Week of December 19, 2024
Week of December 19, 2024
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced a state budget proposal on Thursday that would draw down roughly half the amount remaining in the state's budget reserve fund. "We're going to follow the laws and we have the savings," the governor said at a news conference announcing the spending plan. "That's why you have the budget designed as it is." The $16.8 billion draft budget for the 12 months beginning in July is $344 million more than the amount the state plans to spend in the current budget. The... Full story
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Sons of Norway Hall was warm with cheer on Wednesday, Dec. 11, seafood's tastiest night of the year in Petersburg - the annual pickled herring contest. For fifty flavorful years, Petersburg's finest fish smokers and picklers have come together on a December evening to submit their specialties for judgement by the year's designated taste testers. Winners claim possession of the trophies and bragging rights for the year. But it could be said that the real winners are the scores of food lovers who...
WRANGELL - It was 1869 and smoke filled the winter air. Cannon balls ripped through Tlingit homes while U.S. Army shells shrieked across the sky. The same type of artillery used against the Confederates just four years prior was now turned on the Tlingit people of Wrangell, in their homeland which they called Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw. One hundred and fifty-five years later, the U.S. Army is apologizing. The apology is scheduled to take place in Wrangell on Jan. 11, 2025. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and...
Coming off a season in which they won their first 2A state title since 2017, the Petersburg High School Boys Basketball team will be looking to make another deep postseason run in 2024-25. Despite winning a championship, the Vikings don't plan to rest on their laurels anytime soon. "Play hard, smart, together and get better every day, those are our vocal points," head coach Rick Brock said. "One of the good things about playing in our league is that you have to get better every week because the...
A season after they lost at regions and several seniors to graduation, the Lady Vikings enter 2024 with excitement. Heading into his second season as head coach of the Vikings, coach Matt Pawuk is looking to hit the ground running. "What I'm excited about for this year is that we were able to put in a lot of things last year, a lot of it was new to the team and this year, a lot of that is going to be review so we'll be able to build from the foundation that we started creating last year," Pawuk...
Petersburg wrestling seniors Angus Olsen and Kaden Duke qualified for the state championships in Anchorage. For Olsen and Duke, this was their final region tournament and final chance to qualify for state in their high school wrestling careers. "At the start of their matches I said this: Get to the legs. Get in on the legs, get your takedown, wrestle," Valentine said. "I tried to keep it simple ... it's as simple as get to the legs." Olsen took second in the 285-pound weight class. "I really...
How are Mystery Drones and UFOs Related? To the Editor: I am not writing to tell you that they both contain little green men. The general public does not have enough information to arrive at that conclusion. But this suggests one thing they have in common: official government releases on both of these topics (as of the time of writing) are big, fat nothing-burgers. Either that, or lies — cloaked in diverting half-truths, and smelling suspiciously of disinformation. The Great Holiday Mystery Drone Wave of 2024 is just the latest episode in...
Alaska is a land of unmatched potential and opportunity. It always has been, and it always will be if we choose the right policies and priorities. This past week, I fulfilled my Constitutional and statutory duties to introduce a budget for the 2026 fiscal year that will begin next July 1. The budget follows the law by fully funding education and the Permanent Fund Dividend and provides funding to address the top priorities of my administration: public safety, energy and resource development, food security, and increased affordability for the...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has a choice for his final two years on the job: He can continue talking about how state law requires him to include an outrageously large Permanent Fund dividend in the budget — even though it would dig a deep budget hole which, thankfully, legislators will never approve — or he can help solve the problem. It looks like he is sticking with the irresponsible approach. He proposed a budget last week that is politically popular with his supporters but which he knows the state cannot afford without drawing down its...
December 12, 1924 – Following a hunting trip near Cape Strait, Lindenberg Peninsula, last Saturday, Hans Lee froze to death from exposure after being capsized from a boat. The party, which Mr. Lee accompanied, left Petersburg early Saturday morning on the halibut powerboat Star. The party also consisted of Martin Enge, Berger Waswick and Knut Thompson, part owner of the Star with Louis Martin. They arrived at their destination about 8 a.m. and left the boat at anchor while the four went into the woods. The weather was calm and there was no...
A seven million dollar appropriation to the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation will fund an incentive program for new housing construction in 2025. This will come in the form of a $10,000 rebate paid to eligible owner-occupied homebuyers, for homes with a foundation poured on or after Jan. 2, 2025 that also meet a 5-star plus energy efficiency standard. A similar rebate program was available in the state from 2008 through 2016 when more than 3,600 energy efficient homes were built. "AHFC is...
The Cold Moon seemed to loom large and linger over the Coast Range on Dec. 15, 2024. It was a rare phenomenon called a major lunar standstill - which only takes place once every 18.6 years; the full moon rose from its farthest northernmost point on the horizon and remained visible in the sky for longer than other full moons before setting at its southernmost point on the horizon. Star gazers would also have seen Jupiter shining brightly near the moon this week as...
A proposal coming before the Board of Fish in January, if adopted, would make it almost impossible under the current management plan to ever reopen the Southeast Alaska commercial red king crab fishery. Proposal 242 - put forward by Territorial Sportsmen, Inc of Juneau - seeks to allocate 100% of the red king crab available for harvest in Section 11-A to the personal use fishery. Section 11-A accounts for around a quarter of all the mature red king crab biomass available in Southeast Alaska...
Next season's Tanner crab biomass numbers in Southeast Alaska are down, but the area's golden king crab numbers continue to climb. The two commercial fisheries open on the same day – Monday, Feb. 17, 2025 – and that is by design. "Tanner seems to fluctuate across the region ... on any given year," Adam Messmer, Regional Shellfish Biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game explained the Pilot. "Permit holders with dual permits GKC/Tanner will focus on one species while it is up and...
Proposal 243 — which was developed over several BOF cycles through collaboration between ADF&G and permit holders — asks for major changes to the Southeast Alaska Red King Crab Management Plan. The 200,000-pound GHL threshold currently required before the commercial red crab fishery can be opened is an economic threshold, ADF&G Regional Shellfish Biologist Adam Messmer told the Pilot. “Processors said they couldn’t make any money if we fished under that amount,” said Messmer, and the level “was set years ago when red king crab was...
In June of 1947, after graduating from Stillwater High School in Minnesota, Roxane Lillian Swenson boarded a westbound train in Saint Paul with the ultimate destination of Petersburg, Alaska. Her aunt, Lillian L. Swanson had surprised Roxy with a graduation present of two suitcases and a ticket to Alaska. She arrived in Petersburg on the SS Alaska and that was the start of a glorious lifelong adventure. Roxy worked summers in her aunt's store, The Lillian Shop, and studied in the winters at the... Full story
December 11 – An officer responded to a disturbance in Middle Harbor and determined it was a civil issue. The Petersburg Police Department (PPD) received a report that the key to a vehicle at the Crane Dock was lost and the vehicle was later removed. PPD received a report of lost property. A quarterly sex offender registration was completed. The PPD received a post-incident report of a vehicle backing into another and the parties agreed they’d pick-up self-report forms and submit them to the Department of Transportation (DMV). December 12...
Petersburg Pilot... Full story
Petersburg Pilot... Full story
