Sorted by date Results 326 - 350 of 363
Ferry schedules are continuing to be revised after the M/V Columbia experienced mechanical issues on its way from Portland to Bellingham. According to an Alaska Department of Transportation (ADOT) press release, “The MV Columbia experienced an unexpected mechanical issue with its port engine prior to returning to service. Technicians are onboard assessing the situation and developing a repair plan. The MV Columbia has been rescheduled to return to service Wednesday, June 18, departing Ketchikan en route to Bellingham, Wash.” ADOT spokesperson J... Full story
Salmon prices at wholesale show marked seasonal variations for both wild and farmed fish. It’s a pattern that has been tracked for decades by Urner Barry, the nation’s oldest commodity market watcher in business since 1895. The prices tend to decline through June, July, August and September and they begin rising again from November through the following April or May. Two things drive the well-established pattern, said market expert John Sackton who publishes Seafood.com, an Urner-Barry partner. “There’s a growth cycle for farmed salmon when th...
Look at the facts To the Editor: Papac Alaska Logging, Inc. (PAL) worked on Kupreanof Island, Lindenberg Peninsula, from April through November last year, on the U.S. Forest Service Tonka Timber Sale and is currently working this site. It has been brought to our attention that there is a misconception that we are not supporting local business or contributing positively to the Petersburg community. Our company, as well as the timber fallers of Timberwolf Cutting, is based out of Craig, on Prince of Wales Island, only a short distance south of...
Monique Vanessa Williams, affectionately known as "Mo", was taken from this earth far too soon on May 17, 2014. She was born on August 1, 1984 at Eastmoreland General Hospital in Portland, Ore. to Victoria and Mack Williams. Upon high school graduation in Petersburg, Alaska in 2002, Monique went on to become a registered nurse. She studied at Oregon Health & Science University in La Grande, Ore. where she obtained her bachelors of science in nursing. In 2007, she began her career as a...
Petersburg resident Brian Lynch, along with other Alaskans representing commercial fishing, tourism and tribal organizations, traveled to Washington D.C. to urge Alaska’s congressional delegation to become more involved in mining development in British Columbia. “Our request was to have the delegation draft a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry to get the ball rolling and make inquiries into Canada,” Lynch said. Lynch and four other Alaska representatives brought to the delegates a letter signed by the Petersburg Borough Assembly and 39 ot...
March 21, 1914 – It will be of interest to packers to know that the custom authorities in France have issued a regulation which may be well to heed. The regulation, which goes into effect the last of June this year, is in substance as follows: "Canned salmon and other canned fish may not be imported into France unless the name of the country of origin is stamped in raised or sunken Roman characters, at least four millimeters in height on the lid or bottom of each receptacle and on a portion not marked with any printing. The same indications m...
March 14, 1914 – Dr. Maud L. Dunn, a noted American lecturer now in London, in one of her lectures said that some women are always complaining, always frowning, and always telling their neighbors that they are full of aches. You may take it that their troubles are due to corsets. They are the kind of women whose husbands seek the aid of the divorce tribunals. Corsets, she says, should be put on when lying down, as then the organs are in their natural position. Corsets should be three inches less than the waist measurement. March 13, 1974 C...
Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, US policy makers are quibbling over climate issues as bivalves dissolve in an increasingly corrosive Pacific Ocean. Any kid’s chemistry set will show that big changes are occurring in seawater throughout the world. As the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning outputs (primarily coal), it increases acidity to a point where shellfish can’t survive. It is referred to as ocean acidification (OA) and results in sea creatures’ inability to grow skeletons and protective shells. The proce...
Bait is always a big expenditure for many fishing businesses and pollock could help cut costs for Alaska halibut longliners who fish in the Gulf. Researchers have tested pollock in two projects to see if it might replace pricier chum salmon as halibut bait. Fish biologists use over 300,000 pounds of chums in their stock surveys each year, costing nearly half a million dollars. The baits are used at more than 1,200 testing stations from Oregon to the Bering Sea. A pilot study three years ago in the central Gulf and off of British Columbia...
It comes as no surprise that the recommendations for next year’s halibut catches are down again for all regions except Southeast Alaska. Fishery scientists with the International Pacific Halibut Commission have recommended a 2014 coast wide commercial catch total of 24.45 million pounds, a 21% decrease from the 31 million pounds allowed for this year. That includes catches in Alaska, British Columbia and the Pacific Coast states. In a summation at a meeting in Seattle last week, the IPHC said: “The results of the 2013 stock assessment ind...
November 22, 1913 – What is believed to be a new species of salmon has appeared in the Skeena river this season, says a report; and fishermen are puzzled at the strange fish. It has never been seen before, either in the Skeena or any other British Columbia river. In appearance, the new salmon resembles both the sockeye and the humpback, being described as a cross between the two. Its markings seem to include characteristic spots and colorings of both fish and the dorsal fin, while distinct f...
When one thinks of Southeast Alaskan wildlife the tendency is to imagine the grumbles and crashes of humpback whales, bears, moose and wolves trampling through muskeg and salmon ripping up sloughs and stReam. But Joshua Ream lives in a different wild. He turns over logs and peers into shallow ponds looking for and documenting native amphibians. “I chose to work with amphibians here in Alaska because there’s relatively little known about the species we have and a lot of people don’t even realize that they occur here,” Ream said. Ream, a wildlif...
Kevin Colson, Wildlife Biologist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, gave a presentation in the public library conference room Tuesday night about moose populations and their long journey to Southeast Alaska. To help tell the story, Colson for the past year and a half has worked with Petersburg high school teacher Joni Johnson and her science students as they collect and catalogue moose DNA samples. Before moose made their way to Southeast, a very recent occurrence that didn’t happen until the early 1900s, they lived in the boreal f...
WRANGELL — The Wrangell Borough Assembly’s energy committee met for the second time ever Tuesday night. Committee members took no formal actions, other than to elect assembly member James Stough – the only sitting assembly member on the committee – as chair, and to elect Brian Ashton, a Southeast Alaska Power Agency board member and Thomas Bay Power Authority commissioner. The former energy committee chair, board member Pamella McClocskey, had resigned. However, the committee composed a set of possible recommendations to the assembly to be f...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — On Friday evening, after all the human patients were finished for the day at the Alaska Spine Institute’s imaging center, a dead killer whale calf underwent a CT scan and an MRI. The whale offered a rare opportunity for extensive study, both because of the small size and good condition. “It’s very sad when a baby whale dies, but the amount of scientific information we are going to be able to get over the next 24 hours is going to be tremendous,” said Judy St. Leger, director of pathology and research for SeaWorld who has studi...
JUNEAU (AP) — Celebrity Cruises announced Tuesday it was cancelling the remainder of a seven-night cruise to Alaska, plus four additional cruises, after mechanical issues forced a ship carrying more than 3,100 passengers and crew members to return to port in Ketchikan. The cruise line said in a statement that passengers on the current cruise on its Millennium ship would receive refunds of their cruise fares and chartered air travel home. It also said it was offering future cruise certificates for 100 percent of the fare paid for this cruise. T...
Designer-builder, sailor, skier and mountain climber, Dieter Klose, has best left his mark on Petersburg in the form of distinctive architecture. From the cantilevered Troll Bridge of Sandy Beach Park to the numerous homes, businesses, and even a church, Klose uses his expertise in building, his passion for natural landscape and an eye for detail, to make the most of each building he creates. To understand Klose’s designs, it’s best to look back at the architectural inspiration of the community...
Alaska salmon catches are poised to blow past the pre-season forecast of 179 million fish due to a plug of pinks that is coming in stronger than expected. “We are going to be short on sockeyes by five million or so, and we’re probably not going to make the chum salmon numbers either. So we’ll have to go over with pinks, but at the rate things are going that is entirely possible,” said Geron Bruce, deputy director of Fish and Game's Commercial Fisheries division. As of Friday the total pink salmon catch had surged to nearly 114 million (the fo...
(CBC) The British Columbia provincial government has sent firefighters to help with fires in Yukon that have scorched more than 1,300 square kilometres this summer – and have sent smoke as far west as the Panhandle of Southeast Alaska. One of the most dangerous areas is near the village of Carmacks where, according to Yukon Wildland Fire Management, 15 fires have burned through more than 110 square kilometres. The danger rating is listed as extreme, the highest rating, which means the fires are spreading extremely fast for extended periods. B.C...
A Canadian parliamentarian has submitted a bill in the legislature of British Columbia seeking to protect the Stikine, Nass and Skeena rivers Nathan Cullen, Minister of Parliament for the Skeena-Bulkley Valley of Northwestern B.C. has introduced a member’s bill that he says will put the protection back into what he calls a government-gutted Canadian Navigable Waters Protection Act. Cullen said he submitted the bill believing that the Conservative government of Canada has removed what he calls “9...
24 Alaska becomes the 49th state and M/V Chilkat becomes the first state owned ferry 1963 The Alaska Marine highway System is founded, providing many roadless communities with a way to “driove” from one town to the next. M/V Matanuska, M/V Malaspina and M/V Taku are built Service expands to Prince Rupert, British Columbia 1964 M/V Tustumena is built. March 27: Earthquake! Ports in Valdez and Cordova are damaged 1967 Service extended to Seattle, Washington. linking the system to the Lower 48 1974 M/V Columbia, the largest vessel in the fle...
Elmer Arnold Martens, 96, last surviving child of Alaska pioneers Loui and Ragnhild Martens, passed away peacefully of natural causes with his family at his side on April 14, 2013. Elmer was born in Petersburg, Alaska on May 23, 1916, the fourth child of the pioneer family. Elmer played on the Petersburg basketball team and had an abiding love of the game. He was a proud graduate of Petersburg High School and wore his “Petersburg Alumni” cap to the end. He fished on the Star with his father and... Full story
Absent from supermarket fliers this spring have been ads featuring the year’s first fresh halibut, reflecting the anticipated push back by buyers to the high priced fish. “No ads in the papers. No excitement this year,” said more than one major buyer. In recent years, dwindling supplies of halibut helped push up dock prices to more than $7/lb at major ports, and halibut fillets topped $20/lb at retail. That’s not the case this year. The fishery opened March 23 and the prices for first deliveries at Kodiak were reported at $5.25 - $5.75/l...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska's challenge to the Clinton administration-era roadless rule in national forests was rejected Monday by a federal judge, who said it came too late to be considered. The rule that was put into place in January 2001 restricts road construction in national forest areas without roads. The Bush administration in 2003 exempted the vast Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest at nearly 26,563 square miles on Alaska's Panhandle. A federal judge in March 2011 overturned that decision and the state of Alaska sued to o...
There’s lots of movement in Alaska’s salmon permit markets, but sales of catch shares are in a stall. Permit values are up and down depending on region, and interest reflects how the salmon runs have been coming in. For example at Bristol Bay, where sockeye runs for two years have been down and another lackluster season is expected this summer, salmon drift permit values have nosedived from a $165,000 high water mark in 2011 to around $90,000 now. “It’s hard to imagine they will go up a lot with a catch forecast of 16 to 17 million salmon...
