Sorted by date Results 851 - 875 of 6232
Clint Kolarich, who served as Wrangell's district ranger since June 2019, has moved to Ketchikan to work as one of the Tongass National Forest's two deputy forest supervisors. He officially stepped into the new job on Sept. 13. District employee Austin O'Brien will step in as his interim replacement for the next 120 days. In the Wrangell district, Kolarich was responsible for the management of the area's natural resources. "It's all the folks in the district that do the work," he said. "The dist...
Wrangell may soon be home to its own unique variety of beer. James Leslie of Alaska Waters has plans to open the town’s first brewery in a century, and though he still has plenty of permitting hurdles left to clear, the borough assembly had no objection to his state brewery license at its Sept. 26 meeting. He hopes to start brewing in winter of next year at the very earliest. Opening a brewery “has always been bouncing around in my head,” said Leslie. “I’ve messed around with brewing a little bit. It would be cool if there was a brewery h...
The community’s burn pit at the solid waste transfer station on the north end of the island is closed until further notice after a rockslide Friday morning, Oct. 6, destroyed the steel racks, I-beams and concrete blocks at the facility. “Due to concerns with stability of the cliffside, and the need to rebuild the burn pit, wood waste, brush and large burnables will not be accepted until further notice,” said a borough notice issued on Friday. “The area around the burn pit has been barricaded off and is off-limits to the public.” Though th...
Alaska Seaplanes has decided to shut down its Wrangell and Petersburg operations, citing poor economics. Its last flights to the communities are scheduled for Oct. 31. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t financially sustainable with the ridership,” Carl Ramseth, general manager, said Thursday, Oct. 5. “It hurts to pull out of those two communities.” Alaska Seaplanes started scheduled service into Petersburg in spring 2021, with daily flights from Juneau, and added a Sitka-Petersburg-Wrangell-Sitka flight in May 2022. The air service, which was founded i...
New voices are sought in addition to returning singers as the community chorale begins rehearsals for the 2023 Christmas concert on Monday, Oct. 16, in the high school music room. “I never know until we have our first rehearsal,” chorale director Bonnie Demerjian said of how many people to expect at the first rehearsal. “We have a group of people that have been with the (chorale) well over 20 years, and then every year we get new people, so it’s always a surprise.” While the chorale is always looking for new participants, Demerjian said she...
The American Legion’s Christmas party for children, now in its 13th year, came from a suggestion by Marilyn Mork’s daughter, Jenny, after they had attended a Christmas party for kids in town. “They had a party which was like, hot dogs and hot cocoa or something like that,” Mork said. “Santa was there, and they all got to see Santa, and got a candy cane, and an orange or apple or something. And that was it.” Afterward, Mork remembered her daughter’s suggestion. “Jenny said, ‘Wouldn’t be awesome if we could … give them a gift?’” While the par...
First-time candidate John DeRuyter won a three-year term on the school board in the only contested race in the Oct. 3 municipal election, which drew the fewest number of voters to the polls in years. The turnout was down 64% from last year’s election, when the mayor’s office and two bond issues were on the ballot. The borough assembly certified the election results on Oct. 5, with 192 votes cast on election day and 26 absentee and early votes added to the count. The total of 218 ballots is down from 602 votes cast in the 2022 election; 486 vot...
Almost five years after the original petition was filed, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has ruled that the complaints against mining activity in British Columbia warrant fact-finding and further analysis, which could result in a determination that pollution puts the health and rights of Alaska Natives downriver of the mining at risk. The ruling found the petition “admissible” and within the commission’s jurisdiction to determine whether the mining and Canadian government and British Columbia approvals violated the Alaska tribe...
Borough Manager Jeff Good submitted his resignation on Sept. 27 after nearly two years of service. He has accepted a civil engineering job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs which will allow him to live in Wrangell and also spend more time with family in Oklahoma and Texas. The assembly will formally accept Good’s resignation and discuss a succession plan at its Tuesday, Oct. 10, meeting. The borough may hire a new interim manager internally or conduct a more widespread search to find a permanent replacement before Good’s last day on Jan. 1,...
The Stikine Sportsmen Association is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the conviction of whoever illegally killed a cow moose and left the carcass to rot in the woods south of town. A hiker discovered the kill and reported it Sept. 24, said Chadd Yoder, the state wildlife trooper in Wrangell. After inspecting the carcass, he estimated it had been dead five to 10 days. The moose was “human killed,” and all of the meat left at the site, Yoder said Friday, Sept. 29, declining to share too many details about the ongoing inv...
The effort to extend the Mount Dewey trail has hit an unexpected bump in the road. The only company that bid on the project, Ketchikan Ready-Mix, asked over half a million dollars more than the borough had budgeted to improve the trail’s accessibility and minimize wetland impacts. The trail extension is currently funded at $947,000, a figure that includes construction, inspection and administration costs. The budget is mostly federal funds. Ketchikan Ready-Mix offered to take on the project for $1,532,580. The borough has been working to improv...
For the first time since the pandemic, Wrangell High School students traveled to Shakes Glacier to survey the area and measure the rate that the glacier is receding. Students have been recording the glacier's movements since 2011. This year's cohort included freshman Andrei Bardin-Siekawitch, junior Aubrey Wynne and junior Della Churchill. The trio submitted applications to join the Sept. 7 trip, where they learned about surveying technology, data collection and environmental changes. They also...
A couple of Wrangell-area U.S. Forest Service cabins will have new 16-foot aluminum boats next year, courtesy of a national nonprofit organization. The new boats will go to two of the most popular cabins in the area: Middle Ridge, accessible by former logging roads near the center of Wrangell Island, and Virginia Lake, on the mainland across the Back Channel from town. The SeaArk boats were donated by the National Forest Foundation, a congressionally chartered organization that provides funds for conservation and recreation opportunities in...
The school district is looking at how to cover the bills for sports team travel to state competition last year, this year and in future years, and will hear from the community at a work session Oct. 16. The state travel budget is about $39,000 in the hole from last year’s spending, with no money in the account to cover any travel this school year, Kristy Andrew, district business manager said. The district does not intend to block any student athletes from traveling to state competition this year but does need to find a way to cover the expense...
Mike Hoyt, who started work as the school district's activities director on Sept. 22, is no stranger to Wrangell. His mother, Diane Comer, graduated high school here. His father, Mike Hoyt, was born in Wrangell. And his grandmother, Ethel Lund, who died last year, grew up in town and helped found the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. Though Hoyt grew up elsewhere, "I've been here pretty frequently throughout my life." He moved to Wrangell a couple of months ago. In addition to taking...
As the holiday season approaches and online shopping continues to rise, Wrangell's delivery service faces challenges getting its job done in a timely fashion as it contends with missing address information. Chris and Dixie Booker, who own C&D Deliveries, play detective, using Facebook and other resources to lead them to the right location. "We have a bit of investigative work to do ourselves," Chris Booker said. "Our company is in charge of figuring out those kinds of situations. It gets to be...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association is taking steps to reduce the harm caused by fentanyl, opiates and other illegal drugs by providing free resources to community members experiencing addiction. As of Sept. 26, fentanyl test strips are available at the WCA office, Irene Ingle Public Library and the upstairs bathroom at the Kadin Building, where the state’s part-time Public Health Office is located. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Since it i...
The SEARHC Wrangell Medical Center wants to help the community prepare for the respiratory illness season and will offer flu and COVID-19 vaccination clinics this fall and also provide RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine shots as soon as they become available. Flu shots, including a supply of high-dose vaccines for people 65 and older, will be provided at the annual community flu clinic Saturday, Nov. 4, reported Randi Yancey, medical office coordinator at the SEARHC facility. The clinic will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. “Patients can c...
First-time candidate John DeRuyter defeated incumbent school board member Esther Aaltséen Reese in Tuesday’s municipal election. DeRuyter was ahead 115-76 after election-day ballots were counted. Borough officials will tally absentee and early votes on Thursday, but there are not enough remaining ballots to change the outcome of the school board race. The school board seat was the only contested race on the ballot. Reese has served on the school board since her election last fall to a one-year term on the five-member board. DeRuyter is a me...
The school district overspent its student travel budget the past two years and is considering filling the gap with money from team fundraising accounts — the cash that athletes, their parents and supporters raise for equipment, uniforms and other extras not funded by the district. Pulling as much as $36,000 from what are known as “class and club” accounts is controversial, particularly since the district has fallen short of explaining the problem and the solution, said several high school team coaches who spoke at the school board meeting on Se...
A record number of people visited Anan Wildlife Observatory this season - the largest amount since 2004, when the permit system was implemented. Of the 2,905 visitors who came through the observatory in 2023, 548 were independent or unguided and 2,357 were commercially guided. Guide companies used nearly 80% of their available permits - only 610 commercial permits were unused. The visitor count was slightly higher than the pre-pandemic peak in 2013 and much higher than the lowest recorded visito...
High oil prices could provide an additional $500 for Alaskans a year from now. As part of the end-of-session budget deal put together by legislative leaders, particularly in the Senate, lawmakers in May adopted a provision in the fiscal year 2024 state spending plan that will provide a one-time “energy relief payment” next fall if state revenues exceed estimates. Global supply shortages, caused largely by production cuts in Saudi Arabia and Russia, have driven up oil prices and boosted state revenues for the first three months of the fis...
The Irene Ingle Public Library already offers robust programming to support literacy for children, from weekly story times to the summer reading program. But thanks to a new book club geared toward adults, kids won’t be the only ones reaping the rewards of reading. Starting next month, the book club will give grown-ups a chance to read, discuss, socialize and build a community of fellow literature-lovers. The first meeting is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 21, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the library. So far, 17 people have signed up, which is ...
The process for recycling aluminum cans is about to get easier in the coming months. The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átk - Earth Branch was awarded a $40,000 grant through the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in July to purchase a compactor and baler for its aluminum recycling program. The consortium is working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to provide solid waste disposal funding to tribes. For the past three years, Tl’átk – Earth Branch has collected aluminum cans outside Wrangell IGA and City Market. W...
Residents who will not be in town on election day Tuesday, Oct. 3, or simply would prefer to vote early can come to City Hall between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays through Monday, Oct. 2, to cast an absentee ballot. Election day voting will run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 3 at the Nolan Center. People who cannot vote absentee in person by Oct. 2 can contact the borough clerk’s office at 907-874-2381 to request a ballot by mail or fax. Registered voters will cast ballots for two seats on the borough assembly, one seat on the school board and one p...