Sorted by date Results 526 - 550 of 7939
Alaska Airlines has launched a $60 million plan to improve its terminals and other facilities around the state over the next few years. The airline is also expanding its cargo capacity to serve Alaska, company officials said May 16. The projects include upgrades and potential expansions at some of the 13 terminals owned by the airline, in some cases for the first time in decades, Marilyn Romano, the airline’s vice president of the Alaska region, said. “We’ll be taking a hard look at each one,” she said. “The details have not been finalized...
Matanuska-Susitna Borough residents will have access to free or low-cost weapons training under a new borough grant program targeted at compensating for limited local law enforcement. Officials estimate that the $75,000 grant could pay for private firearms safety training for up to 300 residents over the next year. The grant was approved in a 5-2 vote by the borough assembly this month as part of the larger approval process for the borough’s $455 million budget for 2025. The program is designed to give residents the skills to respond to t...
More Alaskans will be able to access food stamps following lawmakers’ vote to raise the income limit to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The change comes after more than a year of extreme delays in food stamp distribution across the state that left thousands of vulnerable Alaskans without aid for months at a time, driving many into debt and inundating food pantries with food insecure families. State workers caught up on the backlog in March. Alaska will join 42 other states in using an approach called “broad-based cat...
The Alaska Legislature has passed a bill that combines underground storage of carbon dioxide, new regulation of underground storage of natural gas, state financing for new Cook Inlet natural gas development and an expansion of the state’s geothermal energy program. The measure, House Bill 50, sets up a regulatory and commercial framework for Alaska to stash carbon gases that would otherwise stream into the atmosphere, where they reinforce the greenhouse layer that is heating the planet. The bill started as one in a pair introduced last year b...
The Nolan Center is unveiling a new display this weekend featuring repatriated clan items that were returned to Wrangell last fall. Objects in the display include xóots shákee.át, a bear headdress; tsax l'axhk'eit, a marmot mask; kéet shakee.át s'áaxhw, a killer whale hat (a replica); and gunakadeit s'eikdaakeit, a sea monster tobacco pipe. The items were returned to Wrangell from the Thomas Burke Memorial Museum at the University of Washington. Though most historical details of the objec...
Several of Wrangell’s requests are included in the state capital budget of public works projects that the Legislature approved last week, sending the spending plan to the governor for signature into law or veto. Unless the governor uses his veto powers to eliminate or reduce the appropriations, Wrangell would receive $5 million toward stabilization work at the earthen dams that hold back the community’s water reservoirs; $200,000 to start planning what’s being called an “escape route” for Zimovia Highway residents to drive across the island to...
Next year’s Fourth of July celebration, Wrangell’s most popular holiday, may be in jeopardy – the May 1 deadline to turn in paperwork yielded zero royalty candidates. It takes a village to put on the fireworks and countless other festivities for the Fourth every year. To offset costs, high school students or recent graduates run as royalty contestants – selling tens of thousands of $1 raffle tickets and running food booths downtown to raise money for the chamber of commerce, which organizes the celebration’s events. Royalty candidate...
Wrangell High School will hold its graduation ceremony at 7 p.m. Friday, May 17, in the high school gym. Principal Jackie Hanson will welcome the 10 seniors and teacher Jack Carney will serve as the commencement speaker. This year's valedictorian and salutatorian had not been announced as of the Sentinel's printing deadline on Monday. Each senior has tickets for 10 friends or family for seats on the gym floor, with overflow space in the bleachers. The ceremony can also be viewed online at...
Alisha Seward is Wrangell's new state wildlife trooper - her fifth move in nine years. Wrangell is one of the smaller posts among the 37 locations staffed by the Alaska wildlife troopers division and she is the only officer in town, with no corresponding state trooper. "Right now, my goal is just to learn my patrol area, which is big and vast," she said. "I just spent the last couple days out on a boat patrol with Chadd (Yoder), who was just here, learning my area and all that encompasses it."...
Ronan Rooney picked the Nose for his latest history lesson. The podcaster recently wrote a blog post about one of the island's most photographed landmarks: Elephant's Nose. It's at the northern tip of Woronkofski Island, 4.5 miles west of Wrangell across Zimovia Strait. Rooney's blog digs into the history behind the Nose and how it got its popular name. Fannie Kellog Young, wife of the Rev. S. Hall Young, gave the Nose its name. The couple moved to Wrangell in 1878 and lived just in front of...
Wrangell now has a total of 56 security cameras up and running across all its harbors and the Marine Service Center. The cameras run 24 hours a day and pick up clear footage in all lighting situations, said Harbormaster Steve Miller, even capturing images well in complete darkness. The harbormaster and staff have access to the camera footage, which is stored for 30 days. Rather than monitoring the videos, harbor staff will go back to access the feeds if information is needed. But the cameras are equipped with motion sensors that highlight...
The town’s population could double for a day. Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam, with accommodations for just over 2,100 passengers plus a crew of more than 900, is scheduled to tie up at Wrangell at 8 a.m. Thursday, May 16, staying until 7 p.m. It will be the ship’s only visit to Wrangell this summer. It will be the largest ship to bring travelers to town, just beating out Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, which is scheduled to visit twice — July 18 and 29 — and can carry up to 2,081 passengers. The Queen Elizabeth is actually a little long...
As of last week, just one Wrangell business had obtained the required state permit to provide commercial tours at Petroglyph Beach State Historic Site. The largest cruise ship of the summer is scheduled to tie up in town on Thursday, May 16, bringing as many as 2,000 visitors to Wrangell. The ancient stone carvings at the beach are among the community’s most popular visitor attractions. “We’re hoping we can work with everyone to get them into compliance,” Preston Kroes, the Southeast Alaska superintendent for state parks, said May 10. The par...
The Stikine River is closed to subsistence fishing for king salmon May 15 through June 20 to help preserve weak returns of the highly prized fish. It’s the eighth year in a row for the federal closure. “The preseason forecast for the Stikine River is 12,900 large chinook salmon (greater than 28 inches in total length), which is below the escapement (spawning) goal range of 14,000 to 28,000,” the U.S. Forest Service reported in its closure announcement May 8. The closure was ordered under the authority delegated by the Federal Subsistence Board...
High schoolers crammed a lot of sightseeing, education and history into this year's Close Up trip to the nation's capital and to its largest city. The students were able to view many of the great landmarks and monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and White House in Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island in New York City. Instructors held classes at each location. "The whole 10 days we're gone, it's like a...
The 649-foot Seabourn Odyssey dropped anchor just off Klawock on May 6, marking a new era of cruise ship tourism on Prince of Wales Island. About 3,700 people could visit Klawock and Craig this summer by way of three different cruise ships making a total of six stops. The Seabourn Cruise Lines ship was the first to ever visit the Port of Klawock and brought about 300 passengers to Prince of Wales near the end of a 43-day, one-way voyage from Hong Kong to Vancouver, British Columbia, that included stops in Korea and Japan, as well as Alaska...
The seniors graduating this week are Alisha Armstrong, Cody Eastaugh, Keegan Hanson, Sean McDonald, Kayla Meissner, Mindy Meissner, Spencer Petticrew, Nate Rooney, Mia Wiederspohn and Lily Younce. The 10 took time from their final days as high school students to answer questions about what lies ahead for each. Here are their responses. Alisha Armstrong What's your favorite thing about going to school in Wrangell? "The people." What's your advice for next year's seniors? "Do your senior project...
A group of high school students who participated in an environmental research program won third place in Southeast competition for their work comparing the amount of microplastics in the water at Wrangell harbors. The science fair, sponsored by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), was held virtually on April 30. The students were presented with awards for their work, including third place overall. The University of Alaska Southeast has been running the Rural Alaska...
The Ketchikan Gateway Borough is working to recover a $625,125 electronic payment that was sent to a fake vendor account on May 3, according to Borough Manager Ruben Duran. The case is under investigation by the FBI, and a claim has been filed with the borough’s insurer, Duran said. The borough has made arrangements to pay the real vendor with a check via certified mail. Duran provided an update to the borough assembly on May 6, followed by an interview with the Ketchikan Daily News on May 8. The borough had intended to pay the contractor on th...
There’s a new way to learn Native languages: Sealaska Heritage Institute has created an online searchable dictionary with accompanying audio. The online dictionary allows users to search words and phrases in English or Lingít (Tlingit language), Xaad Kíl (Haida language) and Shm'algyack (Tsimshian language). The audio recordings allow users to listen to heritage language speakers pronouncing words and phrases. SHI launched an app for the Tlingit language in 2016, and more recently launched apps for Tsimshian and Haida. But the apps only allowed...
Lawmakers have added four Alaska Native languages to the state’s official language tally and renamed the council that advocates for their survival and revitalization. Members of the Senate approved their version of House Bill 26 with a unanimous vote on May 6. State representatives concurred with the changes on May 10, which means it goes to Gov. Mike Dunleavy next. The House passed the original bill, sponsored by Juneau Rep. Andi Story, last year with a 37-1 vote. Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman was the lone no vote. In addition to a...
A plan to grant special law enforcement powers to Chickaloon tribal police officers has been put on indefinite hold because state public safety officials feared it could lead to altercations between tribal officers and nontribal members, officials said May 6. The pilot plan, which was to be in place by mid-June, would have allowed Chickaloon police officers to enforce certain state laws and arrest members of the general public in a roughly 68-square-mile area near Sutton, northeast of Anchorage. It was designed to augment state trooper...
The Alaska Legislature has approved creating a task force to make policy recommendations to help the beleaguered commercial fishing industry. The Senate unanimously approved the resolution on Sunday, May 12, to establish the task force. There was only one no vote in the House, from Wasilla Rep. David Eastman. The task force is modeled off another legislative task force created more than 20 years ago to help the salmon industry. At the time, salmon fishermen were struggling with the pain of low prices and competition with farmed salmon....
With Alaska’s drug overdose deaths surging, state leaders on May 6 kicked off a new campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of the drug that caused most of them: fentanyl. The new campaign, called “One Pill Can Kill,” is national and spearheaded by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies. But it has special meaning in Alaska, which last year had a record-high total of overdose deaths. Preliminary numbers show that 342 Alaskans died from overdoses in 2023, a 40% increase over 2022 totals, according to the state...
The Alaska Legislature voted May 7 to remove Bob Griffin from the state school board amid bipartisan unhappiness over his perceived political actions as a board member. The vote came amid the Legislature’s annual vote on gubernatorial nominees. Legislators approved 78 of the 81 people subject to legislative confirmation during a joint session of the state House and Senate. They rejected Griffin for a second term on the board. Legislators also rejected Anchorage radio host Mike Porcaro as a new appointee to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commiss...
