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The Southeast Alaska sport fishery is on track to exceed its king salmon allocation for the summer by 14,000 fish, prompting the state to close the region to sportfishing for kings. The closure went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26. “King salmon may not be retained or possessed, and any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed,” according to the Department of Fish and Game announcement late Friday, Aug. 23. The king salmon sport fishery will reopen on Oct. 1 for the winter season. “While the (...
Staff at three borough offices saw a need and got together to do something about it. Their answer is to provide after-school activities three days a week over the next three months. “There’s always been the need for after-school care in the community … to fill that gap for parents and children,” said Sarah Scambler, director of the Irene Ingle Public Library. The activities will be free; no advance registration required. The program is open to children 7 through 13 years old, though younger children are welcome, but they must be accompa...
The Alaska Department of Transportation installed a ridgetop weather station near 11-Mile earlier this month. The station will allow scientists and DOT officials to further monitor the area affected by the November 2023 landslides. Standing 18 feet tall, the structure will report data such as air temperature, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and snow depth. Notably, it is the only snow depth monitor on the island other than the airport weather station, according to Pat Dryer, an...
It's not often the U.S. Forest Service gets to open up a new public-use cabin in Southeast, and they had a special visitor to cut the ribbon: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Alaska's senior senator participated in the event Aug. 19 at the Anan Bay cabin. After a tree fell in February 2023, crushing the cabin, the Forest Service decided it would use the need to replace the structure as an opportunity to give it some upgrades as well. The new red cedar cabin boasts a large, covered deck in addition to...
Cell phones won’t be the only things that need charging before a school day. Soon, Wrangell is going to need to plug in its bus too. The school board moved forward on Aug. 20 with plans to purchase an electric school bus. Most of the $423,000 cost will come from a $378,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant the school district received in 2023. The rest of the funding will likely come from the district’s reserve fund. Superintendent Bill Burr estimates the bus will arrive sometime in 2025. The board is tentatively set to for...
Tracey Martin wants to bring everyone together. After working in classrooms for three decades, she found her way back to her hometown three years ago. She retired from teaching this past spring and began her new role as executive director of the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 13. After working with students for 30 years, Martin hopes to apply what she learned in classrooms to her new role working with small businesses. "There is so much planning that goes into teaching," she said. "I want...
When the borough went out to bid to replace the dilapidated Meyers Chuck dock, there were four or five interested parties. When bids closed on Aug. 13, however, the borough received not a single one. After some delays in the project, the borough hoped to begin procurement for the dock’s new floats late this year. Ideally, construction and installation of the new 200-foot dock would take place next summer. The two-part project was estimated to cost $2.5 million, of which Wrangell would only have to pay $1.4 million thanks to a $1.1 million s...
Republican candidate Jeremy Bynum received just under half the votes in the Aug. 20 primary election for state House District 1, easily outpolling two independent candidates in a preview of the Nov. 5 general election. The three candidates are competing to replace Rep. Dan Ortiz, who is retiring for health reasons after 10 years in the Legislature. The district covers Ketchikan, Metlakatla and Wrangell, plus Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island. All three candidates live in Ketchikan, whose larger population dominates the district. About...
The Wrangell Athletic Club has raised more than $17,000 toward covering the estimated $24,000 to $25,000 the school district spent on sending students, coaches and chaperones to state competition in the 2023-2024 school year. The district had sent the fundraising group an invoice for more than $29,000, but the nonprofit is contesting about $5,000 of the charges. The Wrangell Athletic Club said the additional costs were for school district administrators who accompanied the students to competition, which is outside of what the nonprofit...
When Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola visited Wrangell on Aug. 9 on a reelection campaign stop, she did more than just meet with supporters at the Marine Bar. In a private meeting with borough officials, Peltola received multiple community project funding requests. As a member of the U.S. House, she is permitted to submit 15 requests every appropriation cycle, and Borough Manager Mason Villarma hopes she will consider Wrangell’s requests during this process. The borough proposed two items. The first, and largest of the two, is $5.5 million to build a...
While finding the money to fix everything wrong with the rot-damaged Public Safety Building is far outside the budget, the borough hopes that it can replace the deteriorated roof, siding, windows and doors. At an Aug. 12 meeting, the assembly unanimously approved moving to the next step — a public hearing — toward putting a $3 million bond issue before voters on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot. This funding, if Wrangell also receives the $2.4 million it has requested in federal assistance, would provide the borough with enough money to com...
The Wrangell Search and Rescue team has received a statewide honor for its days of tireless work after a massive landslide flowed down the mountain at 12-Mile last November, taking out two homes, killing six people and cutting off power and highway access for dozens more. The Wrangell team received the Mel Nading Search and Rescue Award for 2023. The award was established to honor Alaska State Trooper Pilot Mel Nading, who died in a crash during a mission to rescue an injured snow machine operator in the Talkeetna Mountains in 2013. Alaska...
Amid the sizzle of halibut in the deep fryer, the methodical pounding of James George's knife against the cutting board and the fervent chatter of the Zak's Cafe lunch rush, there was one noise that eclipsed all others: Norman Greenbaum's 1969 hit "Spirit in the Sky." Katherine and James opened Zak's Cafe in the summer of 2001, a year after getting married. James handles the back of the house and Katherine the front. As for everything else - such as dishes, cleaning and any tasks required to...
Where there's smoke there's fire, and on Woronkofski Island, there's both. The fire began near Circle Bay on Friday, Aug. 16, and as of Monday was less than an acre in size. While the fire has grown at roughly 0.1 acres per day, the U.S. Forest Service - which is monitoring the fire - is not concerned about the risk of widespread damages. Circle Bay is about 6 miles southwest of Wrangell, with smoke from the fire visible in town. The closest infrastructure that could be at risk is a power line...
With a little over a week left before the filing deadline, six of seven incumbents on the assembly, school board and port commission have submitted paperwork or announced plans to seek another term in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Candidates have until 4 p.m. Aug. 30 to complete and turn in the declaration form, which is available at the borough clerk’s office in City Hall. Mayor Patty Gilbert was the first incumbent to file for reelection. She will seek a second two-year term. Assembly Members Jim DeBord and Bob Dalrymple both have filed f...
When Gene Meek started as police chief last month, he probably didn’t expect such a lively first month on the job. Around the time of his arrival, police officers voted to unionize, a decision that will see the department’s staff join employees of other borough departments as members of IBEW Local 1547. Additionally, the borough budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 reduced full-year funding for two police officer positions. The money-saving cutback, proposed by the borough manager, would have trimmed back 24-hour staffing due to lig...
More than 130 cases of whooping cough — also known as pertussis — were reported across Alaska in the first seven months of the year, with seven confirmed cases in Southeast in June and July. The statewide case count is five times higher than the number of infections reported in all of 2023, according to an Aug. 5 alert issued by the Alaska Division of Public Health. “Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory disease that can cause severe coughing fits and difficulty breathing, particularly dangerous for infants, the elderly and those with...
On Thursday, Aug. 15, Wrangell police officers detained William Nakamura, 43, after he assaulted two officers and violently resisted arrest. The following day, Nakamura pleaded not guilty in state court to three charges of third-degree assault, two charges of fourth-degree assault, two charges of harassment and one charge of resisting arrest. The court set Nakamura’s bail at $25,000, and he will likely be held at the state Department of Corrections facility in Ketchikan, with his next court appearance scheduled for Aug. 26, according to P...
Former Wrangell resident Sarah Aslam spoke Aug. 16 to a community gathering at Island of Faith Lutheran Church on her relationship to her Islamic faith. Rather than a theological or an “Intro-to-Islam” presentation, she said she wanted to share what living day by day in her faith tradition means to her. “I’m not an expert,” she said, “just a messy, imperfect human who wants to share the beauty of my faith.” She began by noting that depictions of Muslims in movies, television and even news stories often use daily prayers as a formative ima...
As summer comes to an end and the school year begins, Wrangell youth will have the opportunity to brush up on their basketball skills during the first weekend in September. Team Wrangell of the Amateur Athletic Union is sponsoring a three-day basketball skills development clinic for grades 8 through 12, Friday through Sunday, Sept. 6-8, at the high school. Walk-in registration is set for 3:45 to 5 p.m. on Sept. 6 at the high school gym. Coaches and parents are invited to attend. Athletic clothing, water bottle and clean gym shoes are required....
A team of experts has been conducting research in Wrangell this week, hoping to pinpoint the cause of last November's landslides. As a part of its visit, the group gave a well-attended presentation on Saturday evening at the Nolan Center to keep the community informed on their findings. The team's research is funded by a National Science Foundation rapid response research grant, known as RAPID. Led by Margaret Darrow, a professor in geological engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,...
Fire Chief Jordan Buness grew up in a volunteer fire department family. "It's something I knew that I always wanted to do," he said of serving as chief. "I wanted to earn my way into that," taking every training class he could over the past 20 years. He got his chance when his father, Tim Buness, retired on June 5 after 35 years as chief. Jordan's grandfather, Gordon, was the first of the three Buness generations to lead the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department. "My dad ingrained that (community...
School is back — at least it will be in a week. On Aug. 22, students will walk through the doors of Evergreen Elementary, Stikine Middle and Wrangell High, marking the start of the 2024-2025 school year. Superintendent Bill Burr said this year’s projected enrollment of 260 students is an estimate, nearly identical to last year’s average daily tally of 259.5. Though school might not feel all that different for students walking the halls, the upcoming school year will not be without some changes. In personnel, Jamie Wollman and Greg Clark will...
Separate from the borough general fund that pays for police, the local contribution for schools, the Nolan Center, recreation programs and other public services, the borough maintains three accounts dedicated to industrial and residential development. The combined balance of the three accounts could total about $2.3 million by the end of the fiscal year next June 30, assuming expenses and planned land sale revenues come in as expected. All three funds date back to the 1990s and are focused on making borough property available for private develo...
It never hurts to get more gigahertz. The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida’s broadband service, Tidal Network, will build a 5G cell tower at 3-Mile this winter for its wireless internet service. Eventually, Tidal Network plans to build a second tower on the island, but plans are not finalized, said Tidal Network Director Chris Cropley. These projects all come on the back of a $50 million federal grant as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. In total, Tidal Network will build over 20 towers in 20 Southeast communities w...
