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On June 1, at Sandy Churchill's retirement party from Head Start, attendees learned that fellow staff member Dawn Welch would take over as lead teacher for the preschool program. "I actually found out the day before," Welch said. Two months later, on Aug. 2, she was in the midst of giving a makeover to the Head Start building with the help of friends and family like her little cousin, Ava. "She likes to organize things," Welch said. "I'm like, 'I got a job for you.'" School starts Aug. 27. One...
The Meyers Chuck dock is in despair, kept floating mostly by barrels Meyers Chuck residents installed themselves. The borough is responsible for maintaining the floating dock, and plans are underway to build a replacement. The borough took in the small community, about 50 miles south of town, when Wrangell expanded to a borough from a city in 2008. The state turned over the dock to the borough in 2014. The most recent census estimates there are 20 full-time residents of Meyers Chuck. Regardless...
It was a close finish in the Bearfest half-marathon, with one minute separating the top two finishers of Carter Howell, at 1:51, and Steven Ditgen, with a time of 1:52. Ian Fuller was the runaway winner of the full marathon at 2:49, with Wrangell High School alum Galen Reed coming in second at 3:25. The 26.2-mile marathon drew nine runners, with 11 racers in the half-marathon on the last day of Bearfest on July 28. Reed, a 2008 graduate of Wrangell High School, planned a family trip from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to run in the marathon. His...
Need a secure, dry place to stash your stuff? John Esther and Phillip Mach may have a solution, it just might be a while. The business partners are working to get a rezone from the borough that would allow them to build a storage facility on their Zimovia Highway lot, midway between TK’s Mini Mart and Panhandle Trailer Court. According to Mach and Esther, the project “would include three metal buildings with lighting, security cameras and locked gates.” The buildings would be constructed one at a time, as Esther and Mach would need to wait...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has vetoed five bills passed by the Alaska Legislature after the constitutionally mandated date to end its session. The vetoed bills include bonding authority to build a new cruise ship dock in Seward, a bill allowing licensed 18-year-olds to serve alcohol at bars, a measure that would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to elected officials, legislation to eliminate duplicative registration requirements for boats, and a proposal that would have allowed employers to pay workers with short-term electronic...
The borough assembly has taken the first step in allowing American flags on veterans’ gravestones to remain up for the month-long stretch between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. After approving the change in first reading at the July 23 assembly meeting, there will be a second reading of the ordinance at the Aug. 27 meeting, with a public hearing before assembly members vote whether to adopt the change. The current version of the law states: “No temporary decoration, marker, or monument, may be placed upon or near the grave … except on th...
Wrangell is not immune to the nationwide shortage of electrical transformers, and the delivery delay has pushed back the borough’s sale of 20 lots at the residential subdivision near 6-Mile Zimovia Highway until the spring. The borough wants to wait until the streets and utilities are finished at the property before opening access to the land for potential buyers to evaluate which lots they may want to buy. The transformers and buried electrical lines are part of the work. The land sale had been tentatively planned for late summer or fall, b...
So, you want to see bears at the Anan Wildlife Observatory. But maybe you couldn't get one of the limited number of permits, or you live out of town and can't make the trip, or maybe you are a little more afraid of them than you care to admit. But now, thanks to the U.S. Forest Service, explore.org and 14 Wrangell high school students in the T3 Program, anyone worldwide can view Anan's fish-crazed black and brown bears. Last week, after months of preparation, planning and prototyping, the two...
T.J. Sgwaayaans Young, a Haida master carver from Hydaburg, arrived in Wrangell earlier this month to lead a team of Wrangell-based apprentices to carve a new Kadashan totem pole. When the work is finished, the Wrangell Cooperative Association plans to hold a pole raising ceremony on Shakes Island sometime next year, Wrangell's first totem raising in 38 years. The Kadashan pole - referring to the Tlingit chief of the same name - is the first of two the WCA team will carve this year. Next month,...
Annual moorage rates will not increase this year, after the assembly on July 23 passed a resolution reversing a 3% fee increase it approved in April. The higher rates had been scheduled to take effect this month. The vote to roll back the rate increase was unanimous. “Realizing that it’s such a poor commercial fishing season, realizing that the tourism industry has struggled a bit this year, we felt we could drop the rate increase this year and come back to it next year,” Borough Manager Mason Villarma said in an interview last week. The assem...
They may be out of sight to the general public but they are never out of mind for the U.S. Forest Service. The agency maintains 35 mountaintop repeater towers within the Tongass National Forest to provide radio coverage for their field crews and first responders. A contractor is installing new repeater stations at five sites this summer in the Wrangell and Petersburg ranger districts, part of an ongoing effort to switch out older units with newer models. Of particular importance to Wrangell, a...
The assembly last week took the first step toward seeking voter approval to someday pay members for their work. The assembly on July 23 approved in first reading an ordinance that would put the question to voters on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot; they set a public hearing on the ordinance for Aug. 27. If approved by voters, the ballot measure would not result in immediate compensation for assembly members and the mayor. Instead, it would only remove a provision from the borough charter prohibiting such payments. The assembly would need...
A $38.6 million federal grant will help lower the cost of energy-saving heat pumps for an estimated 6,100 Alaska households stretching from Ketchikan to Kodiak, including Wrangell. The money will provide rebates of between $4,000 and $8,500 per household for the purchase and installation of a heat pump. The funding is in addition to federal tax credits of up to $2,000 per household. The federal grant for coastal Alaska, announced July 22, will go the Southeast Conference, a community and economic development nonprofit for the region, and...
First it was radio, then television. Then it was video games and TikTok. Many book lovers, bookstores and parents of reading-age children feared the demise of the printed story. Yet, with just a few days to go before the end of the Irene Ingle Public Library annual summer reading program for kids, the youngsters are far ahead of last year’s pace. The program ends Saturday, Aug. 3, with prizes for readers and a party on Aug. 10. Wrangell’s young readers entering kindergarten through ninth grade in August had gone through 2,603 books as of Jul...
The WMC Foundation and SEARHC are inviting women to enjoy some "fun and frolic" golf for a good cause. The annual Rally for Cancer Care will be held Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Muskeg Meadows. Registration starts at 9 a.m.; the event begins at 10 a.m. The day will feature a luncheon, beverages, prizes, a silent auction and a golf tournament with no scoring and no skills required. "It's not even golf," organizer Patty Gilbert, board member of the WMC Foundation said. "It's 'fun and frolic' on the...
Last week, Jim Kauffman, director of U.S. Capitol grounds and Arboretum at the Architect of the Capitol, selected one of seven Southeast Alaska finalists for the official 2024 Capitol Christmas Tree. The winner is a secret, for now. All seven finalists are located within the Wrangell Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest. This means that when the tree is harvested in October - an operation that requires multiple cranes and an 82-foot-long trailer - it will be paraded through Wrangell's...
Alaska’s population is set to decline by 14,000 residents by 2050, according to a new forecast from the Alaska Department of Labor, with Wrangell showing the highest rate of annual population loss over the period, dropping on average by 1.5% annually. The community’s population is forecast to drop to under 1,400 people by 2050, continuing its steady decline from 2,369 residents in the 2010 U.S. Census and 2,039 in last summer’s state estimate. The ongoing loss of working-age residents is a leading cause of the statewide population decli...
When Dan Trail took his dogs to play fetch on June 20 at Petroglyph Beach, the last thing he expected was to find himself involved in a statewide baby seal rescue mission. But when he reached for his tennis ball and noticed it lying on the tail of a 1-week-old lost seal pup, he sprang into action. The seal - now called Rocky by her rescue team - was extremely dehydrated when Trail found her. Wedged in between two rocks, high above the receding tide, she was sucking in air on a warm June day....
In closely watched oral arguments on July 18, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals indicated that it is unlikely to grant an environmental group’s petition for an order that could halt — at least temporarily — a valuable Southeast Alaska king salmon fishery. In May 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court covering western Washington issued an order that said federal officials were allowing Alaska fishermen to harvest king salmon at rates that harmed an endangered population of killer whales in Puget Sound. The whale...
Heat pumps, which can be a cost- and energy-efficient upgrade from traditional heating systems, are growing in popularity in Southeast Alaska - especially in Wrangell. Charlie Hazel, one of two licensed contractors who installs the units in Wrangell, said when he moved to town in 2013, 60% of homes used electric boilers for heat. In the past 11 years, Hazel has installed around 120 electric heat pumps. For context, Wrangell has just over 1,000 residential properties. While most models cannot...
Sam Pausman, the Sentinel's newest reporter, switched coastlines to start work in Wrangell on July 15. He moved from Maine to Alaska. "I wanted to see something totally new, nothing close to anywhere I had ever been before," Pausman explained. The closest he had ever been to Alaska was Chicago. A May graduate from Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, he majored in history, with a focus on journalism. He worked on the college newspaper, including a stint as editor-in-chief his senior year,...
The Arts in the Cove festival, formerly known as Arts and Seafood, is scheduled for Aug. 9 and 10 in Coffman Cove. The festival — about 40 boat miles southwest of Wrangell on Prince of Wales Island — promotes local artisans and features everything from handmade fine art to crafts, soaps, candles, oils, jams, jellies, syrups, fur, seafood, smoked meats and fry bread. The festival also will feature live music and entertainment, along with prize raffles throughout the two days. The festival, which is free to attend, will run from 3 to 10 p.m. Fri...
Wrangell's deer hunting season will open on Aug. 1 and remain open through Nov. 30. The dates for archery season are the same for rifle hunting. Hunters are permitted two bucks over the course of the four-month window, and no doe harvest is allowed to protect the herd's population for future years. Hunters must always carry their harvest tags with them while they hunt. Harvest tags are free, but an annual hunting license will cost residents $45, or $5 for low-income residents. Nonresidents will...
Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Earth Branch, Tl’átḵ, is working with the U.S. Forest Service to install temperature loggers (data recording devices) in selected salmon streams on Wrangell Island to help get a better understanding of the impacts of thermal variations on salmon populations. The two agencies are planning to deploy three to six temperature loggers on the island. As of July 15, two had been installed. Alex Angerman, Earth Branch coordinator, said “monitoring stream temperatures is crucial for assessing the health of salmon p...
