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Vanessa Barnes is comfortable letting go. Since she was 5 years old, the high school senior called the wrestling mat home. For her senior project, Barnes was able to share that sense of home with wrestlers on the middle school team and in the peewee program. For the project, she teamed up with fellow high school senior standout Della Churchill. "I planned it before," Barnes said, standing in the back room of the high school art department as she painted a handmade ceramic cup. "I've always done...
The annual Stikine River Birding Festival returns for a weekend of avian adventures April 26-27. Evolving from what was once known as the annual Garnet Festival in 1997, Birdfest will begin at 7 a.m. Saturday, April 26, with people invited to bring their binoculars to a two-hour bird walk on the Muskeg Meadows Golf Course, led by local birding expert Bonnie Demerjian and wildlife expert and special guest speaker Chadd Drott. Drott, a Colorado resident, has been studying wildlife for more than 25 years. He operates Chadd’s Walking With Wildlife,...
Sitka voters will cast their ballots May 28 on a citizens initiative to limit the number — and days — of cruise ship passengers in town. If approved, the limits would take effect next year. The Sitka assembly approved the special election March 27. Advocates of limits on cruise ship visitors to town, Small Town SOUL, collected almost 700 petition signatures, more than enough to earn a spot on the ballot. The yes-or-no question on the ballot will determine whether or not Sitka limits cruise ship port calls May through September; sets aside at...
The Alaska Department of Health is at risk of losing federal funding because of an ongoing backlog in reviewing food assistance applications, federal officials told the state last month. The state has repeatedly failed to comply with deadlines to process applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, leaving thousands of Alaskans waiting months for help. The processing backlog has persisted despite the state spending tens of millions of dollars to address it, and despite orders from state and federal judges for the...
Some shareholders with one of Alaska’s largest Native corporations are speaking out about the company’s involvement in immigration detention centers overseen by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, including at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba. NANA, the Alaska regional Native corporation for Northwest Alaska, gets most of its revenue from its Akima subsidiary. Akima owns dozens of companies which provide a variety of contracting services to the federal government. Some of the contracts include running migrant detention centers wher...
Visitors to the state Capitol in Juneau will have to go through a metal detector under a new policy adopted last month. The visitor screening policy was approved in a 9-4 vote by the Legislative Council, a committee comprised of members from both the House and Senate that sets the rules for the Capitol complex. Lawmakers did not publicly discuss or debate the policy change. Before the vote, they met in a session closed to the public for more than an hour and a half for a security briefing and to discuss the policy proposal. The screening is...
The Alaska Legislature has voted to allow teenagers as young as 18 to serve alcohol in the state. The Alaska House of Representatives voted 32-8 on April 2 to pass Senate Bill 15, which lowers the minimum alcohol-serving age in restaurants, breweries, wineries, distilleries, resorts and similar businesses. The minimum age to serve alcohol at a bar or sell it at a package store remains 21. A separate provision of the bill requires alcohol-serving businesses to post a sign stating that alcohol causes cancer. The House’s vote follows a 19-0 v...
A Mt. Edgecumbe High School student tried on his new basketball shoes in the gym - a pair of Nikes originally intended for NBA legend LeBron James. The student was Rashawn Stone, a freshman who already plays on the Braves' varsity basketball team. In addition to their shared affinity for basketball, Stone and the NBA star have something else in common: feet that fit a size 16 shoe. Stone's new shoes are a donation from a Portland nonprofit. They ended up on Rashawn's feet in large part because...
Scrambling to replace their health insurance and to find new jobs, some laid-off federal workers are running into another unexpected unpleasantry: Relatives cheering their firing. The country’s bitterly tribal politics are spilling into text chains, social media posts and heated conversations as Americans absorb the reality of the government’s cost-cutting measures. Expecting sympathy, some axed workers are finding family and friends who instead are steadfast in their support of what they see as a bloated government’s waste. “I’ve been trea...
Midway through the decade, Alaskans have failed to make significant progress toward the 2030 health targets in numerous categories, according to an annual tracking report issued by state and tribal officials. The latest Healthy Alaskans update, compiled as of December, shows a lack of progress in reducing rates of drug- and alcohol-related deaths, continued sedentary behavior among adolescents, failure to improve inadequate rates of prenatal care for pregnant women and well-child care for young children, and continued high rates of death from...
A Canadian environmental nonprofit group, long critical of the Red Chris Mine in the northern watershed of the Stikine River, has released a new report that cites increasing underground seepage of contaminants from the mine’s tailings pond. The report comes as British Columbia regulators are considering the mine operator’s application to expand ore recovery by changing to underground tunneling instead of open-pit surface mining. The gold and copper mine started operations in 2015 and sits about 50 miles east of the Stikine River community of...
A majority of Wrangell teachers approved sending a letter to the school board, expressing “no confidence” in the leadership of Board President Dave Wilson. “This action was not taken lightly,” the March 31 letter said. “It reflects widespread concern among educators about Mr. Wilson’s conduct, lack of preparedness, (and) unwillingness to collaborate with community stakeholders. …” Almost 50 people attended a March 24 work session between the school board and borough officials to hash out options amid a severe budget squeeze at the schools. Wi...
Twenty years after Congress passed the REAL ID Act, and after numerous postponements, the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, will require travelers have an approved identification to board an airplane as of May 7. Which means Wrangell residents who don’t have a REAL ID issued by the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles — the cards have a star in the upper-right corner of the license — are running out of time to get a new license. People need to get to the DMV office in the Public Safety Building to fill out the forms and provi...
“Why should the kids have all the fun?” was a significant motivating factor for the Irene Ingle Public Library’s first-ever winter reading program for grown-ups, which wrapped up in March after 11 weeks of page-turning. It was a success, attracting 60 participants who read a combined 1,072 books. Sarah Scambler, library director, said many patrons commented that the summer reading program for kids, which has been offered for the past 30 years, always generates reading fun and excitiement, and adults wanted in on it. The idea had been floated by...
The 2025 Southeast Alaska harvest limit for king salmon will be almost 40% less than last year, a drop of 60,000 fish. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game on April 1 announced an overall allocation of 130,800 treaty king salmon — fish that don’t originate in Alaska hatcheries — for all gear groups targeting kings in waters off Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. In recent years, Southeast Alaska’s all-gear allocation has ranged between a high of 355,600 treaty kings in 2016 down to 130,000 in 2018, Fish and Game records show. The regionw...
As has been routine in recent years, the state has closed the waters in front of the Stikine River to sport fishing for kings or retention of the salmon though July 14. The annual closure is a continuing effort to rebuild the river’s depleted runs. The closure of District 8 covers the waters around the top half of Wrangell Island to the eastern half of Zarembo Island, and up the east side of Mitkof Island. Districts 6, 7, 9 and 10 as far north as Frederick Sound and into Chatham Strait and south of Etolin Island are closed to king sport f...
The Wrangell Chamber of Commerce will move into the Nolan Center, pending the expected approval by the borough assembly later this month. Setting up shop in the Nolan Center will put the chamber in a more visible and heavily trafficked location, allowing better access for visitors. Since 2012, the chamber has been in an office in the Stikine Inn, around the corner from the front desk. “We’re essentially becoming roommates,” said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director, describing the new arrangement for sharing office space....
Alaska’s two U.S. senators split on a vote against President Donald Trump’s economic tariffs against Canada. The U.S. Senate voted 51-48 to approve a resolution April 2 that would end the presidentially declared emergency that allowed Trump to impose tariffs on Canada. The vote was largely symbolic because the resolution has almost no chance of passing the U.S. House, where the Speaker of the House has already taken action to prevent the proclaimed emergency from ending. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski joined Senate Democrats and thr...
Police on Saturday arrested Ethan Robison, 22, on multiple charges after he allegedly hit one vehicle and ran two others off the road before losing control of his own vehicle and crashing off the highway. Police said they received a report about 5:25 p.m. Saturday, April 5, “of a potentially intoxicated driver” in a pickup truck near Evergreen Trailer Park on the north end of the island. “Shortly after, the same truck hit a vehicle at the intersection of Bennett Street and Zimovia Highway,” according to the Wrangell Police Department stateme...
The math of not having enough revenue to cover what the public wants out of state government isn't a shock to freshman Rep. Jeremy Bynum, who left four years of service on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough assembly to start his new job this year as a member of the Alaska House of Representatives. What surprised him is the size of the gap between available revenue and spending desires, said Bynum, who represents Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Hyder, Meyers Chuck, Whale Pass and Coffman Cove. He...
Kyan Stead talks a lot about practice. If there are two things the high school senior excels at, it's basketball and welding, two talents reliant on tedious repetition. And while that may deter some folks, Stead embraces it. For his senior project, he organized a wood and metal art table at the Nolan Center's holiday community market last December. He sold student projects and other creations students made in shop class. From cutting boards to coat hangers, he sold about $2,000 worth of goods. A...
"The roof is on fire, and I feel like nobody is actually paying attention," teacher Mikki Angerman said at a joint work session between the borough assembly and school board on March 24. Nearly 50 members of the public attended the meeting, and Angerman's impassioned speech to the school board exemplified the widespread frustration with the district's handling of its large budget shortfall. The meeting coincided with the release of the district's third draft of next year's budget. Business...
Without a real plan, Olivia Strano found herself in the right place at the right time. When she walked away from her work as a yacht stewardess and onto a Wrangell dock last summer, she felt she had found her home. "I've been searching for my place for 10 years, and Wrangell is everything I've been looking for," she said. While she was working a variety of jobs to make ends meet, she asked locals what was something that Wrangell needed but didn't have. Music, music venues and more bands were...
It’s even better than a raincoat, it’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and the musical is coming to the stage at the Nolan Center this weekend. “If you’ve never seen a show, this is the one to see,” director Haley Reeves said of the community theater production, the fifth play since volunteers resumed putting on shows in December 2022 after an absence of more than 20 years. “Joseph” retells a Bible story about a large family and one young man’s journey and later reunion with his brothers. “It’s not a boring show,” Reeves sa...
Spring started a month ago, but better to wait until any remaining snow is gone and the temperatures are a little warmer before embarking on Wrangell’s annual community cleanup. The cleanup event is set for 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 19, with crews collecting their gear and heading out from the Evergreen Elementary School parking lot. “People come in and get bags to collect trash at the place of their choice,” said one of the volunteer organizers, Paula Rak, who has been helping with the community cleanup the past 40 years. The organ...