHC. “You’re protecting your community,” said Juneau-based Dr. Cate Buley, a family medicine practitioner with 21 years of experience at SEARHC. Vaccinations are an effective tool to prevent disease throughout the community, she said. “What we really worry about is our babies and our elders.” With the start of the school year just a...
