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WRANGELL – Wrangell’s district representative for the State Legislature teleconferenced in late last week to update constituents on what’s going on in Juneau. Rep. Dan Ortiz (I-District 36) called in to Legislative Information Office locations in Ketchikan and Wrangell to explain ongoing bills and field questions on March 23. Likely the biggest issue on Alaska’s collective mind is its budget deficit, which by various measures is set to drain billions from the state’s savings this year. With spending left as is, the Legislative Finance Div...
The required permits are not yet in hand, but the U.S. Navy is moving full steam ahead on its plans to conduct war training exercises in the Gulf of Alaska for two weeks in early May. Meanwhile, nine coastal communities have so far signed resolutions asking the Navy to instead conduct its training between September and mid-March, times that are less sensitive to migrating salmon, birds and marine mammals. Several more communities have indicated they will do the same by month’s end. “It’s not that we don’t want the Navy to do their training – it...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Monday the bag, possession and retention regulations for this year’s nonpelagic rockfish sport season. For all Southeast waters, Alaska residents have no size limit, with a bag and possession limit of one nonpelagic rockfish. Nonresidents enjoy the same, with the additional limitation of one yelloweye rockfish per year. This must be recorded in ink on the back of an angler’s sport fishing license or harvest record card at the time of harvest. All nonpelagic rockfish that are caught must be...
Alaska salmon fishermen could haul in a harvest that nearly doubles last year’s catch, due to a projected uptick in the number of pinks. An Alaska Department of Fish and Game report on 2017 salmon run forecasts and harvest projections pegs the total catch at 204 million fish. That compares to just over 112 million salmon taken by fishermen in 2016. The catch last season included 53 million sockeye salmon—the fifth largest harvest since 1970—but only 39 million pink salmon, the smallest harvest since 1977. For this year, the forecast calls for a...
March 16, 1917 – A letter from J. L. McPherson, manager of the Alaska Bureau of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, gives details of the big excursion tour of Alaska being organized by the bureau-in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the territory as a United States posession. The steamers will be accompanied as far as v by boats and yachts of the Seattle Carnival Committee. “The greater interest of the visiting party,” Mr. McPherson says, “during the stop in Petersburg will undoubtedly be in sight-seeing and in viewing and learnin...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced today that the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery will be on 2-hour notice effective 8:00 a.m., Friday, March 17, 2017. This means that a fishery could be expected with a minimum of two hours notice after the effective time. One test sample was taken near Kamano Point on Kruzof Island. The results of the sample are as follows: Kamano Point: 0.5 tons, mature roe – 8.9%, immature roe – 2.7%, average weight – 133 grams. Although this set size is not very large, we believe it is repre...
Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) announced regulations for the king salmon sport fishing season this summer would be on the conservative side. Issued Monday, the order applies to marine waters adjacent to the Stikine River in District 8, near Petersburg and Wrangell. Beginning May 1 and lasting until July 15, the king salmon bag and possession limit for all anglers will be set at one fish, 28 inches or greater in length. Anglers will also have to abide by rod restrictions in place when fishing for king salmon after March 31, 2017, li...
The spring troll fishery in Southeast Alaska (SEAK) is designed to target Alaska hatchery-produced Chinook salmon. However, with similar migration corridors and return timing, wild stock, SEAK originating Chinook are also harvested. The overall 2016 run to the 11 systems monitored for SEAK wild Chinook salmon is one of the lowest on record in 42 years of documented Chinook escapements. With arguably the poorest overall run on record in 2016, recurrent failures to meet lower bounds of escapement goal ranges in several systems, and with the 2017...
State Senator Bert Stedman predicts the legislature will be in session for a full 120 days with an additional 30 day session if they are to complete their work this session. “There’s a lot of talk of the 90 day session but the constitution calls for 121 days. “We’ve only finished in 90 days one time,” Stedman noted. Stedman was in Petersburg this past weekend to attend the Chamber of Commerce Annual Banquet along with his wife Lureen. Stedman said there is a “near zero chance of a 90 day session with any quality work being accomplishe...
Tanner crab estimates are down from the previous season although there is enough to go around for a successful fishery. Mature male Tanner abundance estimate is 4.9 million pounds, down from the 5.6 million estimate from the previous year, according to a Alaska Department of Fish and Game press release. "The Tanner crab harvest strategy sets the season length based on the mature male biomass estimate and the number of pots registered at the start of the fishery," ADFG region one lead crab...
Shellfish, sea cucumbers, geoduck clams, seaweeds and biofuels are crops envisioned by a group of Alaskans who are crafting a framework for a statewide mariculture industry expansion. An 11-member task force created last February by Governor Walker has wasted no time advancing its mission to put a comprehensive report on Walker’s desk by next March. The group, which has been meeting regularly, also has attracted wide interest from Alaskans who want to serve on advisory committees as the plan takes shape. The advisory committees include r...
February 10, 1917 – At a special meeting Thursday evening, with all members present except Messrs. Jorgenson and Steberg, the council engaged T. J. McBride as electrician, to succeed Fred Purinton, whose resignation takes effect February 16. The agreement with the new electrician is that he shall work a twelve-hour shift daily at a salary of $125 per month, and payment for outside repair work done by him shall be made to the city. February 13, 1942 – February 16, will be an obligatory registration day for all men between the ages of 20 and 45....
February 3, 1917 – When the smoke of battle lifted at the conclusion of the basketball contest last Saturday evening it was found that Petersburg had the short end of a 50-to-16 score. The outcome, however, did not discourage the local boys who are confident that with the practice gained they will be able to shorten up, close, or maybe overlap the gap between their team and the seasoned Wrangellers. There were fully two hundred people present when the game was called at nine o’clock, after Fred Purinton, as manager of the home team, had add...
Candied salmon ice cream … poke snack kits … salmon bisque baby food … fish skin tote bags and pet oils – Those are among the more than 20 new items to be revealed this week at the industry’s most popular annual seafood soiree: the Alaska Symphony of Seafood, where the public is invited to taste and vote on their favorites. Now in its 24th year, the event attracts commercially ready entries from major companies to small “Mom and Pop’s” who frequently take home the top prizes. Bambino’s Baby Food of Anchorage, for example, won grand prize for it...
KENAI (AP) – The Alaska Board of Fisheries is asking the state Legislature to reconsider the state’s fish habitat permitting process. The board sent a letter to the Legislature earlier this month asking lawmakers to review how the commission of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issues permits in streams determined to be fish habitat, the Peninsula Clarion reported Sunday. Any activity that may use, divert, obstruct or change the natural flow of a body of water determined to be fish habitat requires a permit, granted by Fish and Gam...
WRANGELL – Alaska’s 30th Legislature convened for its new session on Tuesday, with the state’s finances presenting a daunting challenge for the next 90 days. The spending deficit is projected at around $3.1 billion this year if the budget is left as-is. Agency spending has come to just over 13-percent since FY15, and the budget as a whole has taken a 29-percent cut when capital projects and other funding is considered. Revenue has failed to cover operating expenses since FY13, but has covered an ever-dwindling proportion since. This year the $...
As lawmakers convene this week in Juneau, Alaska’s fishing industry sees a glimmer of hope that its budget won’t be gutted again. Under Governor Walker’s proposed budget for FY18, the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game reflects a .3 percent increase to $70.7 million. It’s a big relief for an industry whose oversight budget has been slashed by more than 30 percent over two years. “All regions show slight increases,” said Tom Gemmell, a numbers guru and executive director of the Halibut Coalition in Juneau. “It...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – The state of Alaska on Friday sued two federal agencies to overturn a ban on certain hunting techniques on national refuges and preserves, including the killing of black bear sows and their cubs in dens with the aid of artificial light. The state also wants the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow the hunting of black bears and grizzly bears, also known as brown bears, over bait. Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, said in an announcement that Alaskans, especially rural residents, rely on h...
An application for an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) permit alteration to release 40 million chum salmon in Thomas Bay brought forth by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) has been approved. The application process has taken just over a year to secure the location, north of Petersburg, for the release but the change is something NSRAA general manager Steve Reifenstuhl has been thinking about for a while now. “I looked at Thomas Bay approximately 20 years,” he says. “Had temperature probes out there to ev...
Fishery advocates are hoping for the speedy delivery of a letter to state lawmakers that asks them to dust off a law pertaining to fish habitats. Title 16, the statute that outlines the responsibilities of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game when issuing development permits that could impact those resources, has not been updated for nearly 60 years. “The law we have now, in terms of permitting projects in fish habitat, was written the year after statehood and it has not had any substantive updates since then,” said Lindsey Bloom of Juneau, one...
January Public Works rolled out the borough's highly anticipated blue cart recycling program. The borough received $820,117.61 from the annual raw fish tax. Dave Zimmerman was hired as the new Tongass National Forest Petersburg District Ranger. The assembly continued discussing the reallocation of the Kake access road funding. Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins took part in a budget crisis presentation at Sons of Norway Hall. The visit was the first of many by representatives throughout the...
The start of 2017 marks the 26th year for this weekly column that targets news for and about Alaska’s seafood industry. The goal is to make all readers more aware of the economic and cultural importance of our state’s first and oldest industry. Today, Alaska fishermen and processors provide 65 percent of our nation’s wild-caught seafood; it is also Alaska’s most valuable export to more than 100 countries around the world. The seafood industry puts more people to work throughout Alaska than oil/gas, mining, timber and tourism combined. The bul...
WRANGELL – The governments of Alaska and neighboring province British Columbia initiated their first bilateral working group on transboundary mining and water quality concerns earlier this month. In a statement from his office released last week, Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott expressed his appreciation for the meeting, which was one of the measures outlined in a statement of cooperation the two governments signed in October. The agreement was a next step in the process of addressing concerns among Southeast Alaskan communities about the e...
December 27, 1916 – The Firemen's masquerade ball last Saturday night was a big success, with a big and jolly crowd in attendance. There were so many good costumes and impersonations that the judges – John Allen, Captain Grindrod, and C. E. Clure – found it a difficult job decide on the prize-winners. Miss Florence Johnson and Luther Thorvilson were awarded the first prizes and Mrs. John Jensen and Chris Grunseth second prizes. The total receipts from sale of tickets was eighty dollars, and after paying all expenses incurred about fifty dolla...
Dashing through the mud, the Democrats did find Two million votes ahead, but yet they’re far behind Trump and Pence on top, with Russia’s help we fear Oh what fun we all can have in an election year! Oh, tweet all night, tweet all day, try to make some sense We better hope those briefings will be read by Michael Pence! Dashing to the bank, with Alaska’s budget holes Our account has tanked, the legislature’s toast Warning bells have rung, the PFD has shrunk Revenue is needed or the ferries will be sunk…. Oh, sales tax, income tax, tax those oil...
