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What motivates a man to wake up and start his day with the same habit for 40 years? Bill Messmer doesn't know. Messmer started collecting rainfall data from his house in town in 1984. Four decades later, he is calling it quits. The reason? Well - there isn't really one. He just shrugged and said, "It's been 40 years." Messmer's first month of collecting data was January 1984. If you're curious, precipitation - rain and melted snow - totaled 16.04 inches that month. Every morning he woke up,...
President Donald Trump has issued several executive orders in recent weeks to expand logging in the nation’s forests, but stakeholders say the recent mass firings of U.S. Forest Service employees could hinder the administration’s plans in Alaska. Trump’s actions are the latest chapter in a decades-long tug-of-war between conservation and development in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — by far the largest of the nation’s forests. On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order to boost development...
After Spicy Lady, a Petersburg-based crabbing vessel, caught fire on March 6, the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene to cool things down. The fire department received a distress call at 2:32 p.m. informing them of the boat fire. At the time of the call, the 58-foot steel hulled Spicy Lady was near Point Gardner at the southern tip of Admiralty Island. After a 100-mile floatplane trip, Wrangell firefighters met up with the Spicy Lady a few miles from Point Gardner, in Warm...
The House Finance Committee is scheduled to take public testimony on the state operating budget over three days this week, with several Southeast communities, including Wrangell, on the calendar for Friday afternoon, March 14. The time slot for Southeast residents to testify is set for 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Friday. Individuals will be limited to two minutes each to give the committee their opinions on the state spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Anyone in Wrangell who wants to testify is asked to come to the Legislative...
Don't try and put Johnny Allen in a box, even if it's one he welded himself. Allen, a senior at Wrangell High School, is upfront about his values. He gets up early, works hard, doesn't complain and quietly goes about his business. He finds joy, not just reward, in work that other people might only see as tedious, something that shines through in his choice for a senior project. For that, Allen has taken it upon himself to freshen up the whale mural outside the Stikine Inn. The painted mural is...
The Southeast Conference hopes to know by the end of the month whether $38.6 million in federal funds to help install electric heat pumps in coastal Alaska communities will come through on schedule or whether the Trump administration will pull the plug or turn down the power on the project. “We’re moving forward cautiously, carefully,” said Robert Venables, Southeast Conference executive director. The new administration has ordered widespread halts to federal contracts, loans and grants, as the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Effic...
The most recent draft of the school district’s 2025-2026 budget shows a deficit of $271,000. With City Hall hamstrung by cuts to federal funding, the school board could need to make sweeping cuts to balance the books. The district is not legally permitted to operate in a deficit and its operating reserve is nearing empty The draft budget assumes that the borough will fund the schools at the maximum amount allowed by state law, around $1.8 million. However, both City Hall and the school district anticipate that number will likely be closer to $...
A Juneau-based business that shares ownership with the company which has been leasing land at the former 6-Mile mill property for a scrap metal recycling operation has told the borough it wants to buy more than nine acres at the site to build a permanent operation. “If an agreement is made on a purchase, our first improvement to the property will likely be establishing utilities such as water, sewer and electricity,” Tideline Construction wrote in its Jan. 24 request to the borough. The company offered $250,000 for two parcels at the sou...
No one could remember it ever happening before, but the Wrangell Cooperative Association was ready when it did happen last month. The annual tribal council election on Feb. 27 ended in a tie for the fourth seat. WCA election rules designated a coin toss to decide the winner, said Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese. Einar Haaseth, the tribal council election chairman, researched online the proper way to toss a coin, Reese said. He studied how NFL referees do it at the start of every game. Tribal Council President Ed Rilatos brought in...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association will hold an electronic waste collection event Friday and Saturday, March 7-8, paired with an unofficial grand opening of its new transportation center on Zimovia Highway. The center will be open for the first time to the public from noon to 4 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday as the drop-off site for e-waste. The 5,000-square-foot maintenance and warehouse building is next door to WCA offices on the upland side of the highway, just south of TK’s Mini Mart. Kim Wickman, the WCA Tl’átḵ | Earth...
Jacob Vibbert, of Cheney, Washington, has been charged with illegally killing a mountain lion on the south end of Wrangell Island. According to the state’s report, Vibbert shot the mountain lion on June 3, 2024. There is no mountain lion hunting season in Alaska. The offense, a misdemeanor, can be punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $25,000. Vibbert was charged in January; his arraignment was scheduled for March 4 at the Wrangell courthouse. The kill was reported by Charles Davis, who was hunting and sport fishing with V...
Amid the widespread uncertainty and mass budget cuts under the new administration of President Donald Trump, Wrangell’s municipal leadership is not particularly concerned about the completion of any of the borough’s ongoing projects. Currently, City Hall awaits two reimbursements from the federal government: one at around $18 million for the water treatment plant and another at $1 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster recovery costs after the November 2023 landslide. Borough Manager Mason Villarma said City Hall has...
After a monthlong closure to in-person dining and a temporary suspension of van rides, the Senior Center is back open for both. The center reopened with prepared lunches last week, and will reopen for in-person dining Wednesday, March 5. Van rides are expected to resume this week, too. The center had been closed due to temporary staffing issues; John Waddington was hired last week as the new driver. As of March 5, the center will be open Tuesdays through Fridays for in-person dining and van rides for senior citizens to medical appointments,...
A team from Oregon State University’s Sustainable Tourism Lab wants to hear from you. The borough linked up with the academic team to better understand the community’s opinions about tourism. The survey is available at http://beav.es/wrangell and the deadline to complete the short questionnaire is March 20. On Feb. 21, a member of the team joined City Hall’s monthly economic development coffee chat at the Stikine Inn, and community members offered up ideas to better understand Wrangell’s tourism economy. For example, one community member...
The borough’s public works team will no longer provide regular repairs and maintenance to the 30 sewage grinder pumps located on private property that serve only one house each. In cases of emergency, however, the borough will still be able to provide repairs or even replace a broken pump. The ordinance will go into effect on June 30. The reason for the ordinance change, which the assembly unanimously approved after a lengthy public hearing on Feb. 25, is both legality and liability. Borough Attorney Robe Luce explained that the borough’s cur...
Keaton Gadd knows who he is. He knows what he likes, he knows what he doesn't. He knows what motivates him and he knows what scares him (planes). Gadd is direct. He speaks in short, swift sentences - not due to a limited vocabulary, but because of an involuntary compulsion for his speech to match his thinking: undeviating and without waste. "I like being pretty straightforward, just doing what it takes," he said. "No extra steps." For his senior project, Gadd is doing something that matches...
Alaskans were among the hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees who began receiving firing notices last week, a blow to an agency that provides everything from weather forecasts to fisheries management to cutting-edge climate science in Alaska. The cuts - part of a broader effort by the administration of President Donald Trump to drastically slash the federal workforce - came after other agencies, including the National Park Service, had abruptly fired probationary...
It will not be easy, but the Alaska commercial seafood industry needs to figure out how to turn a 25-cent-per-pound pink salmon into a fish worth 45 cents a pound. That math lesson came from Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “What everyone is talking about is how do we make more value out of our fish,” Woodrow said during a panel discussion at the midwinter meeting of the Southeast Conference. The marketing agency has succeeded in establishing wild Alaska seafood as a premium brand, he said, with con...
On Sunday, Feb. 16, Anna Tollfeldt was fired from her job at the U.S. Forest Service. Tollfeldt moved to Wrangell in 2022 and began working for the Forest Service the following summer. She and her partner (who is employed by the Forest Service and opted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation) took out a mortgage on a house in town, and the couple planned to stay here indefinitely. But now, a future in Wrangell is no longer a guarantee. With the loss of her job and the unpredictability...
The barge ramp, freight staging and storage area has been downtown for decades, but maybe not the next decade. The borough assembly has created a six-member special committee “to review and oversee the transition of barge service operations to the 6-Mile mill site property.” The borough purchased the former mill property for $2.5 million in 2022, with the intent of developing it or selling or leasing it to private parties to develop for industrial uses. The intent behind moving the barge ramp and freight yard to 6-Mile would be to open up the...
The Alaska district attorney’s office has dropped drug-related charges against Wrangell residents Cooper Seimears, 39, Jacob Marshall, 29, and McKenna Harding, 29. Marshall remained in custody as of Feb. 21 for violating his terms of release on a previous charge, while Seimears was released once the charges were dropped. Harding was the sole defendant to post bail before the charges were dropped on Feb. 13. The initial charges came after police executed dual search warrants on the Seimears residence at 820 Zimovia Ave. and the H...
A particular place in history awaits this year’s Fourth of July royalty, as the fundraising competition marks its 75th anniversary. It began in 1950, when Pat Lewis won with her bake sale earnings, estimated at $405. Over the years, food booths and raffle ticket sales have become the primary fundraisers for those vying for queen or king. It is an intense monthlong June marathon that reaps big rewards for the contestants and the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce’s Fourth of July activities budget. The chamber is looking for royalty candidates to sign...
The school district has a separate savings account of nearly $1.2 million, which would more than cover its expected revenue shortfall of $767,016 for the upcoming school year. The fund is reserved for capital improvement projects, but it is within the school board’s purview to reallocate the funds if needed. The district has been building the fund since 1998, with only small withdrawals in recent years. Without major new revenues or spending cuts, the district’s operating budget reserve fund — a separate account from the building impro...
After just under two years in business, Island Tire Repair closed down its operations last week. “Hate to say it but the business is shut down as of today at 3 p.m.,” according to the company’s Feb. 17 post on the Wrangell Community Facebook page. “Going to have a sale at the shop tomorrow starting at 10 a.m.” Business owner John Hurst did not respond to messages from the Sentinel asking for more information. “Everything is for sale,” the Facebook post said. “I want to say thank you to all my customers for being with us for these last two...
For her senior project, Clara Waddington hopes to cement the Tlingit language and culture at the forefront of the Wrangell educational experience. She is engraving metal signs with the Tlingit translations for different English-language signs across the school. The Tlingit language signs will be hung beside the other signs, similar to the style of the Tlingit words in Wrangell IGA displayed beneath the English tags. So far, Waddington has found direct translations for "Wrangell High School,"...