Week of October 9, 2024
At 3:44 p.m. on Oct. 3 Rocky dipped her flippers back into the shoreline by Petroglyph Beach. She waded out into the stone-laden shallows, turned back to the crowd as if to say goodbye to the Wrangell residents who saved her life four months ago, and then swam out to sea. Rocky had been in the care of marine biologists at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward since June. On June 20, Wrangell resident Dan Trail found her wedged between two rocks on Petroglyph Beach. She was just a week old. At the...
The Nolan Center isn’t old enough to drink but that will not stop its supporters from raising a champagne toast to celebrate the building’s 20th birthday. The party is set for 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14. “It’s really a cultural hub for our community,” Nolan Center Director Jeanie Arnold said of the multi-purpose waterfront building that houses the Wrangell Museum and also serves as a movie theater, stages community theater productions, provides space for conferences and is home for multiple community events and dinners every year....
The number of jobs in Southeast Alaska continued its post-pandemic recovery last year. Yet, employers remain worried about filling job vacancies amid declining — and aging — population numbers. “While jobs continue to grow in 2024, so do concerns about the lack of a sufficient workforce in the region,” according to the annual Southeast Alaska by the Numbers report. “Compared to 2010, when the population was nearly identically sized, the region now has 1,700 more jobs and 5,600 fewer workforce-aged residents,” said the report,...
Voters approved a $3 million bond issue for repairs to the water-damaged Public Safety Building by a 3-1 margin on Oct. 1. Residents re-elected Patty Gilbert as mayor over challenger David Powell; re-elected incumbent school board member Angela Allen and elected newcomer Dan Powers over incumbent board member Brittani Robbins; and re-elected Chris Buness to the port commission along with newcomer Eric Yancey over challengers Antonio Silva and Tony Guggenbickler. In a close 36-ballot margin, voters rejected a proposition to amend the municipal...
The Wrangell birthday calendar is reborn for 2025. After a one-year hiatus the chamber of commerce — under new leadership from executive director Tracey Martin — is bringing back the printed birthday calendar, which had been a community tradition since the 1950s until it was dropped for 2024. It costs just $1 to reserve a date on the calendar. Anyone can reserve a listing for a birthday, anniversary or to memorialize someone’s passing. Families do not need to pay more than $15 for listings, meaning that if a family wants to reserve 20... Full story
It doesn’t matter the value of what people toss in the trash, it’s all expensive to ship out of town to a landfill. The borough sends out about 60 to 65 40-foot-long containers filled with trash every year, at a cost budgeted for this year at $360,000. That’s up from $239,000 just three years ago. Wrangell is not alone in paying increasingly higher costs for hauling and dumping trash at an approved landfill in eastern Washington state. The trash travels by barge and then rail to the landfill. Petersburg has been hit with similar price...
A fire Saturday night destroyed a building in Haines that housed four businesses and four apartments. No one reported any injuries. Flames poured out of the second floor and above the roof as firefighters tried to control the blaze, which eventually took down the wood-frame building. The Haines’ Quick Shop, Outfitter Liquor, Outfitter Sporting Goods, Mike’s Bikes & Boards and the apartments occupied the two-story building across the street from the waterfront. The trouble started just before 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, while Dan Mahoney...
No injuries were reported from a landslide in Ketchikan on Sunday night, Oct. 6. Officials reported the slide occurred at about 8 p.m. on a section of Revilla Road near Ward Cove, north of downtown. The landslide began hundreds of feet up the mountain north of the road and brought tons of mud and trees crashing across a stretch of the road past the Ward Lake exit, according to borough officials. Slide debris blocked all lanes of Revilla Road near the slide area, cutting off a half-dozen vehicles. There were eight people in the vehicles,... Full story
Juneau voters have rejected the Ship-Free Saturday proposition, with 3,751 votes in favor of the initiative and 5,788 against as of Oct. 4, with several hundred more ballots still to count. The Oct. 1 ballot proposition, the first of its kind in Alaska, attracted international media coverage. It would have banned cruise ships with accommodations for 250 or more passengers on Saturdays and also banned them on the Fourth of July. Opponents of the measure, led by the cruise industry and tourism businesses, waged an expensive campaign, with... Full story
On the morning of Aug. 9, state biologists discovered dozens of dead fish in a creek near the Kensington gold mine in northern Southeast Alaska. Scientists from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game say their observations — and the fact that the die-off occurred downstream of a wastewater treatment plant at the large mine — suggest that the event stemmed from a water quality problem. Mine workers also used an unapproved explosive at Kensington a day before the dead fish were found, according to federal officials. But nearly two months... Full story
Alaska had a record number of drug-overdose deaths in 2023, with a total that was 44.5% higher than in 2022, the state Department of Health said in a report issued last week. The 2023 drug-overdose toll was 357, a number determined through the department’s data on deaths and diseases, the report said. The Alaska statistics buck a national trend of declining overdose deaths that was reported earlier this year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the few states with increases in overdose deaths from 2022 to 2023, Alaska... Full story
The Ten Commandments and six other historical documents will be placed on permanent display in a lobby outside the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly chambers in Palmer, according to a resolution unanimously approved by the assembly on Oct. 1. The display will “honor historical documents” that have influenced U.S. and state law, the resolution states. It will include the Ten Commandments, a summary of the Code of Hammurabi (a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 B.C.), the Magna Carta (written in 1215 to establish the... Full story
Alaska had the biggest decline in average life expectancy of all U.S. states in 2021, a year when health outcomes were heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent national report. Alaska’s life expectancy in 2021 was 74.5 years, down from the average of 76.6 years in 2020, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, U.S. life expectancy declined by 0.6 years in that time, mostly because of the COVID-19 pandemic and increases in drug overdose deaths and other unintentional... Full story
Until about 20 years ago, little was known about the abundance of colorful cold-water corals that line sections of the seafloor around Alaska. Now an environmental group has gone to court to try to compel better protections for those once-secret gardens. The lawsuit, filed by Oceana in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, accused federal fishery managers of neglecting to safeguard Gulf of Alaska corals - and the sponges that are often found with them - from damages wreaked by bottom trawling.... Full story
A new documentary, "Sugarcane," recounts the searing, traumatic history of colonization and forced assimilation of British Columbia's Indigenous people through a network of what are known as Indian residential schools. The film features former students and their descendants seeking truth, reconciliation and healing from the nation's legacy of those schools - institutions that the Canadian federal government now says carried out a "cultural genocide" through physical and sexual abuse. After... Full story
The U.S. Justice Department has announced more than $86 million in grants for American Indian and Alaska Native communities to support survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking and sex trafficking. Nearly $14 million of those dollars were awarded to Alaska tribes and tribal organizations, including the village of Kake. The news comes after Alaska lawmakers increased state funding to the state’s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to make up for a decrease in one if its federal funding... Full story
The Wrangell boys cross-country team finished third in the state championship meet while the girls finished eighth on Saturday, Oct. 5, at Bartlett High School in Anchorage. For the boys, Daniel Harrison was Wrangell's highest finisher. The senior finished just outside the top 10 with a time 18:41.0. Junior Ian Nelson and sophomore Jackson Carney crossed the finish line one after the other in 14th and 15th. Jackson Powers finished 31st of the 85 runners with a time of 20:00.04. Everett Meissner...
The Wrangell girls volleyball team attended its first tournament of the season over the weekend in what head coach Brian Herman called a “hit and miss” series of six matches against five opponents. Hosted by Juneau-Douglas High School, the Juneau Invitational Volleyball Extravaganza gave Wrangell a rare peek outside the Southeast conference during pool play on Friday, Oct. 4, and the subsequent seeded tournament on Saturday, Oct. 5. The wolves opened their season with a 1-1 split against Metlakatla, before Mount Edgecumbe “handed them...
Third-year head coach Jack Carney feels good about his team, and he's got his eyes fixed on a handful of state titles. "We're in a high point," he said. Carney expects 22 wrestlers for the 2024 season: eight girls and 14 boys. There will be just three seniors on the roster, including returning standout captain Della Churchill. A two-time region champion, Churchill was voted Outstanding Female Wrestler of the tournament at the Southeast championships last year. This year, her coach hopes she... Full story
Oct. 9, 1924 A survey just made of the enrollment in the Wrangell schools compared with the enrollment a year ago shows an increase of 10 students. These figures are based upon the enrollment in grades first through 12th and do not include children of kindergarten age. The present enrollment in the schools is 153, and for the past year on the same date it was 143. The greatest increase has been in Mrs. Bronson’s room, where the registration has more than doubled over the enrollment at this date a year ago. Her present enrollment is 23...
Monday, Sept. 30 Paper service: Domestic violence order. Tuesday, Oct. 1 Agency assist: State probation office. Wednesday, Oct. 2 Motor vehicle accident. Dog bite. Thursday, Oct. 3 Dog at large. Motor vehicle accident. Report of suspicion of driving under the influence. Report of suspicion of driving under the influence. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for no headlights. Friday, Oct. 4 Traffic stop. School disturbance. Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Illegally passing school bus: Citation issued. Agency assist: Ambulance. Suspicious... Full story
The Nolan Center is so much more than a museum, though it certainly excels in its historical role. It’s the center of activity in town. It’s a meeting place, a conference center, movie theater, visitor information center. It’s something for everyone, all under one roof. And it’s 20 years old. Actually, 20 years and 3 months old, but Nolan Center staff figured they couldn’t very well manage a big community birthday party for residents in the middle of the visitor season, so the celebration was moved to 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14. A...
Southeast Alaska communities and their local newspapers share a common problem: Not enough people, and the ones who are here are getting older. For the communities, an aging and declining population means not enough people to fill jobs. It means falling further behind in providing services that attract and retain new residents, making the situation worse. For newspapers, it means a declining population of readers as aging residents who grew up with their local paper die out. Younger generations are so unconcerned about the necessity of... Full story
