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November 21, 1924 – Monday evening at the Sons of Norway Hall will be held the first basketball game of the year. The Town Team, sponsored by Sol Freyd, will take on the fast coming school team, and try to teach them a few lessons of the fine points of the game they have learned through the school of hardknocks. Both teams have been practicing regularly and are fast approaching their standard. While the School Team will be somewhat lighter than their older opponents, they plan to run rings around the Town Team. It is expected that the superior...
State officials and industry leaders trying to rescue the ailing Alaska seafood industry are facing daunting challenges, recently released numbers show. The industry lost $1.8 billion last year, the result of low prices, closed harvests and other problems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Direct employment of harvesters last year fell by 8% to the lowest level since 2001, when counts of harvesting jobs began, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development said. The monthly average for... Full story
Two thousand and ninety to one. Those were the odds of winning the only elk-hunting permit on Zarembo Island this year — the first time in nearly 20 years the state Board of Game has permitted elk hunting on Zarembo after they were urged to do so by the Wrangell Fish and Game Advisory Committee. Quite literally against all odds, Wrangell resident Curtis Kautz won the lottery. His prize? A 31-day window to try and bag a creature Kautz described as smart, skittish and fast. "They're hard to s...
Hunters harvested 131 moose this season, which according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was the third highest harvest on record for this area. According to Fish and Game, 45 of the moose were checked in at the Petersburg ADF&G office, 50 were reported to the Wrangell representative and 22 were reported to the Kake representative. The rest were checked in at other ADF&G offices throughout the region. Among the 131 total moose taken this year, 120 were legal harvests and the remaining 1...
October 24, 1924 – Pep, and lots of it, marked the meeting of the Commercial Club held Wednesday night with every member playing strong in the role of “Pepper.” As one member remarked, “It was the peppiest meeting we ever had!” Mrs A. Thomas reported as a delegate to the Alaska Week celebration. She reported a royal good time. J.B. Warrack has said to certain residents of Petersburg that he would subscribe $20,000* toward the building and equipping of a modern community hotel, provided a like amount could be raised among the townspeop...
October 16 – An officer responded to a noise complaint on Ira II Street and determined it was unfounded. The Petersburg Police Department (PPD) received a report of a bear accessing an outdoor chest freezer on Hungerford Hill Road. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) and the Alaska Wildlife Trooper (AWT) were notified. A subpoena was served at the Crane Dock. Papers were served. A driver on Rocky’s Road was issued a warning for operating an offroad vehicle on the highway. An officer conducted a traffic stop at ten mile Mitkof Hig...
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) officials hear that processors have mostly cleared out their overflowing inventories of Alaska salmon from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, but the problem remains that Americans don’t buy enough seafood to sustain consistently profitable sales, particularly in years of strong salmon runs. And while last year’s problem was an oversupplied market, which pushed prices paid to fishermen to as low as 20 cents a pound for pink and chum salmon, this year’s harvest may come up short of a robust supply, Greg Smith...
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this month that it finished revamping its scientific documentation for state-managed salmon fisheries in Southeast Alaska after a U.S. District Court judge ruled in May of 2023 that the 2019 authorization that NOAA created for the regional salmon fisheries did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act process, nor the Endangered Species Act. NOAA’s new documentation responds to a 2020 lawsuit by the Seattle-based nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy. WFC sued federal f...
WRANGELL — Though it was important to pinpoint the exact location and extent of damage to the community’s wastewater outfall pipeline into Zimovia Strait, officials also discovered that the 12-inch plastic pipe and the seabed around it have become home to hundreds of sea cucumbers. “Over the years and years, wildlife has figured it out,” Tom Wetor, the borough’s Public Works director, said Sept. 26. Sea cucumbers, a bottom-dwelling invertebrate, proliferate around the nutrient-rich waters near the diffuser end of the outfall line, he said. “I...
The commercial dive fishery for sea cucumbers will kick off across Southeast Alaska on Monday, Oct. 7, and divers this season can harvest up to 1.76 million pounds of sea cucumbers across the region, up from last season's "guideline harvest level" of 1.67 million pounds, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Aug. 28. Commercial sea cucumber fishery openings will be announced on a weekly basis with different fishery areas open during different time windows until each individual area's specific guidelines harvest level has been...
Petersburg's moose season opened last week. The one-month window runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15. Those hunting on Mitkof, neighboring islands and the mainland are permitted to harvest one bull this fall. There are no regulation changes from last hunting season, and Frank Robbins, Petersburg-Wrangell area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said he has not seen any notable changes to the health of the central Southeast herd. Last year's Petersburg-Wrangell area harvest was...
The Southeast Alaska sport fishery is on track to exceed its king salmon allocation for the summer by 14,000 fish, prompting the state to close the region to sportfishing for kings. The closure went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26. “King salmon may not be retained or possessed, and any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed,” according to the Department of Fish and Game announcement late Friday, Aug. 23. The king salmon sport fishery will reopen on Oct. 1 for the winter season. “While the (...
August 29, 1924 – Again the sea takes a toll from Petersburg. R. Dahl, in the prime of life, falls overboard and is drowned. Last Monday he was taking up a crab net and, while hitching a line to a snatch block that was hanging a short distance off the deck, lost his balance and fell overboard. Mrs. Dahl was in the cabin and their two boys were on deck. They were so frightened and excited that they did not act immediately, but saw Mr. Dahl apparently on top of the water. By the time the nine-year old boy got the small dinghy to where his f...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly has taken a stance against the potential listing of Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Assembly members voted unanimously to send a letter of opposition to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in response to a petition from the Wild Fish Conservancy, an environmental group based in Washington state, which requested the ESA listing and designation of critical habitat of any GOA...
Local trollers and regional fisheries advocates expressed relief today following Friday’s 9th Circuit Court decision to overturn a U.S. District Court ruling that threatened to shut down Southeast Chinook troll fisheries. “Great news,” Alaska Trollers Association president Matt Donohoe said in a brief text while out fishing. “I’m really grateful that the 9th Circuit understood that WFC’s serial litigation was absurd and ruled in Alaska’s favor.” Jeff Farvour, a Sitka based commercial fisherman and board member of the Sitka-based Ala...
Heavy fishing on chinook salmon by sport fishermen — including nonresident charter customers — is taking fishing opportunity from Southeast Alaska’s commercial troll fishing fleet this summer. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced last Tuesday that trollers in August and September will likely lose out on the remainder of the summer troll fishery allocation for Chinook because sport fishermen across Southeast are on track to exceed their summer 2024 allocation by about 14,000 Chinook, and because of a regulation change that the depar...
A cyanide spill at a major gold mine in the Yukon Territory — high in the Yukon River watershed — has sparked widespread concern in Canada. But Alaska salmon advocates say the mishap isn’t just a problem for Yukoners: The spill happened upstream of a tributary of the Yukon River. The Yukon is Alaska’s biggest transboundary waterway, and residents along its shores who have depended on salmon for generations are already suffering amid crashes of multiple species. Officials on both sides of the border say it’s too early to know the full impact of...
Considering the shallow, rocky waters in the Blind River Rapids, SSRAA production manager Bill Gass was unsure of how successful the beach seine operation to hand deliver king salmon broodstock to Crystal Lake Hatchery would be. But the team of 20 folks, including local volunteers and staff from the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (SSRAA) and Alaska Department of Fish and Game, successfully captured and transported 146 live king salmon during the first two Tuesdays in July,...
10 volunteers pulled on their rubber boots and rain jackets last Friday to search Petersburg's beaches for suspicious crab carapaces in observation of European Green Crab Awareness Day. After breaking into four groups, the volunteers combed the waterfronts of the Wilson Creek camp area, Crescent Beach, Greens Camp, and Woodpecker Cove; they found 33 carapaces in total, none of which were green crab. "I think it went well. I think it's good we didn't find any green crab," said organizer and...
Federal disaster aid is on the way for some commercial fishing permit-holders in Haines and throughout the state, though many may be too wrapped up in the current season to apply for it right away. Applications for crew and subsistence users are currently available online. Unique applications for permit-holders and processors from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission were mailed out on June 26 and are due August 24. The commission says those who have not received a hardcopy...
July 11, 1924 – With perfect weather as though ordered for occasion and a list of interesting exercises and sports carried through without a hitch, and with many out-of-town visitors present, the 1924 Fourth in Petersburg proved an unqualified success. The Filipino team won from the whites in baseball by a score of 10 to 4. Bonapart Cambas and young Johnson boxed three lively rounds, the decision going to the former on a foul. Rayborn showed his skill on a surfboard by riding behind the fastest boat in Alaska, piloted by Earl Ohmer. No o...
Suspense can be felt on docks throughout Southeast Alaska as commercial troll fishermen gear up to chase Chinook salmon during the first general Chinook fishing opener of the summer season. Trollers beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, July 1 can target a total of approximately 66,700 Chinook salmon in an opener that will be closed by emergency order when catch estimates approach that harvest target, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced last Thursday. Fish and Game estimates that trollers will catch 66,700 Chinook in six to seven...
Earlier this month the Alaska Department of Fish and Game notified the public of the verified expansion of invasive European green crab distribution in Alaska waters after finding 11 molted carapaces on the shore of Bostwick Inlet, Gravina Island on June 13. First found in Alaskan waters in July 2022, green crab are considered one of the top 100 worst invasive species globally by the International Union for Conservation and Nature due to their predatory tendencies and their rampant destruction...
In January, the Wild Fish Conservancy — the same Washington-based conservation group that unsuccessfully sued to shut down last year’s SE Alaska troll fishery for king salmon — filed a petition with the federal government to list Alaskan Chinook salmon as a threatened or endangered species and designate critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act. This action obligated the National Marine Fisheries Service to conduct a 90-day evaluation of the petition. And despite finding that the petition “contained numerous factual errors, omissio...
Mountain lions are not commonly spotted in Southeast Alaska, but earlier this month one was killed on the south end of Wrangell Island. Alaska Wildlife Troopers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game were notified that a mountain lion had been shot and killed on June 3. They took possession of the carcass and are conducting an investigation. Troopers leading the investigation declined to comment. Riley Woodford, information officer with the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation in Juneau, said he knew of three other documented sightings...
