Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 78
No New Year’s resolution can possibly improve the condition of St. Michaels Street. After seven water main breaks in the past two years, the borough plans to give some much-needed love to St. Michaels in the spring. The road connects Front Street with Church Street and its surface resembles something of a wide-woven quilt — thanks to the numerous times that repair crews have needed to dig up the asphalt for repairs. Police Chief Gene Meek has even suggested that folks avoid the street during winter months due to ice hazards. Underground, thi...
Tidal Network is operating in its test mode, with about a dozen Wrangell households trying out the new wireless internet service provided by the Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Wrangell is the first location in Southeast to get the new service, which is funded by a federal grant for construction and later will be expanded across the region. During the testing phase, technicians will be “breaking it to fix it,” looking to maximize the signals’ range and finding the best system for managing the fiber optic and satel...
GCI is pulling the plug on its cable TV and streaming services, just as its customers have been cutting the cable cord for years. The company announced Nov. 11 that it will shut down its TV services by mid-2025; it did not provide a more specific date. “Over the past few years, we have … seen our customers increasingly choose online video streaming as their preferred way to watch their favorite programming. In light of these factors, we will sunset our TV offerings by mid-2025,” the prepared statement said. GCI has been in the cable TV busi...
GCI notified Sitka customers by text message Sept. 16 that it had successfully restored cell phone and internet services which had been disrupted for more than two weeks by a fiber optic cable break on the bottom of Salisbury Sound. The break in the cable on Aug. 29 shut down GCI’s internet service and also affected texting and phone service. Company spokesman Josh Edge said Sept. 16 the cause of the break still wasn’t known. The undersea cable repair ship was headed back to its homeport of Victoria, British Columbia. The repair work started Se...
In Sitka, some hospital surgeries are on hold. Many shops and restaurants are operating on a cash-only basis. Contact with the outside world comes mostly through satellites. A break in the sole cable that provides Sitka's internet and phone service has wreaked havoc on residents and businesses - and, at the same time, effectively launched a massive social and economic experiment: What happens for 8,000 people who have deeply integrated the internet into their lives, when the switch gets flipped... Full story
With repair of the damaged GCI fiber optic cable expected sometime in the next week, a lot of Sitkans are relying on Starlink thanks to help from the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Sitka lost internet service Aug. 29 when an undersea cable broke. “Our teams have successfully restored basic mobile voice and text services using alternative technology,” GCI reported Sept. 3. “However, customers are unable to use mobile data, internet and UConn TV services.” The telecommunications provider said a fiber repair...
GCI said Saturday that a ship is coming from Seattle to make repairs to a damaged section of undersea fiber optic cable that has caused the loss of GCI cell phone and internet service in Sitka. Service, which was cut Thursday, Aug. 29, is not expected to be back up until next week. GCI said the repair ship is expected to be at the site of the undersea cable break, about 30 miles from Sitka, by Friday, Sept. 6, and that repairs could take three to seven days. In the meantime, the public is getting help from Starlink satellite communication...
Alaska telecommunications company GCI no longer plans to end its longtime email service. The company had said last summer it would end the service and cancel gci.net and alaskan.com accounts sometime in mid-2024. It also launched a new fee for the old accounts, at $4.99 monthly. The company said it hosted about 40,000 email accounts last summer. The announcement upset many customers who had used GCI for their email for decades. But last month, the company said in an online statement that it is “no longer pursuing any options that would a...
Just like many other Alaska communities, the service provider in Ketchikan is dropping cable TV and moving to streaming. The Ketchikan Public Utilities Telecommunications Division has announced it will stop offering cable television services in September 2024. The city-owned utility said the changing landscape of how people view their video entertainment was a big factor in the decision, with streaming services largely taking over while cable TV subscriptions have declined. The decision not only was made in response to the drop in cable TV...
Most changes are forced upon us as the world evolves, and there is little anyone can do about it. Though I want to be the exception to the rule, I grudgingly acknowledge I am not. I resist as much as I can and hold on to small victories, but I am constantly reminded that much of it is outside my control. Such as GCI’s decision to get out of the email business next year. Like many Alaskans, I have had a GCI email account since the 1990s — long before smartwatches and smartphones took away our ability to remember phone numbers and convinced peo...
GCI, Alaska’s largest telecommunications company, will end its email service in mid-2024. At that point, customers will no longer be able to access their accounts and will have to transition to new providers. Reaction among Wrangell users is varied. August Schultz has had a GCI email for “as long as GCI had email,” he said. The company has offered the service since the 1990s. Schultz has been satisfied with his email and was surprised to learn that it will shut down next year. “They (GCI) didn’t email me, they didn’t send anything about it,...
Telecommunications company GCI will end its longtime email service next year, a move that will force customers to transition to new email providers. Spokespeople with GCI, Alaska’s largest telecommunications company, said the service will end sometime in mid-2024. At that point, customers will no longer be able to access or use their gci.net account, according to a draft fact page posted online. “We will provide our customers formal notice at least six months in advance of email deactivation deadline,” GCI spokeswoman Heather Handyside said...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Senior Center is seeking a part-time driver. $17/hour. Position is 16 hours a week, Monday and Tuesday. Benefits include a 403b retirement account, employee assistance program, 12 paid holidays. Background check required. Apply online at www.ccsak. org/jobs. For more information, contact Solvay Gillen at 907-874-2066. MOVING SALE From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 4-5 at 701 Wrangell Ave., Binky’s house. Everything needs to go. Make me a fair offer and it’s yours. 907-470-8889. GARAGE SALE BRAVE will host a g...
SPOTS AVAILABLE FOR PILOT COMPOST PICKUP PROGRAM WCA IGAP has 20 available spots in its Pilot Compost Pickup Program. Participants will be given a bucket with a lid and easy-to-follow instructions. Participants will fill their buckets with household food waste each week, and WCA IGAP staff will pick it up on the designated day of the week. If interested, please get in touch with Kim Wickman at igaptech.wca@gmail.com, or 907-874-4304 ext. 104. COVER PHOTO WANTED FOR HOSPICE BOOKLET Hospice is looking to select a donated photo for the cover of...
Word of River's Mouth is spreading, just like one of their locally made jams. It's only been a little over a month since River's Mouth Trading Co. opened in the former GCI storefront on Front Street, but customers have already taken advantage of the permanent space. The company has existed since 2017 and has found success through selling at the monthly community market, but as the product line increased, the once-a-month market became harder to sustain. "I started making too many things to pack...
Next year, Wrangell will become the first community with access to Tidal Network, the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s new broadband internet service. And thanks to a recent influx of federal funding, other communities across Southeast won’t be far behind. On Nov. 17, the Central Council announced that it had received a $50 million grant for broadband infrastructure. The funds were awarded through the Tribal Connectivity Program, which increases access to affordable internet on tribal lands as part of the 2021 fed...
One of the projects that Marina Backman is most proud of is a tumbler that looks like it's wrapped in the universe. It's indicative of her creative process and her business. Since opening Made in Wrangell, a design studio specializing in signs and other artistic projects, Backman has created mixed-media and vinyl signs for other businesses in town. Her ultimate goal is to be a full-service printshop. Backman currently works out of a small studio attached to a hangar at the airport, and she has t...
Internet, cable television and cell service provider GCI will be closing its Wrangell store on Oct. 28 after “many years,” a company spokesman said. Citing a “significant reduction in foot traffic,” the company decided to close the store on Front Street, but will still have a technician on the island for any necessary service calls. “We do maintain 24 other retail stores throughout the state, including four in Southeast Alaska,” said Josh Edge, media relations specialist with GCI in Anchorage. The nearest store will be in Petersburg....
Alaska cable company GCI has no immediate plans to drop the right-wing TV channel One America News, a spokesperson said July 27. Verizon, the last remaining major carrier to carry the channel, stopped airing the channel last Saturday. That action follows a similar move in April by DirectTV. Their decisions leave the channel, once a reliable advocate for the administration of President Donald Trump, without a nationwide audience and without the revenue paid by those carriers. Scott Robson, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intellige...
An award-winning film chronicling the Metlakatla boys basketball team's run to the 2018 state championship will make its Wrangell screening debut next month. "Alaskan Nets" plays at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 5, at the Nolan Center. Tickets are $20. Californian Jeff Harasimowicz, director and producer of the documentary film, said he got the idea in 2017 when he was scrolling sports stories, which he loves, on ESPN.com and came across a 2016 photo story by photojournalist Samuel Wilson about the...
The temporary, pop-up mobile towers have been ordered for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska's pilot project that will provide wireless internet service in Wrangell, but it will be later in the year before the system goes live. Chris Cropley is a network architect at Central Council, which is setting up the federally funded broadband service named Tidal Network. He's been there since last April. His job is a mix of disciplines - part technical, part...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The hotel that has served for nearly three decades as the Anchorage-based headquarters for the world’s most famous sled dog race will end its association with the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race next year. The Lakefront Anchorage Hotel will still be race headquarters for this year’s race and then step away, hotel manager John Bruce and Iditarod Trail Committee Chief Operations Officer Chas St. George told the Anchorage Daily News. The hotel’s owners, Millennium Hotels and Resorts, announced the change in a statement Feb. 9, a da...
Timely environmental approval and a cable-laying ship available after finishing another job in Alaska waters will allow Alaska Power & Telephone to move ahead this fall with installation of a 214-mile undersea fiber optic cable from Prince of Wales Island to Juneau. The project, along with onshore network build-outs in Coffman Cove and Kasaan, will bring high-speed internet to the two Southeast communities. The $28.5 million project, called SEALink, is being funded by a $21.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utility...
Wrangell High School seniors have potentially more than $70,000 in higher education scholarships available to them from local organizations. Funds range anywhere from a one-time $100 award to $5,000 per year for four years. Though application deadlines for some are already past, many are still available for seniors looking to pursue a postsecondary education such as college or trade school. “These scholarship opportunities are vital to our students,” said counselor Addy Esco. “The world of postsecondary education and training has changed drast...
Wrangell has been selected for the initial start-up of Tidal Network, a newly formed enterprise of the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska that will bring wireless broadband internet service to underserved areas. The new service could start in Wrangell by late spring. The Central Council plans eventually to extend the new service throughout much of Southeast. The focus is to reach homes and businesses that lack access to reliable internet service, Chris Cropley, a network architect with the Central Council, said last...