Sorted by date Results 770 - 794 of 7954
What began about a year and a half ago as a side project for high school student Spencer Petticrew would eventually evolve to become his senior project: the livestreaming video setup at Wrangell High School for events, including all sports games, musical concerts and graduation ceremony. "Basically, if it takes place in the gym, and people want to watch it, I'm the guy that handles the livestreaming of it over platforms like YouTube," he said. Petticrew credits the high school's former IT...
The church, originally known as the Klukwan Presbyterian, has been holding regular Sunday services for nearly a century. But one thing about the church has changed: its owner. More than a year ago, a national denomination of the Presbyterian Church transferred the deed to the Klukwan tribe as part of the denomination's effort to reconcile past abuses by clergy members and teachers against Alaska Native people. The formal ceremony, which had been delayed by COVID-19 concerns, was held in...
The U.S. Census Bureau has rejected Haines’ appeal of the agency’s 2020 count, which showed the Southeast Alaska community’s population dropping by 17%, or 428 residents. “I’m deeply disappointed. I really thought that our response was compelling,” said Borough Clerk Alekka Fullerton, who worked on the appeal. “I was mad. It’s a big deal to our community.” Multiple federal funding programs are based on the census count. The Census Bureau counted 2,080 residents in Haines in 2020, down from 2,508 in 2010. The borough appealed that number in Ju...
The state is offering an additional $2.2 million in small grants this year for individuals and groups around Alaska to increase the quantity and quality of locally grown food. The grants of up to $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for organizations can go toward greenhouses and small-scale gardening projects, efforts to promote and provide subsistence foods and even livestock. The Alaska Division of Agriculture is distributing the federal money through its Micro-Grants for Food Security Program. Priority for the competitive grants will be...
Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell told lawmakers on Feb. 6 that he doesn’t know how the state can justify the relative lack of resources it has provided to rural Alaska. “Since statehood, the state has followed a false pass on how we provide law enforcement services around this state,” he said. “We certainly have disproportionate resources in rural Alaska. And it’s shameful.” As bills to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Alaska move through the legislative process, the state is re...
I’ve never seen market conditions as bad as they are now,” Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told a conference of Southeast business, community and municipal government leaders last week. “Last year we said we reached rock bottom,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said of low prices, weak markets and reluctant consumers. But then he added, “we’ve scraped off more levels,” reaching deeper to the bottom. All of the participants in the fisheries panel discuss...
After five years, a once-popular community gathering place may finally make a comeback. Georgianna and Richard Buhler, founders of the nondenominational TouchPoint Alaska Ministries, recently purchased the old Church of God property, which has been shuttered for the past five years. Although one of their long-term goals is to eventually have a day care center at the Bennett Street property, their first priority is to bring back the adjoining roller rink. "There's a lot of memories in this...
Jackie Hanson has resigned as principal of Wrangell High School and Stikine Middle School, effective at the end of the school year. Hanson started with the Wrangell district in August. She was the third principal for the schools in the past three years; each served just one school year. She responded via email that she was offered a position as superintendent for the Craig City School District. Since most of her family lives in Craig, her parents are getting older and she already has a house there, she decided to accept. “I plan to finish the s...
Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Jan. 26 were far short of the 81 needed for full staffing, Craig Tornga told a gathering of community, business and government leaders at the Southeast Conference on Feb. 7 in Juneau. “We’re short in the wheelhouse,” he added, down eight from a full contingent of 79 in the master, chief mate, secon...
State geologists were able to more accurately measure the movement and damage from massive landslides that poured across roads in the middle of the island in November because just a few months earlier the state and U.S. Forest Service had collected detailed images and data — literally laser-focused — of the terrain. The Forest Service and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys partnered in July to conduct an aerial survey of the entire island, using airborne lasers to map out ground cover, geology and slopes for future ref...
“At least once a week I get a call from someone who is interested” in the upcoming borough subdivision land sale of 20 lots, said Kate Thomas, Wrangell’s economic development director. To help those callers, and everyone else who might be interested in anything about buying land, building and owning a home, or buying an existing home, the borough is putting together an information fair for 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Nolan Center. The borough plans to offer to the public 20 residential-zoned lots at the new Alder Top Village (Keish...
Numerous challenges are stopping the resumption of Alaska Marine Highway service to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, the ferry system’s director said at a conference of Southeast officials last week. During a Southeast Conference transportation symposium in Juneau on Feb. 8, Ketchikan Vice Mayor Glen Thompson asked for an update about service to the Canadian port, which was a regular stop for Alaska ferries for decades until 2019, with only a brief return to service in 2022. Craig Tornga, the ferry system’s marine director, listed the cha...
After Lillian "Lily" Younce had knee surgery in September due to past injuries from wrestling, she couldn't resume her sports activities. "I missed out on wrestling this year, which was kind of a bummer," she said. "With me just sitting around and trying to recover from my knee, I ended up gaining weight." Inspired by her planned course of study of exercise science in college, Younce decided to put together a healthy weight-loss program for her senior year project, in partnership with her father...
Supporters of education funding crowded a legislative committee room on Feb. 5, advocating for a permanent increase in the state funding formula for public schools. Though the advocates were unified in their message to a joint meeting of House and Senate education committees, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Education Commissioner Deena Bishop don’t support a permanent increase to the school funding formula. Instead, they have proposed targeted investments in certain areas, such as charter schools. Education administrators from across the state attempted...
Hospice of Wrangell will give out 16 “Hospice Hearts” next week to people who have helped the nonprofit organization in the past year. The hospice group started providing services in Wrangell in 2002, and each year honors volunteers for their services. This year’s event is planned for noon Monday, Feb. 19, at the Father Jerry Hall at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, starting with a light lunch. The community is invited. This year’s Hospice Hearts will go to Kathie Angerman, Michael Bania, Jim Bailey, Cathy Carson, Artha DeRuyter, John DeRuyte...
A minimum wage of $25 an hour for direct-hire employees is being implemented by the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, the Native-run health care organization announced Feb. 7. The change applies to about 85% of SEARHC’s total workforce and will result in pay increases for about 16% of the organization’s employees, said Kathryn Sweyer, a SEARHC spokesperson, in an interview Feb. 8. She said various assistant positions, clerks, technicians and care attendants are among the employees who were paid less than $25 an hour. Contractor emp...
Despite the rough weather, Southeast trollers recorded a record chinook salmon catch for January in the winter troll fishery, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The January catch totaled 7,200 kings, well above the previous record of 4,800 in 2016. “I knew it was good but didn’t realize we were that far above the previous high,” said Grant Hagerman, Fish and Game Southeast troll biologist in Sitka. But “it’s not all roses,” Hagerman said. The fish are smaller on average, and the prices are below the five-year average. “We’re h...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy told reporters on Feb. 7 that he’d like to answer Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s request for National Guard soldiers to support a state-run effort along the Mexico border, but he’s not sure the Alaska Legislature will approve the cost. “To send the Guard down will cost us about — according to Adjutant General Saxe — about a million dollars a month for 100 folks. We’ll test the waters with the Legislature to see if they’re willing to fund that, and I wouldn’t mind helping Texas with their issue on the border,” Dunleavy said. The...
Alaska’s courts have had a backlog of cases since courts shut down for months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The backlog has persisted, in part because of attorney shortages. The court typically carries many pending cases, but the number of pending cases is currently 27% higher for felonies and about 13% higher for misdemeanors than it was in 2019, pre-COVID. “The overall numbers are going down, which is what we want to see,” said Stacey Marz, the Alaska State Court System’s administrative director. “We want to see fewer cases that are pendi...
A new proposal from Palmer Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes would require Alaska school districts to train a volunteer able to carry a concealed handgun on school grounds. Schools would be exempted only if no one agrees to accept the duty or if no one is able to do so. Hughes’ proposal, Senate Bill 173, received its first hearing in January in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. The K-12 School Shooting Database includes 346 shootings and near-shootings at schools or school buses in the United States in 2023. Hughes said many of A...
To keep Alaska communities safe and workloads manageable, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Jim Cockrell said he would need 35% more state troopers than he has now. After he fills the 62 vacancies in the department, he wants to ask for about 90 more positions. But he said things used to be worse — at one point last year the department had 70 vacancies of 411 trooper positions. “The bottom line is we’re making steady progress,” he said. “We’ve made some huge steps forward between the administration and the Legislature.” The Department of...
United States ocean territory could expand by an area more than twice the size of California, with most of that in ocean areas off Alaska, under a claim being prepared by the federal government. The U.S. State Department in December announced results of a two-decade program to map the extended continental shelf areas beyond the nation’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Much of the focus was on the Arctic Ocean, where bathymetric and geologic surveys by federal agencies produced the first detailed maps of a complex seafloor with a series of c...
The dumpsters at Wrangell’s public harbors are for boat owners only and for their household trash only — but that hasn’t stopped people from tossing in waste oil, fishing nets, appliances and even a Volkswagen Beetle cut into pieces. “It’s been bad forever,” Harbormaster Steve Miller said last week. In an effort to stop or at least reduce the illegal dumping, the port commission on Thursday, Feb. 1, voted unanimously to recommend assembly approval of a new ordinance to explicitly prohibit throwing non-harbor and non-port related trash into the...
A group of Southeast Alaska tribes has petitioned Canada to recognize their right to have a voice in how transboundary lands and waters are treated — they’re asking to be recognized as participating Indigenous nations in Canada’s review process for resource development. The latest issue is the proposed reopening of the Eskay Creek open-pit gold and silver mine near the headwaters of the Unuk River, which empties into open water about 55 miles northeast of Ketchikan. The mine site is about 80 air miles east of Wrangell. Vancouver-based Skeen...
Sitka’s Mount Edgecumbe volcano is wired. On Jan. 26, the Alaska Volcano Observatory announced the completion of a new instrument network intended to measure the activity of a volcano that could be awakening after a period of dormancy. The network includes four seismic stations and four sites that measure the way the ground is deforming as magma moves deep below the volcano. Since April 2022, the movement of that liquefied rock has caused hundreds of small earthquakes and raised concerns that Sitka, 15 miles away, could soon be near an e...
