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The Southeast Alaska sport fishery is on track to exceed its king salmon allocation for the summer by 14,000 fish, prompting the state to close the region to sportfishing for kings. The closure went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26. “King salmon may not be retained or possessed, and any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed,” according to the Department of Fish and Game announcement late Friday, Aug. 23. The king salmon sport fishery will reopen on Oct. 1 for the winter season. “While the (...
Staff at three borough offices saw a need and got together to do something about it. Their answer is to provide after-school activities three days a week over the next three months. “There’s always been the need for after-school care in the community … to fill that gap for parents and children,” said Sarah Scambler, director of the Irene Ingle Public Library. The activities will be free; no advance registration required. The program is open to children 7 through 13 years old, though younger children are welcome, but they must be accompa...
A landslide tore down a slope about a mile north of downtown Ketchikan, killing one person and injuring three on Sunday. The landslide hit around 4 p.m., and a mandatory evacuation order remained in place Monday for homes on several streets in the slide area near the waterfront. A dozen people stayed at an emergency shelter established at Ketchikan High School on Sunday night, emergency officials said. Others stayed with family or friends. Schools were closed Monday, which would have been the...
The Alaska Department of Transportation installed a ridgetop weather station near 11-Mile earlier this month. The station will allow scientists and DOT officials to further monitor the area affected by the November 2023 landslides. Standing 18 feet tall, the structure will report data such as air temperature, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and snow depth. Notably, it is the only snow depth monitor on the island other than the airport weather station, according to Pat Dryer, an...
It's not often the U.S. Forest Service gets to open up a new public-use cabin in Southeast, and they had a special visitor to cut the ribbon: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Alaska's senior senator participated in the event Aug. 19 at the Anan Bay cabin. After a tree fell in February 2023, crushing the cabin, the Forest Service decided it would use the need to replace the structure as an opportunity to give it some upgrades as well. The new red cedar cabin boasts a large, covered deck in addition to...
Cell phones won’t be the only things that need charging before a school day. Wrangell could need to plug in its bus too. The school board moved closer on Aug. 20 with plans to purchase an electric school bus. Most of the $423,000 cost would come from a $378,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant the school district received in 2023. The rest of the funding would likely come from the district’s reserve fund. Superintendent Bill Burr estimates the bus could arrive sometime in 2025. The board is scheduled to consider the purchase con...
Tracey Martin wants to bring everyone together. After working in classrooms for three decades, she found her way back to her hometown three years ago. She retired from teaching this past spring and began her new role as executive director of the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 13. After working with students for 30 years, Martin hopes to apply what she learned in classrooms to her new role working with small businesses. "There is so much planning that goes into teaching," she said. "I want...
When the borough went out to bid to replace the dilapidated Meyers Chuck dock, there were four or five interested parties. When bids closed on Aug. 13, however, the borough received not a single one. After some delays in the project, the borough hoped to begin procurement for the dock’s new floats late this year. Ideally, construction and installation of the new 200-foot dock would take place next summer. The two-part project was estimated to cost $2.5 million, of which Wrangell would only have to pay $1.4 million thanks to a $1.1 million s...
Republican candidate Jeremy Bynum received just under half the votes in the Aug. 20 primary election for state House District 1, easily outpolling two independent candidates in a preview of the Nov. 5 general election. The three candidates are competing to replace Rep. Dan Ortiz, who is retiring for health reasons after 10 years in the Legislature. The district covers Ketchikan, Metlakatla and Wrangell, plus Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island. All three candidates live in Ketchikan, whose larger population dominates the district. About...
The Wrangell Athletic Club has raised more than $17,000 toward covering the estimated $24,000 to $25,000 the school district spent on sending students, coaches and chaperones to state competition in the 2023-2024 school year. The district had sent the fundraising group an invoice for more than $29,000, but the nonprofit is contesting about $5,000 of the charges. The Wrangell Athletic Club said the additional costs were for school district administrators who accompanied the students to competition, which is outside of what the nonprofit...
Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom is withdrawing from the race for the state’s lone U.S. House seat, she announced via social media on Friday, just three days after the primary election. With most of the votes counted, Dahlstrom is expected to finish third in the state’s top-four primary election, behind Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola and fellow Republican challenger Nick Begich. In a prepared statement published, Dahlstrom said she wanted to see Peltola voted out of office but “at this time, the best thing I can do to see that goal reali...
A ballot measure that could repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice election system is headed to a vote in November, the Alaska Supreme Court confirmed Thursday, Aug. 22. In a brief order, the court’s five members upheld a lower court decision that certified Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal the laws that created the state’s ranked-choice general election and open primary election system. The order came shortly after justices heard oral arguments in an appeal claiming that the Alaska Division of Elections improperly certified the measure. “Toda...
Saxman, a community of about 400 people just south of the city of Ketchikan, will build 14 affordable housing units over the next year. In partnership with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Saxman will use $4.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds distributed through the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. to develop four apartment buildings — three fourplexes and one duplex — containing a total of 14 two-bedroom dwellings for low-income tenants. The units could be open for occupancy by the end of 2025. AHFC, a public corporation and independent sta...
Alaska Airlines is one step closer to acquiring Hawaiian Airlines after the U.S. Department of Justice chose not to challenge the $1 billion deal that the carriers say will create a company better able to serve travelers. The brands of both airlines would be preserved after the merger, which is rare in an industry where decades of acquisitions have left only four big carriers dominating the U.S. market. Alaska and Hawaiian say they have few overlapping routes and the intent of a tie-up is to allow the new airline to better compete with the...
The Petersburg Indian Association is now in the hospitality business with its purchase of the 45-room Tides Inn hotel and Highliner Car Rental from a longtime Petersburg family. “My sisters and I are very pleased with the conclusion of the sale of the Tides Inn and Highliner Car Rental to the Petersburg Indian Association,” Dave Ohmer said in a written statement. “The Ohmer family started doing business in Petersburg in 1916, and it is wonderful to now be selling the Tides Inn and Highliner to an organization whose families were here long...
Alaska communications and aviation entities, together with federal and state officials, convened in a summit in Yakutat led by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to collaborate on solutions to reduce weather-related travel delays and boost aviation safety in the state. “We have 130 weather recording stations in Alaska and at any given time 50% are partially or entirely out of service,” Murkowski said on Aug. 15. The senator, a third-generation Alaskan born and raised in Ketchikan, and later Wrangell, is out to resolve this issue, which has resulted in...
At the height of the food stamp backlog last November, pro bono attorneys and other volunteers at Alaska Legal Services got more than 600 requests in one month from Alaskans seeking a fair hearing to get their overdue food benefits. So the 97 requests that came in this July didn’t feel like anything the group couldn’t handle, said Leigh Dickey, the nonprofit’s advocacy director. But the number is still alarming, she said, and it’s double the past month’s requests. Dickey said the state’s Division of Public Assistance is still dogged by t...
When Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola visited Wrangell on Aug. 9 on a reelection campaign stop, she did more than just meet with supporters at the Marine Bar. In a private meeting with borough officials, Peltola received multiple community project funding requests. As a member of the U.S. House, she is permitted to submit 15 requests every appropriation cycle, and Borough Manager Mason Villarma hopes she will consider Wrangell’s requests during this process. The borough proposed two items. The first, and largest of the two, is $5.5 million to build a...
While finding the money to fix everything wrong with the rot-damaged Public Safety Building is far outside the budget, the borough hopes that it can replace the deteriorated roof, siding, windows and doors. At an Aug. 12 meeting, the assembly unanimously approved moving to the next step — a public hearing — toward putting a $3 million bond issue before voters on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot. This funding, if Wrangell also receives the $2.4 million it has requested in federal assistance, would provide the borough with enough money to com...
The Wrangell Search and Rescue team has received a statewide honor for its days of tireless work after a massive landslide flowed down the mountain at 12-Mile last November, taking out two homes, killing six people and cutting off power and highway access for dozens more. The Wrangell team received the Mel Nading Search and Rescue Award for 2023. The award was established to honor Alaska State Trooper Pilot Mel Nading, who died in a crash during a mission to rescue an injured snow machine operator in the Talkeetna Mountains in 2013. Alaska...
Amid the sizzle of halibut in the deep fryer, the methodical pounding of James George's knife against the cutting board and the fervent chatter of the Zak's Cafe lunch rush, there was one noise that eclipsed all others: Norman Greenbaum's 1969 hit "Spirit in the Sky." Katherine and James opened Zak's Cafe in the summer of 2001, a year after getting married. James handles the back of the house and Katherine the front. As for everything else - such as dishes, cleaning and any tasks required to...
Where there's smoke there's fire, and on Woronkofski Island, there's both. The fire began near Circle Bay on Friday, Aug. 16, and as of Monday was less than an acre in size. While the fire has grown at roughly 0.1 acres per day, the U.S. Forest Service - which is monitoring the fire - is not concerned about the risk of widespread damages. Circle Bay is about 6 miles southwest of Wrangell, with smoke from the fire visible in town. The closest infrastructure that could be at risk is a power line...
With a little over a week left before the filing deadline, six of seven incumbents on the assembly, school board and port commission have submitted paperwork or announced plans to seek another term in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Candidates have until 4 p.m. Aug. 30 to complete and turn in the declaration form, which is available at the borough clerk’s office in City Hall. Mayor Patty Gilbert was the first incumbent to file for reelection. She will seek a second two-year term. Assembly Members Jim DeBord and Bob Dalrymple both have filed f...
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...