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  • Native American translations being added to more road signs

    Michael Casey, Associated Press|May 1, 2024

    CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A few years back, Sage Brook Carbone was attending a powwow at the Mashantucket Western Pequot reservation in Connecticut when she noticed signs in the Pequot language. Carbone, a citizen of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island, thought back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has lived for much of her life. She never saw any street signs honoring Native Americans, nor any featuring Indigenous languages. She submitted to city officials the idea of adding Native American translations to city street s...

  • Washington governor names anti-bycatch advocate to fishery council

    Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal|May 1, 2024

    Tribal and environmental advocates calling for a crackdown on salmon and halibut bycatch are set to gain a new ally on the federal council that manages Alaska’s lucrative Bering Sea fisheries. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in March nominated Becca Robbins Gisclair, an attorney and conservation advocate, to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. If U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo accepts Inslee’s recommendation, Gisclair, senior director of Arctic programs at the environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, would assume one of the...

  • Report says low prices, competition hit Alaska seafood industry

    Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon|May 1, 2024

    The Alaska seafood industry remains an economic juggernaut, but it is under strain from forces outside of the state’s control, according to a report commissioned by the state’s seafood marketing agency. The report from the McKinley Research Group, titled The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry, is the latest in a periodic series commissioned by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. The total economic value of the Alaska seafood industry in 2021 and 2022 was $6 billion, slightly more than the $5.6 billion tallied in 2019, the last...

  • State will test robot to scare away birds, wildlife at Fairbanks airport

    The Associated Press|May 1, 2024

    A headless robot about the size of a labrador retriever will be camouflaged as a coyote or fox to ward off migratory birds and other wildlife at Alaska's second largest airport. The Alaska Department of Transportation has named the new robot Aurora and said it will be based at the Fairbanks airport to "enhance and augment safety and operations," the Anchorage Daily News reported. The department released a video in March of the robot climbing rocks, going up stairs and doing something akin to...

  • State will stop using fish wheels to count Chilkat River salmon

    Lex Treinen, Chilkat Valley News|May 1, 2024

    After 50 years, the state will no longer use wooden fish wheels to count salmon on the Chilkat River north of Haines. That leaves the Taku River, south of Juneau, as the only Southeast river where the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will operate fish wheels to scoop up salmon for research. The wheels had operated June through October in the Chilkat River about nine miles from downtown Haines since the 1970s. “It is sad — I’ve been comparing it to owning a wooden boat — it’s such a romantic wonderful thing,” said the state’s Haines fish r...

  • High schoolers work with Forest Service to install livestreaming at Anan

    Mark C. Robinson, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    The U.S. Forest Service is working with the high school tech club on a five-year project to install and operate three cameras to provide livestreaming from the Anan Wildlife Observatory. “The goal is to have more access and be able to share this amazing place with more people,” said Claire Froelich, a conservation education specialist with the Forest Service. Thus far, the plan involves placing cameras at the upper and lower falls, even one underwater, for livestreaming to a display at the observation deck to allow for better monitoring and...

  • District hires Alaskan as new elementary school principal

    Mark C. Robinson, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    The Wrangell district has hired a new elementary school principal. Jamie Wollman, principal at the Hooper Bay Charter School in the western Alaska coastal community, is moving to Wrangell for the 2024-2025 school year. "I like to go to places that present a different challenge," Wollman said. "I love when people share that want to do exciting things for students." She was hired in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to start up the charter school. It's open to students in grades 4 through 8 in the...

  • Assembly approves longer-term lease at former mill site

    Becca Clark, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    The borough assembly has approved a longer-term lease with Channel Construction at the former 6-Mile mill site where the company plans to build two 3,200-square-foot shop buildings. Under terms of the agreement approved April 9, Channel would store equipment at the site. At its expense, the company will improve the access road off Zimovia Highway with crushed rock, improve the barge landing and expand the rock fill, and seek a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit for the fill. The construction and scrap metal recycling company will lease six acr...

  • Borough receives federal reimbursement for landslide expenses

    Becca Clark, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    The borough will be reimbursed for roughly $900,000 it spent on debris removal, restoring downed power lines, overtime pay and other expenses after the deadly landslide in November. The borough’s request for federal disaster assistance for the Nov. 20 landslide was approved April 8. The federal money will reimburse the borough for its costs in dealing with the landslide, which Borough Manager Mason Villarma estimates at about $900,000. The work included installing new power poles and transmission lines; the power was out for about a week for r...

  • Legislators, governor wait for next court decision in lawsuit over correspondence funds

    Claire Stremple and James Brooks, Alaska Beacon|Apr 24, 2024

    State legislators said they are unlikely to immediately act to address an Alaska Superior Court ruling that struck down key components of the state’s correspondence schools programs — and will wait for the Alaska Supreme Court to consider the issue. Speaking to reporters on April 17, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said his administration is also waiting for the high court to take up the issue. The ruling said the state’s cash payments to the parents of homeschooled students violates constitutional restrictions against spending state money on private and r...

  • Parents caught off guard by court ruling on homeschool funding

    Becca Clark, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    Wrangell parents of homeschooled children enrolled in correspondence programs said they were caught by surprise when an Alaska judge ruled unconstitutional the use of state funds for such programs. The law allowed parents of correspondence students to spend their share of state education money, labeled an allotment, on “nonsectarian services and materials from a public, private or religious organization.” The judge on April 12 ruled the law unconstitutional because it allowed public funding to go to private and religious organizations. The jud...

  • Counselor leaves after two years; tells school board turnover is a problem

    Mark C. Robinson, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    Julie Williams will step down as school counselor for the district at the end of the school term, after two years in the job. It's the latest in several recent high-profile turnovers of key school district personnel. Secondary school principal Jackie Hanson announced her decision in February not to renew her contract for the new school year, after one year on the job. She was the district's third middle/high school principal in the past three years. Elementary school principal Ann Hilburn...

  • Annual Birding Festival comes to town this week

    Sentinel staff|Apr 24, 2024

    The 2024 Stikine River Birding Festival will take flight Wednesday, April 24. Minor changes have been made to the schedule of events, which no longer includes a golf tournament at Muskeg Meadows on Saturday April 27. However, there are still plenty of family-friendly events over the five days. The festival will kick off at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, with a Birding 101 presentation led by Bonnie Demerjian at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. Demerjian will share tips and hints for bird identification. Other events and activities during on t...

  • School district requests increase in borough funding

    Mark C. Robinson, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    The school district is requesting $1.75 million from the borough for the 2024-2025 school year budget, an increase from the $1.6 million contribution of the past two years. Even with the increase, the budget will draw down more than half of the school district’s reserves to balance revenues with expenses. The uncertainty of any increase in state funding is adding to the budget stress at Wrangell schools and districts across the state. The state funding formula has increased little more than a few dollars in the past seven years. The annual b...

  • WCA awarded federal funds to develop climate change response plan

    Becca Clark, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átḵ - Earth Branch was awarded over $200,000 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for its climate action and adaptation plan to help respond to the growing concerns and risks of climate change. In surveys conducted last spring, WCA learned that tribal and community members have observed warmer winters and cooler summers, earlier and weaker salmon runs, less game on the island and an increased presence of invasive species, said Alex Angerman, Earth Branch coordinator. The climate action and adaptation plan w...

  • Borough holds pre-season tourism meeting Thursday morning

    Larry Persily, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 24, 2024

    The first small tour boat of the summer is due May 9, with the first large cruise ship scheduled for May 16, and it’s time for the borough’s annual pre-season informational meeting for businesses and anyone else involved in the tourism industry. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. Thursday, April 25, in the assembly chambers at City Hall. The agenda includes a review of the cruise ship schedule, along with staging and transportation logistics for business that pick up and drop off passengers. If all of the ships’ berths are full, Wrangell could...

  • Registration opens May 1 for library's summer reading program

    Sentinel staff|Apr 24, 2024

    Registration opens May 1 for the library’s summer reading program for kids, with some big numbers from last year to match. More than 90 kids signed up for last year’s program sponsored by the Irene Ingle Public Library, reading almost 2,000 books. It’s open to children who will be going into kindergarten through ninth grade in the next school year that starts in August. The program starts May 28 and will run through Aug. 3, with a party on Aug. 10, said Sarah Scambler, library director. “Each book is worth a certain number of points. For eve...

  • BLM says no to state plan for road into mining district

    Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon|Apr 24, 2024

    Citing what they characterized as unacceptable risks to wildlife habitat, water quality and the Native communities that depend on natural resources, the Biden administration on April 19 rejected the state’s controversial plan to put a 211-mile industrial road through largely wild areas of the Brooks Range foothills. The decision came in a supplemental environmental impact statement released by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a branch of the Department of the Interior. The document selected the “no action” alternative as its policy choic...

  • Federal managers vote to close all salmon fishing along California coast

    Rachel Becker, States Newsroom|Apr 24, 2024

    In a devastating blow to California’s fishing industry, federal fishery managers unanimously voted April 10 to cancel all commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California for the second year in a row. The decision is designed to protect California’s dwindling salmon populations after drought and water diversions left river flows too warm and sluggish for the state’s iconic chinook salmon to thrive. Salmon abundance forecasts for the year “are just too low,” Marci Yaremko, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife...

  • Interior Department further restricts oil drilling on North Slope

    Becky Bohrer and Matthew Daly, Associated Press|Apr 24, 2024

    The Biden administration said April 19 it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres of a federal petroleum reserve on Alaska’s North Slope to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm. The decision — part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project. The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said...

  • Pebble mine developer loses appeal over denied federal permit

    Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon|Apr 24, 2024

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dismissed an appeal filed by the Pebble mine developer in its effort to obtain a key permit needed to build the controversial copper and gold mine upstream of Southwest Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay. The decision, released on April 15, lets stand a permit denial issued by the Army Corps in 2020. Rejection of the appeal is the latest setback for the developer. The biggest setback came in January 2023, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to p...

  • Gray whale population recovering after years of die-offs

    The Associated Press|Apr 24, 2024

    Federal researchers indicate the gray whale population along the West Coast is showing signs of recovery five years after hundreds washed up dead on beaches from Alaska to Mexico. The increase in population numbers comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association determined in November that the “unusual mortality event” that began in 2019 has ended. “It’s nice to be able to report some good news the last couple of years,” Aimee Lang, a research biologist with NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, told The Seattle Times. The...

  • Borough approves sale of hospital property to real estate developer

    Becca Clark, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 17, 2024

    The borough assembly approved the sale of the former medical center and six adjacent lots to property developer Wayne Johnson on April 9. Johnson is a Georgia-based real estate developer hoping to build a 48-unit condo-style housing development with covered parking on the property. The borough sold the two acres of the former hospital property to Johnson for $200,000, which required approval from the economic development board and the planning and zoning commission as it was below the property’s appraised value of $830,00. Municipal code allows...

  • Tlingit and Haida continues pressing Denver museum to return cultural objects

    Sam Tabachnik, Denver Post|Apr 17, 2024

    In 2017, a delegation from the Tlingit and Haida tribes flew to Colorado to meet with officials from the Denver Art Museum. The dozen tribal members came to discuss the return of a 170-year-old wooden house partition, painted by a master Indigenous artist. The panels - 67 inches tall, 168 inches wide - illustrate the story of how a raven taught the Tlingit to fish. The delegation told the museum that this screen never should have left Southeast Alaska and belonged home with its people under a...

  • Latest state budget proposal falls short of funding Wrangell school repairs

    Larry Persily, Wrangell Sentinel|Apr 17, 2024

    The Alaska Senate has passed a capital budget to fund roads, school repairs and rebuilds, housing, water and sewer systems and other public works projects across the state — but the spending plan is short of funds to cover repairs to Wrangell’s three aging school buildings. The budget bill approved by the Senate on April 12 will move next to the House for its consideration and possible amendments before a legislative adjournment deadline of May 15, at which time the governor could exercise his authority to veto individual items in the spe...

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