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For the first time since it shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wrangell's indoor shooting range is up and running. One might even say it's ready to go - lock, stock and barrel. The range's first day of operation was Dec. 3, and it will be open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 7 p.m. (dependent on the availability of range safety officers). Eventually, the range, located in the basement of the Public Safety Building, will open on Saturdays from 2 to 4 p.m., but that will not begin until...
After more than five years of work, Wrangell's newspapers going back to the Fort Wrangel News in June 1898 (when the town was spelled with one l) are now available in a searchable online database. And it's free. The website, which went live on Wednesday, Dec. 11, is owned and managed by the Irene Ingle Public Library. "This incredible resource brings over 6,000 issues together in one convenient location, providing a powerful tool for researchers, families and anyone curious about Wrangell's...
Alaska Airlines has received a federal subsidy since 1976 to provide Wrangell with twice-daily jet service, and the mayor and chamber of commerce are rounding up community support to urge the government to issue a new contract after the current agreement expires in 2025. “I want to ensure it stays around,” Mayor Patty Gilbert said of her petition drive to show community support for Alaska Airlines under the U.S. Department of Transportation Essential Air Service program. Wrangell is one of 65 communities in Alaska — which includes 10 more...
This fall, social studies teacher Jack Carney hosted a mock election for his junior and senior students. The kids learned about the issues, ballot measures and candidates, asked questions and eventually cast mock ballots of their own. A newly updated school board policy will ensure such classroom efforts can continue in the future. “In social studies classes, for example, we want things about the election and about political parties,” Superintendent Bill Burr said. “We wanted to make sure that was allowed.” The new policy ensures this. Though...
Now concluding its third year, the Wrangell Mariners’ Memorial at Heritage Harbor has 71 plaques honoring people who were part of the community’s maritime industry. The nonprofit organization is accepting applications through Jan. 31 for new plaques that will be installed in the spring. Each application should include the name of the deceased, a brief tribute that will be featured on the plaque and a story about the life of the mariner, which will be stored and available on the memorial’s online server. The memorial’s mission “is to help tell...
A seasoned group of Wrangell birders will be the primary volunteers for this year’s Audubon Society Christmas Bird count on Saturday, Dec. 14. Coordinator Bonnie Demerjian has developed a group of experienced volunteers for this essential reporting, which samples the variety and number of land and seabirds in the area. The bird count is an annual event nationwide. While there is often a call for wider participation among community members in Wrangell, this year the reporting teams are set, including two boat teams, captained by Dan Rak and Bruc...
According to Clark Griswold, you have two choices when it comes to selecting your Christmas tree. Your first option is to go to a tree lot: “They invented Christmas tree lots,” Griswold says in the 1989 movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “because people forgot how to have a fun old-fashioned family Christmas and are satisfied with scrawny, dead overpriced trees that have no special meaning.” Instead, he advises, “to do what your forefathers did.” Which is, “walk into the woods, pick out that special tree and cut it down with your ba...
Though this year’s Dove Tree public ceremony was canceled due to weather and dangerous driving conditions on Dec. 1, Hospice of Wrangell has hung paper doves on the tree at the Nolan Center for 52 residents, family and friends who have passed away. “It includes several people who died more than a year ago, but obituaries or gatherings happened later. Some of these people had no obituary in the Sentinel,” explained hospice volunteer Alice Rooney. The public event has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 15, at the Nolan Center. The tree — an...
In 2012, Kimberley Szczatko bought a sign that reads "Open, Come On In" in anticipation of one day hanging it on the door of her own store. That sign now greets you at Cooper's Corner, which celebrated its grand opening on Nov. 29 in the Front Street space recently vacated by Midnight Oil. Szczatko has made the space uniquely hers, filling it with antique trunks and bookcases, enormous moose and caribou mounts, and a wide product mix. While she has retained some goods from Midnight Oil, like...
The five men lost in the sinking of a commercial fishing boat west of Hoonah early Dec. 1 had just delivered a load in Juneau and were making a last run before the fishing season ended. The Sitka-based Wind Walker was transiting out to North Pacific fishing grounds when the boat capsized about 25 miles southwest of Juneau, according to several fishing industry representatives. The National Weather Service had forecast gale-force winds in the area, as well as freezing spray and snow. The Coast Guard said the boat issued a VHF radio mayday call...
The average hourly wage in Alaska was $33.60 in 2023, putting the state in 11th place among all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Alaska Department of Labor. The median hourly wage — which is calculated in a way that reduces the influence of the highest and lowest numbers — was $26.99. Alaska has been among the top states for wages since the oil pipeline boom almost 50 years ago, and was No. 1 as recently as 2013, but has been falling and was eighth in 2022. Wage and job statistics were detailed in a pair of articles by...
Nobody was injured in a small landslide in Ketchikan that dropped from a Hillside Road property on Dec. 1, unearthing approximately 4,000 square feet of a family’s backyard and sweeping about 200 feet down a steep, forested slope into Carlanna Creek. The landslide did not cause any structural damage to the family’s home or outbuildings, but yanked a kayak, a canoe and some fishing buoys from their yard to the creek below. Portions of unstable land on the family’s Hillside Road property continued to fall Dec. 2 and 3, although the house appea...
Mexico’s Senate has voted to charge cruise ship passengers $42 per person for port calls, drawing sharp criticism from the tourism industry. Mexican business chambers say the immigration charge — from which cruise passengers used to be exempt — may hurt the country’s half-billion-dollar-per-year cruise industry. The measure approved Dec. 3 has already been passed in the lower house and will go into effect in 2025. The changes were part of a bill that also increases airport immigration charges and entry fees for nature reserves. Mexico...
The shrinking size of Alaska salmon, a decades-long trend linked in part to warming conditions in the ocean, is hampering the ability of chinook in Alaska’s two biggest rivers to produce new generations needed to maintain healthy populations, a new study shows. The University of Alaska Fairbanks-led study shows how the body conditions of chinook salmon, combined with extreme heat and cold in the ocean and freshwater environments, have converged in the Yukon and Kuskokwim river systems to depress what is termed “productivity” — the success...
Hilcorp is set to host a new project that will test the idea of using plentiful natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope oil fields to generate electricity for data centers — the digital infrastructure that keeps the internet running and is essential to the emerging artificial intelligence economy. Privately owned Hilcorp, one of Alaska’s biggest oil producers, is working with a Texas-based firm to place a small, pilot data center at its Endicott field, inside a shipping container on a gravel pad, according to a permit application filed recen...
The borough assembly has taken the first step toward assisting WCA’s purchase of land just south of the Wrangell Medical Center, where the tribal council plans to build a cultural center. Though Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese said any ribbon-cutting ceremony would be at least a few years away, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said the borough and WCA hope to have the rezoning and borough land sale finalized by the end of the year. The new cultural center will be built behind the WCA offices on Zimovia Highway, and Reese said the ca...
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...
After distributing over 120 Thanksgiving food baskets — 20 more than last year — The Salvation Army has shifted into Christmas gear to share even more food, plus presents for children. “It’s a shame that we have to do it,” Salvation Army Capt. Chase Green said of the growing need for food assistance in town. But the community has responded with donations to fill the need, he said. Plans for fundraising and community assistance this month include a dinner Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Stikine Inn; the annual Red Kettles donations campaign; “Angel Tr...
Mikki Angerman just wants everyone to feel included. She isn’t an esports fanatic. She doesn’t even call herself a gamer. Instead, she’s a special services educator who is passionate about promoting inclusion and acceptance. “Our world right now needs empathy more than anything else,” she said. Angerman wants the middle and high school esports team to be a conduit for just that. She hosted preliminary and casual esports practices last spring, but after realizing what was needed to both expand the team and possibly compete against other sch...
When See Stories brought its documentary filmmaking program to Wrangell two years ago, most of the students who participated hadn't picked up a camera outside of what was on their phones. Now, Laura Davies, a teacher at Stikine Middle School, is carrying on what she and her students learned by creating Stikine Stories, producing more documentaries and podcasts. One of her former students who participated in the original program even plans to make filmmaking a career. Alaska-based See Stories, a...
'Twas the weeks before Christmas and time for the annual tree lighting ceremony, set for 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, next to the Elks Hall. Caroling will begin at 5:30 p.m. The annual chamber of commerce Midnight Madness sales event at downtown shops also will be held Friday evening, with hot cocoa and popcorn at the chamber’s downtown pavilion — and a chance to roast marshmallows — sponsored by the Wrangell Fire Department. The community market is scheduled to run from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at the Nolan Center, featuring Santa Claus jolly at the r...
There’s still time for people to donate items for the American Legion Auxiliary’s Santa for Seniors program Gifts should be turned in by Dec. 16 for the annual sharing event, now in its fifth year. Auxiliary volunteers will deliver the gifts to residents at the long-term care facility at Wrangell Medical Center, most of the residents at Senior Apartments, and the town’s other older citizens who don’t have any family or are shut in at home and unable to get out, said Marilyn Mork, who helps to organize the program. “We want to help brighten...
Maybe Clark Griswold would have been able to get those lights working a little quicker if he was motivated by the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce’s hefty prize packages. The chamber’s annual Christmas home decorations contest begins soon, and if your home has the best decorations, you could win $300. Second place will win $200, and third place will win $100. There will be $50 prizes for two additional honorable mentions as well. There is a separate category for businesses. The business with the best window decorations will win the chamber’s silve...
Jeremy Bynum is transitioning from being a member of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly to his new job as state representative for Ketchikan, Metlakatla, Wrangell and Coffman Cove. He has a lot to do in the seven weeks before he is sworn in as a member of the state House when the Legislature convenes in Juneau on Jan. 21. He is looking for housing and for office staff; there will be orientation and training sessions for new lawmakers; there are legislative rules and procedures to learn; and...
The Wrangell school district will not purchase an electric school bus this year. Business Manager Kristy Andrew informed the Environmental Protection Agency that the district would return the $370,000 federal grant it received in 2023. After the school board voted down the purchase on Sept. 9, the district had until Nov. 22 to inform the EPA of its decision, which it did ahead of the extended deadline. This concludes a four-month long saga in which the school board initially expressed optimism about the bus purchase before flipping on the...