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The public will have a chance to voice their opinions Feb. 27 on a pair of proposed municipal ordinances that would limit the use of harbor dumpsters to boat owners only and for their household trash only — with a $150 fine for violations. The public hearing will be part of the evening’s borough assembly meeting, which will start at 6 p.m. at City Hall. Assembly members voted Feb. 13 to advance the ordinances to the Feb. 27 hearing. The assembly could take action on the measures after the hearing — either approve, reject or amend. The first...
What began about a year and a half ago as a side project for high school student Spencer Petticrew would eventually evolve to become his senior project: the livestreaming video setup at Wrangell High School for events, including all sports games, musical concerts and graduation ceremony. "Basically, if it takes place in the gym, and people want to watch it, I'm the guy that handles the livestreaming of it over platforms like YouTube," he said. Petticrew credits the high school's former IT...
I’ve never seen market conditions as bad as they are now,” Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told a conference of Southeast business, community and municipal government leaders last week. “Last year we said we reached rock bottom,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said of low prices, weak markets and reluctant consumers. But then he added, “we’ve scraped off more levels,” reaching deeper to the bottom. All of the participants in the fisheries panel discuss...
After five years, a once-popular community gathering place may finally make a comeback. Georgianna and Richard Buhler, founders of the nondenominational TouchPoint Alaska Ministries, recently purchased the old Church of God property, which has been shuttered for the past five years. Although one of their long-term goals is to eventually have a day care center at the Bennett Street property, their first priority is to bring back the adjoining roller rink. "There's a lot of memories in this...
Jackie Hanson has resigned as principal of Wrangell High School and Stikine Middle School, effective at the end of the school year. Hanson started with the Wrangell district in August. She was the third principal for the schools in the past three years; each served just one school year. She responded via email that she was offered a position as superintendent for the Craig City School District. Since most of her family lives in Craig, her parents are getting older and she already has a house there, she decided to accept. “I plan to finish the s...
Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Jan. 26 were far short of the 81 needed for full staffing, Craig Tornga told a gathering of community, business and government leaders at the Southeast Conference on Feb. 7 in Juneau. “We’re short in the wheelhouse,” he added, down eight from a full contingent of 79 in the master, chief mate, secon...
State geologists were able to more accurately measure the movement and damage from massive landslides that poured across roads in the middle of the island in November because just a few months earlier the state and U.S. Forest Service had collected detailed images and data — literally laser-focused — of the terrain. The Forest Service and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys partnered in July to conduct an aerial survey of the entire island, using airborne lasers to map out ground cover, geology and slopes for future ref...
“At least once a week I get a call from someone who is interested” in the upcoming borough subdivision land sale of 20 lots, said Kate Thomas, Wrangell’s economic development director. To help those callers, and everyone else who might be interested in anything about buying land, building and owning a home, or buying an existing home, the borough is putting together an information fair for 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Nolan Center. The borough plans to offer to the public 20 residential-zoned lots at the new Alder Top Village (Keish...
After Lillian "Lily" Younce had knee surgery in September due to past injuries from wrestling, she couldn't resume her sports activities. "I missed out on wrestling this year, which was kind of a bummer," she said. "With me just sitting around and trying to recover from my knee, I ended up gaining weight." Inspired by her planned course of study of exercise science in college, Younce decided to put together a healthy weight-loss program for her senior year project, in partnership with her father...
Hospice of Wrangell will give out 16 “Hospice Hearts” next week to people who have helped the nonprofit organization in the past year. The hospice group started providing services in Wrangell in 2002, and each year honors volunteers for their services. This year’s event is planned for noon Monday, Feb. 19, at the Father Jerry Hall at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, starting with a light lunch. The community is invited. This year’s Hospice Hearts will go to Kathie Angerman, Michael Bania, Jim Bailey, Cathy Carson, Artha DeRuyter, John DeRuyte...
A minimum wage of $25 an hour for direct-hire employees is being implemented by the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, the Native-run health care organization announced Feb. 7. The change applies to about 85% of SEARHC’s total workforce and will result in pay increases for about 16% of the organization’s employees, said Kathryn Sweyer, a SEARHC spokesperson, in an interview Feb. 8. She said various assistant positions, clerks, technicians and care attendants are among the employees who were paid less than $25 an hour. Contractor emp...
The dumpsters at Wrangell’s public harbors are for boat owners only and for their household trash only — but that hasn’t stopped people from tossing in waste oil, fishing nets, appliances and even a Volkswagen Beetle cut into pieces. “It’s been bad forever,” Harbormaster Steve Miller said last week. In an effort to stop or at least reduce the illegal dumping, the port commission on Thursday, Feb. 1, voted unanimously to recommend assembly approval of a new ordinance to explicitly prohibit throwing non-harbor and non-port related trash into the...
A group of Southeast Alaska tribes has petitioned Canada to recognize their right to have a voice in how transboundary lands and waters are treated — they’re asking to be recognized as participating Indigenous nations in Canada’s review process for resource development. The latest issue is the proposed reopening of the Eskay Creek open-pit gold and silver mine near the headwaters of the Unuk River, which empties into open water about 55 miles northeast of Ketchikan. The mine site is about 80 air miles east of Wrangell. Vancouver-based Skeen...
The Tlingit & Haida Community Council and Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp No. 1 are co-hosting an event to commemorate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on Friday, Feb. 16, at the Nolan Center. It’s been several years since a communitywide event was held in Wrangell to honor the Tlingit civil rights advocate who successfully pushed for the nation’s first anti-discrimination law in Alaska in 1945. Though events were held at the schools in past years, Sandy Churchill, ANS Camp president, said she has been wanting to do more to honor and remember the late c...
Though the initial estimates have come in higher than the maximum grant amount, the borough will proceed with seeking $25 million in federal money to rebuild the Inner Harbor, Reliance and Standard Oil floats. The cost estimates for the entire project range from $26 million to almost $34 million, mostly depending on whether the work includes heavier-duty, custom-designed floats. The borough will seek the maximum $25 million available under the federal grant program — Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or R...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy invited Mayor Patty Gilbert to attend his State of the State speech at the Capitol on Jan. 30, introducing her during his annual address to a joint session of the Alaska Legislature. His remarks follow: "This past fall, just before Thanksgiving, tough times came to Wrangell. On the evening of Nov. 20, a massive 450-foot-wide landslide engulfed homes, blocked the road and cut off power lines. "Despite the wind, the rain, the cold and the dark, the community sprang into action....
TK's Mini Mart, located near the Wrangell Medical Center, now has two 15-foot U-Haul trucks for rent. Owner Alesa McHolland said she had been approached by a U-Haul sales representative who wanted to rent space at her store's location to park the trucks; the arrangement to offer rentals evolved from there. On Jan. 31, McHolland walked across the parking lot to show where the U-Hauls are stationed next to the freight vans that the Mini Mart uses for storage. "I actually rented (one truck) out for...
In 2017, two high school seniors worked together to help create outdoor artwork meant to educate and forge a lasting bond with participating younger students. Now, almost seven years later, another high school senior will strip it away. Nate Rooney chose for his senior project to remove the weathered mural at the Parks and Recreation community center outer stairwell opposite the swimming pool. The wall art features hand-crafted cutouts of salmon fastened to a painted wall resembling the ocean....
Described on their website as "a small, woman-owned gift shop and handmade bath and body store," ownership of River's Mouth Trading Co. recently changed hands. One of its employees, Elizabeth Johnson, who has been with the store for about six months, has taken over the business. Since opening in the fall of 2022 in the Churchill Building on Front Street, the shop has become a popular destination for residents. "We have lots of locals that come in regularly for the products that we make," said...
The National Forest Foundation, working with the U.S. Forest Service, has issued a contract to rebuild the popular Anan Bay cabin, which was taken out by a fallen tree in a February 2023 storm. “It is conceivable that we will have a cabin again this summer,” said Tory Houser, recreation staff officer for the Forest Service Wrangell District. The new cabin will include a big upgrade — a large, covered deck — Houser said last week. The $525,380 contract went to Rainforest Contracting. The Petersburg company rebuilt the observation deck and she...
The borough assembly has declared as “hazardous” and assigned a property value of zero to the two lots owned by victims of the deadly Nov. 20 landslide at 11-Mile Zimovia Highway, making the owners eligible to possibly receive state land as replacement for their unusable property. The owners or their estate could build on their new lots, hold them undeveloped or sell them and keep the proceeds, explained Hannah Uher-Koch, who runs the land grant program at the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mining, Land and Water. “There are no...
After coming up with no viable candidates in the first round of applications, the borough assembly has decided to readvertise to fill the manager job. The borough received seven applications after posting the job last fall, but the only applicant who was selected for an interview already had accepted another job before Wrangell called back, Mayor Patty Gilbert explained last week. Jeff Good resigned as borough manager last fall to take a civil engineering job with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs; he has three college degrees in...
In early January, many Wrangell residents were startled to find workers from the U.S. Census Bureau knocking on doors, collecting information on behalf of the American Community Survey. Some residents felt reluctant to participate, unfamiliar with the relatively new survey which is different from the more widely known 10-year census. While the full census provides up-to-date population counts for the purpose of redrawing congressional and state legislative district maps nationwide, the community survey is designed to assess social and economic...
John Florschutz was surprised to learn that his parents’ homeowner’s insurance policy did not cover the loss from the Nov. 20 landslide that destroyed their home and killed his father, Otto Florschutz. “I think it’s a shock to everyone I talk to,” he said last week. “What’s the point of home insurance. … You would expect flooding to be on the policy.” But floods, landslides, mudslides and other “earth movements” are not covered by standard home insurance policies. “There’s not a lot of people who know that,” commented Florschutz, who s...
Some of the items donated this week at Petersburg’s seventh-annual Project Connect Resource Fair will make it to Wrangell for a community clothing and household goods distribution. “It’s nice to have a change of clothes from another town,” Joan Sargent said of the fourth-annual Recycle Event sponsored by the Wrangell community service organization BRAVE, Building Respect and Valuing Everyone. If all goes on schedule, the U.S. Coast Guard will bring the donated goods from Petersburg to Wrangell on Wednesday, Jan. 31, barring an emergen...
