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Alaska lawmakers reached a compromise on the state budget and adjourned after a one-day special session last week, approving a $1,300 Permanent Fund dividend for this fall with the possibility of a second, smaller payment next year if oil revenues exceed projections. The amount of the PFD and the capital budget — construction and maintenance projects in legislators’ home districts — were the final items that forced legislators into a special session after the regular session ended May 17 without a budget. The governor called them back to work...
As Wrangell prepares for its biggest event of the year - the Fourth of July - one teen has taken it upon himself to ensure that the celebration will be prosperous for years to come. Though Ander Edens is the only contestant in this year's royalty fundraising competition, he is setting his sights on a record-breaking run. The ticket sales are the main fundraiser for the chamber of commerce, which organizes the holiday festivities. The current fundraising record is $126,408 in raffle ticket sales...
Trident Seafoods is on schedule with preparation work to reopen its processing plant on the Wrangell waterfront after a three-year closure. “We expect to start handling fish the week of July 10,” focusing on chum and pink salmon, Southeast regional manager John Scoblic said May 15. The company expects to have 100 to 110 workers on the job, somewhat under the count of past years, he said. Trident has said weak chum returns were behind the decision to keep the plant closed since 2019. Some workers will start before the first salmon come into the...
Though pandemic restrictions were hard on all community members, they were particularly hard on elders, many of whom endured long-term isolation because of the risks COVID posed to their immune systems. Now that the federal government declared the pandemic public health emergency over this month, Hospice of Wrangell is encouraging community members to reach out to their grandparents, older friends and long-term care and Senior Apartments residents. Homebound elders and Senior Center or long-term care residents “still want to be part of the c...
Wrangell’s recreational infrastructure is about to get a much-needed makeover in the coming months and years thanks to federal maintenance dollars from the Forest Service. The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), signed by then-President Donald Trump in 2020, directed $8.1 billion over five fiscal years — 2021 to 2025 — to fund maintenance and repair work that had been put off due to budget or workforce issues. The money is for projects on federal lands, like trails, bridges, monuments and campgrounds. In past funding cycles, the Wrangell Range...
Whether you prefer working up a sweat on the court, concocting delicious dishes in the kitchen or taking a relaxing stroll through the woods, the Parks and Recreation department will be offering community members of all ages ways to stay active, connected and engaged this summer. In past years, Parks and Recreation offered near daily activities for kids, but this year, due to staffing issues, the programming will be more spread out. “What we’re going to do, rather, is sprinkle in activities,” explained Devyn Johnson, recreation and aquat...
Look out, Martin Scorsese You've got some up-and-coming competition on your hands. Stikine Middle School students spent the past two weeks recording video footage and conducting interviews as part of the See Stories project, which creates documentaries to tell the stories of Alaska. What began 10 years ago as a way to tell Alaska's diverse stories through videos and podcasts from a youth perspective has grown into an award-winning program that has produced 150 short documentaries and podcasts by...
Mike Lewis, the owner of Tiny's Taxi, is committed to offering 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service, even if he has to sleep with his phone and headset to do it. The new business has been giving rides around town since it opened April 13. After graduating from Wrangell High School in 1988, Lewis spent about 30 years moving around the western United States doing construction jobs. He lived in Anchorage, Soldotna, Washington state, Colorado, Los Angeles and Palm Springs in California, Hawaii, Arizona...
Summer vacation may be the best time of the year for kids, but it can be tough on working parents to provide lunches for their children during the day. The Salvation Army is partnering with the borough’s Parks and Recreation Department to keep the community’s children nourished and active throughout the summer. The program, which started about two years ago, will provide lunches Monday through Friday to kids entering kindergarten through fifth grade, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., June 1 to July 31. In past years, kids would pick up meal vou...
The Hubbard pulled away from the dock at the Ketchikan Shipyard on May 18, headed for its first passenger sailing — more than four years after it was built at a cost of about $60 million. Carrying a crew of 24 — with newly installed sleeping quarters for crew — the Hubbard headed to Juneau, where it was scheduled to start work Tuesday, running six days a week between the Capital City and the Lynn Canal communities of Haines and Skagway. The Hubbard is not scheduled to visit Wrangell this summer. With the Matanuska out of service for repai...
At a time of year when most students are more concerned with sunshine and playing than with academia, one class is giving them the ability to plan for their future so they don’t miss out on sunnier days. A job skills and career planning and exploration class taught by Julie Williams, the Wrangell High School counselor, teaches students how to map out a path to prosperity. According to the U.S. Department of Education, about 8.3 million high school students took some form of career and technology education (CTE) class in the 2020-2021 school yea...
An Airbus H130 helicopter takes off from the back of the Scenic Eclipse in front of Wrangell on May 15. The helicopter is one of two in the Scenic Luxury Cruises and Tours fleet and can be added to a tour package. The Scenic Eclipse, which can host up to 200 passengers for Arctic tours, is billed as the "world's first discovery yacht" by its operators and is designed for scenic luxury cruises and tours. It travels throughout the Americas, Antarctica and the Arctic. It has a crew of up to 192,...
As the school year wraps up and learning winds down, students were recognized for their outstanding achievements. The annual academic and scholarship award ceremony held on May 16 in the Wrangell High School gym highlighted the hard work put in by eighth through 12th graders. Teachers, administrators, community and business leaders gathered to present the students with certificates, plaques and checks. Awards were given in the areas of general education, shop class, finance, student government...
Malachi Harrison, left, as Scarecrow, talks to as Dorothy (Erika Jabusch) and Tin Man (Derek Heller) in the May 16 production of "The Wizard of Oz" at Evergreen Elementary. Students staged the performance of the classic story and were allowed to read from scripts to take the pressure off the actors. Tracey Martin and Kim Pogue produced the stage play, while art teacher Tawney Crowley was the set supervisor. Crowley had a background in theater, so fellow staff members took advantage of her...
Senior Devlyn Campbell slips down a makeshift soapy water slide on May 17 on the lawn at the high school courtyard. The class of 2023 took advantage of the warm weather by inviting their classmates to blast each other with squirt guns, slide across the lawn and just play. They were joined by many other students, making for extremely quiet classrooms during fifth period....
Alaska lawmakers have been spending the final days of the 121-day legislative session disagreeing over the amount of this fall’s Permanent Fund dividend. As of Monday afternoon, the House and Senate appeared unable to agree on state spending for the fiscal year that starts July 1, likely pushing lawmakers into an overtime session. This would be the fourth year of extra session time since the cost of the dividend put a strain on tight state finances in 2017. The Republican-controlled House wants a $2,700 PFD this fall and is willing to draw hund...
Like other trollers in the region, Wrangell fishermen are critical of a Seattle-based federal judge’s ruling that could shut down the Southeast commercial king salmon fishery, which supports about 40 trollers in town. Brian Merritt is a troller and a teacher at Evergreen Elementary. He estimates that 35% of his income comes from kings, but losing the fishery is more than just a financial loss. For him, kings are the smartest, biggest and the most engaging species of salmon to fish for. “Dog salmon are dumber than a stump and anyone can cat...
As the first cruise ship of the season arrived in town last Thursday, the Wrangell Cooperative Association's new tourism coordinator, Brooke Leslie, gave visitors an informative presentation inside the Chief Shakes House. After performing a song, she taught the group about matrilineal Tlingit family structure, construction of the house, traditional communal living and canoe travel. The Tlingit traveled long distances by canoe, she explained, but "how would you know that the people arriving are f...
Southeast Alaska's near-constant blanket of clouds and its frequent rains that wash nutrients from the soil make gardening in the region notoriously difficult, even for people with the greenest of thumbs. However, horticultural afficionados Lenny Peterson and Ginger Overton have learned to work around the weather to create a garden that is as abundant as it is beautiful. As green shoots begin to peek out of their garden beds this month, the pair gave a tour of their greenhouse and shared advice...
Alaska Airlines last week unveiled a new design that replaced the popular Salmon Thirty Salmon jet. The new art still features salmon, but this time from an Indigenous perspective. Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl, a Tlingit artist and business owner from Juneau, created the new design in the style of formline art. Worl said she hopes that the plane will inspire non-Indigenous people to learn about the rich cultural history between Native Alaskans and salmon. The plane is designed in...
The borough completed its unprecedented mass review of all property values on the road system last week, with only seven of the initial 179 assessment appeals going to a formal hearing before the Board of Equalization. All the other cases were resolved without a hearing. Most of the appeals succeeded in achieving some level of reduction in the appraised value — only 24 remained unchanged after appellants met with an assessor. It had been years since the borough conducted such a comprehensive review, and the reexamination raised the overall a...
Parents looking for someone to watch their children so they can earn a living may have to keep looking for the time being. Efforts to find solutions to a lack of child care locally and statewide continue to move forward, but providing the service is taking more time than most people might like. The number of child care providers has dropped by 11% throughout the state since 2021. In Wrangell, there have been some efforts to increase the number of child care options, though only one, through the Wrangell Cooperative Association, is moving...
Alaska’s coastal communities are home to more than a third of the U.S. wastewater plants still allowed to treat their sewage at the lowest and most basic level. But six cities in Southeast Alaska, including Wrangell, may soon have to invest in improvements to better clean their wastewater before discharging it into the ocean. That is the message from draft permits that have been released or are to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has determined that too much bacteria is going from the communities into marine waters. The...
How many times can you tell your kid to go play in the ocean and mean it? At least once a year for U.S. Forest Service and school staff. On May 9, teachers, parents and Forest Service employees taught 82 kindergarten through third grade students about tidepool sea life, tree identification, animal skulls and fur, digging clams and more at Shoemaker Bay during low tide. "Today, you guys are going to help me get some clams and we're going to send them out to have them tested (for toxins). Who's...
Since 2019, Caitlin Cardinell has worked as the liaison between members of the Stikine River Jet Boat Association and cruise lines to schedule tours and advocate for the organization. After 10 years in Wrangell and seeing the SRJBA through the COVID-19 pandemic, Cardinell is resigning her position as executive director and returning to Minnesota. Though the position has been a challenge, her reasons for leaving are to spend more time with her aging parents. She will maintain a home in Wrangell...
