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PETERSBURG – The library in Petersburg is about a month away from unveiling its 20-foot storyteller totem pole. The Petersburg Public Library is adding a roughly $40,000 red cedar totem pole called the "Storytellers Pole," carved by Tommy Joseph, a Tlingit carver from Sitka. Joseph had an idea about 11 years ago to build a totem pole that caters to children and the storytellers they grow up with. He pitched the idea to the Petersburg library about four years ago, and it stuck, but the library h...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said it has been overestimating how many Chinook and sockeye salmon make it up the Taku River. Department officials said the statistical bias is being corrected by new state-of-the-art studies, the Juneau Empire reported Sunday. The department said it had been overestimating the salmon numbers by 30 to 40 percent. The estimates were conducted using a decades-old “mark-recapture” system. Department coordinator Ed Jones said seal predation and the old system have caused much of the p...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – State labor officials say Alaska lost about 2,300 jobs in February compared to the same month last year. Total employment fell an estimated 0.7 percent in February from February 2017. Employment in oil and gas jobs declined 6.8 percent through the loss of 700 jobs. Retail was down 2.3 percent with the loss of 800 jobs. Construction fell 0.8 percent, representing a loss of 100 jobs, a smaller loss than in recent months. All three sectors of government lost jobs. The manufacturing sector and the transportation, w...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Juneau school officials are considering adopting national science education standards that include teaching middle and high school students about climate change. Alaska's Energy Desk reports the Juneau School District is borrowing some core ideas from the Next Generation Science Standards, which include providing students with an understanding of the relationship between human activity and the Earth. District Director of Teaching and Learning Ted Wilson says how the subject is taught in classrooms is up to the teachers. H...
Wrangell's Head Start program will be opening its doors to families Friday evening as part of a recent educational collaboration between Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Tlingit and Haida Central Council (CCTHITA). The Baby Raven Reads program uses a combination of storytelling, songs and interactive activities to promote literacy and school readiness for Alaska Native families with children ages five years and under. At first started for the Juneau area as a pilot program in 2014, for its...
Revisiting an issue held over from its March 13 meeting, the City and Borough Assembly on Tuesday dug back into redefining job descriptions for a unionized electrical position. Being proposed is a modification to the groundman/meter reading position with Wrangell Municipal Light and Power. On the wage table, the entry-level position is among the lowest grades among staff included in the collective bargaining agreement. Consulting with former electrical superintendent Clay Hammer before his recent departure, city manager Lisa Von Bargen was...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Thursday the extent of its king salmon sport fishing restrictions this season. Citing a poor preseason forecast, the department has decided to close the majority of marine waters within the Petersburg-Wrangell area, not only in District 8 but also in 6, 7 and 10. (See map) In the waters adjacent to the Stikine River, which include District 8 and a portion of the Back Channel in District 7, the retention of king salmon will be prohibited starting...
The Alaska House on Monday passed a concurrent resolution that would urge Gov. Bill Walker to declare a state of "linguistic emergency" for Native languages. HCR 19 passed by 34-4 and will be taken up by the Senate for consideration. If adopted there, it would encourage state agencies, the Legislature, Alaska Native organizations and others to prioritize and strengthen policies aimed at promoting the continued use of Alaska Native languages. The state has already been making steps in a more supp...
Residents, guides and other users of the facilities at Anan Creek are encouraged to chime in tonight on a conceptualized redesign of its wildlife observatory. Just to its south on the mainland, Wrangell's most popular tourist attraction provides a unique opportunity to view bears reasonably up close and in the wild. Perched over one of Anan Creek's falls, the earliest portions of the structure date back to the 1960s, with sections added on during the intervening decades under US Forest Service...
Registered Alaska residents are reminded to submit applications for this year’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) before the March 31 deadline. Falling on a Saturday, the walk-in deadline to turn in applications at offices in Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau will be March 30. Online applications submitted by and mailed-in applications postmarked no later than March 31 will still be considered timely. For those unable to file at the pfd.alaska.gov website, Wrangell’s Legislative Information Office has PFD forms available outside its office, on the...
March 28, 1918: Delegate Charles A. Sulzer has had the government send a quantity of seeds to the principal of the Wrangell public schools for distribution. Miss Carhart requests the Sentinel to announce that any one desiring any of these seeds may obtain some by application to her direct or through the school children. March 26, 1943: Fish, as usual, will pay the tax it appears as the session in Juneau draws to a close this week. Five cents a case up on salmon has been approved with the blessing of the industry. There was little other...
Wrangell’s courthouse was not selected for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding, the city has learned. Located inside the Public Safety Building, Alaska Court System’s office and courtroom area shares the building with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and Wrangell’s police and emergency services. The imposing building has for some years been in a delicate state, with extensive repair work to its southern side undertaken in 2008. On its north side, pervasive water damage has ruined much of its siding and underlying framework, and r...
The second phase of site reclamation work at the former Byford junkyard has been put on another hold, as the state’s environmental agency responds to a new project report prepared on behalf of Wrangell’s tribal government. Wrangell Cooperative Association has taken an opposing stance to a monofill the Department of Environmental Conservation has been preparing to construct at a state rock pit, which will situate 18,500 cubic yards of treated soil removed from the Byford yard. Privately run for decades as a repository of junked vehicles, bat...
Last week, the Alaska State Legislature passed time-sensitive legislation to cover funding shortfalls for vital state services, including the Alaska Marine Highway System and Medicaid. The House voted for the “Fast-Track” Supplemental Budget, HB 321, last Monday with 32 in favor and 7 opposed. On Friday, the Senate followed suit and passed it with a vote of 16 to 1. HB 321 includes $24 million for the Alaska Marine Highway System to keep it operating through spring. The AMHS did not receive the total amount of funding they expected for Fis...
Gary Allen Lewis, 75, passed away in Salem, Oregon on March 9, 2018. He was born on Sept. 29, 1942 in Roseburg, Oregon to Floyd and Eleanor Lewis of McMinnville, Oregon. He graduated from McMinnville High School in 1961 and went to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he met his wife, Alison "SonE" Laurie. He graduated from Linfield College in 1965 with a B.S. in Business Administration. Gary and SonE were married for 49 years and raised two daughters in Palmer, Alaska. Gary lived mostly...
In last week’s story covering the assembly, the amount of treated soil to be interred in a monofill was misreported. As reported previously, the estimated volume will be 18,500 cubic yards....
Heading to State for the first time in over a decade, the Wrangell Lady Wolves finished their season fourth among Alaska's 2A schools last weekend. After fighting for second place the previous weekend during Region V, the high school girls joined Alaska's best at the 1A/2A Basketball State Championships, held jointly at Anchorage's Alaska Airlines and Wells Fargo Sports centers. "It was a really good weekend," said Wrangell coach Laurie Brown. Her team had had a rough start at the season's begin...
City Hall jumped a notch on its alert level Tuesday, declaring a Stage III water shortage watch. The third stage is the most severe in Wrangell’s water shortage management plan, adopted last year by the Borough Assembly. The city was previously on a Stage I alert due to dwindling supplies of raw water in the treatment plant’s two reservoirs. In its notice to the public, Public Works explained that Wrangell has received no considerable rainfall over the course of the past month. Precipitation has mainly been in the form of snow, which, to dat...
Alaska Crossings is gearing up for its 2018 season, with guide training formally starting last week. The youth-oriented behavioral health program has operated out of Wrangell since its inception, back in 2001. Originally a program of Alaska Island Community Services, Crossings is now under the Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium umbrella since it acquired AICS last year. Designed to help people between the ages of 12 and 18 years, Crossings combines therapeutic interventions with outdoor...
Three big issues weighed heavily upon the Wrangell Assembly’s agenda Tuesday; impending crises with the city’s water supply, its hospital’s financial stability, and the state’s site selection for a monofill to house treated lead-contaminated soil extracted from the former Byford junkyard. • Water crisis The city entered its highest watch level for water conservation Tuesday, after learning that its two reservoirs only have about 30 or so days’ worth of raw reserves. (see adjoining story) Reservoir levels have reached a low point after an un...
March 21, 1918: Capt. H. B. Babbington, I. Less and E. Brennan of Vancouver Dredge and Salvage Company, arrived on the Princess Royal, Tuesday bringing with them a diving outfit. The gentlemen left today with Charles Darwell on the Marguerite for the scene of the Mariposa wreck where they will make a divers survey to determine the feasibility of raising the vessel. Capt. Babbington stated to the Sentinel reporter that whether the Mariposa will be raised will depend entirely upon the condition she is in. He stated that from all reports he had...
The Federal Communications Commission last week approved the transfer of licenses from Wrangell Radio Group to CoastAlaska. A nonprofit radio and television service based in Juneau, CoastAlaska provides administrative and technical support for public broadcast stations in Wrangell, Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg and Ketchikan. Citing financial difficulties, last December Wrangell Radio Group – the entity which manages local radio station KSTK – filed a petition with the FCC to allow a transfer of its...
PETERSBURG – Two Petersburg teens last week pleaded not guilty to charges of harassment in connection to chasing and hitting multiple deer with a pickup truck in early February. Jasmine Ohmer, 17, and Sebastian Davis, 17, appeared before Judge William Carey in the Petersburg District Court for an arraignment hearing last week. Ohmer pleaded not guilty to harassing game. Davis pleaded not guilty to harassing game, as well as reckless driving. According to court documents, on Feb. 5, Davis allegedly used a pickup truck to chase and hit two deer a...
An incipient Wrangell business has won the 2017 Path to Prosperity business competition, which includes a $25,000 grant award for starting up. Calling her business Mighty Bear Roots, resident Dixie Booker has proposed developing an aeroponic garden to cultivate and sell fresh produce. In this method plants would be grown in specialized tray towers, rooted in a soilless medium and sustained through a blend of mineral nutrients and water, and controlled lighting. Booker said the idea for the business came to her out of a need for fresher...
