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June 13, 1924 – With the Reverend John Flint absent, Sunday broke clear and beautiful and the long deferred picnic of the Lutheran Church Sunday School was held at Sandy Beach. Several power boats, one of them a tow, were taxed to their capacity to take and bring home the crowd. The day was ideal. The older folks lunched and watched the youngsters play games. Several braved the waters and enjoyed bathing and swimming. Sandy Beach is all its name implies. It is a beautiful crescent-shaped cove about three miles from Petersburg, where a lodge b...
The Biden administration says that listing numerous Alaska king salmon populations under the Endangered Species Act could be warranted, and it now plans to launch a broader scientific study to follow its preliminary review. Citing the species’ diminished size at adulthood and spawning numbers below sustainable targets set by state managers, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced its initial conclusion in a 14-page federal notice on May 23. It said a January 2024 listing request from a Washington state-based conservation group had m...
The Alaska Marine Highway System’s ongoing crew shortage has eased up for entry-level steward positions but remains a significant problem in the wheelhouse and for engineers, likely keeping the Kennicott out of service again this summer. As of March 8, the state ferry system was short almost 50 crew of what it would need to put its full operational fleet to sea this summer, which means keeping the Kennicott tied to the dock, Craig Tornga, the system’s marine director, reported to a state Senate budget subcommittee on March 19. That is abo...
March 21, 1924 – Since Petersburg has been having such splendid weather and all of the snow has gone, and the frost is out of the ground, considerable building, improving of land and clearing of lots have started. Chris Wick has enlarged his house and built a splendid basement. Hans Zahl has been assisting Mr. Wick. Jack Matison and Billy Worth have built new houses and are now finishing the interiors. Anton Noried is clearing his lot and laying the foundation for his house. Mr. Noried’s lot is beside the lots of Thomas Lando and Louie Sev...
The recent dictate that our Governor sent to our legislature as well as the residents of Southeastern Alaska was clearly the wrong message. The Governor proposed replacing the Alaska Marie Highway System (AMHS) board with members of solely his own selective choosing. His action lacks a certain sensitivity that is clearly contrary to the advantage of having local community participation in advisory groups. It has been said that true leadership is not done by the one who proposes to do great things, but rather by one who motivates the people to...
Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Jan. 26 were far short of the 81 needed for full staffing, Craig Tornga told a gathering of community, business and government leaders at the Southeast Conference on Feb. 7 in Juneau. “We’re short in the wheelhouse,” he added, down eight from a full contingent of 79 in the master, chief mate, secon...
WRANGELL — The borough assembly has declared as “hazardous” and assigned a property value of zero to the two lots owned by victims of the deadly Nov. 20 landslide at 11-Mile Zimovia Highway, making the owners eligible to possibly receive state land as replacement for their unusable property. The owners or their estate could build on their new lots, hold them undeveloped or sell them and keep the proceeds, explained Hannah Uher-Koch, who runs the land grant program at the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mining, Land and Water....
With the rusty Matanuska out of service pending repairs, the Kennicott scheduled for tie-up due to lack of crew and the Tazlina in the shipyard to add crew quarters, the state ferry system’s draft summer 2024 schedule is limited by the number of vessels in service and looks about the same as this past summer. The Columbia would make a weekly northbound stop in Petersburg on Sundays and a weekly southbound visit on Wednesdays on its run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. The marine highway system released its draft schedule D...
During a virtual public open house last Tuesday evening, Alaska Marine Highway System Marine Director Craig Tornga gave a brief update on the status of the agency's capital improvements as well as its operating challenges. Operating challenges "Crewing is still a big struggle for us," Tornga said. The system operated six ferries all summer, though it had hoped it would be able to recruit enough crew to run the Kennicott as a seventh vessel. But "we have crews for about five and a half (ferries). There is a large shortage across the national...
The five-person board in charge of drawing Alaska’s legislative districts will pay $400,000 to settle financial claims brought by a group of East Anchorage plaintiffs who successfully challenged the boundaries of Eagle River’s state Senate district last year. In total, the state will have paid more than $600,000 to settle financial claims resulting from what the Alaska Supreme Court called “an unconstitutional political gerrymander.” Two smaller financial claims by other plaintiffs remain unresolved, but Friday’s decision by the redistric... Full story
The state wants to send the Matanuska, the oldest vessel in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet, into a shipyard for the equivalent of a full-body scan. Management wants to find out just how much of the ship's steel has rusted, and how far the rust has eaten into the thickness of the metal. The 60-year-old Matanuska has been tied up at the dock in Ketchikan since last November, waiting for the state to decide whether to repair the vessel and restore it to working order, or give up on the...
In 1935 Dick Estelle’s parents worked in the Matanuska Colony, part of the New Deal resettlement of displaced farmers. After an admittedly rocky high school start, he ended up attending the University of Alaska with an agriculture scholarship. He also attended Oregon State in landscape design, after which he taught at Tanana. With time and more education, he joined the U.S. Forest Service in Petersburg. Though he enjoyed drawing and sold his art, he always called himself a photographer. After r...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state board of education last Wednesday delayed action on a proposal that would bar transgender girls from participating on high school girls’ athletic teams in Alaska, with several board members saying they wanted more time to consider the issue. Opponents of the proposal called it discriminatory and unconstitutional and said it would likely lead to litigation. Supporters, including Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, said it is needed to ensure fairness in girls’ sports. The board heard more than 2 1/2 hours of publi...
July 6, 1923 – Two youthful “Penrods” weary of the humdrum routine of life in their hometown of Wrangell and determining to strike out boldly in search of adventure, boarded the Jefferson as stowaways on the last trip south of that boat, bound for the great outside world. By playing a skillful game of hide-and-seek, they managed to dodge the officers and members of the crew for a time, but finally an unkind fate brought the culprits to the attention of Captain Livingstone who, in spite of their boyish pleadings, wired Mrs. Jack Cool to meet the...
Petersburg will go without any southbound ferry service in alternating weeks from Oct. 1 to mid-November under the Alaska Marine Highway System's draft fall/winter schedule. The town is on the schedule for its usual weekly northbound stop during that period. The rest of the winter schedule shows once-a-week service to town in each direction, with the bonus of two stops in each direction the second week of each month from mid-November through February when the Kennicott will shorten its...
The Alaska Marine Highway System, which five months ago embarked on improving its hiring process to address chronic crew shortages, is unable to say how many new employees it has hired since then. The push started after a consultant’s report in January determined the state had hired just four out of 250 job applicants the over prior 12 months. The crew shortage forced the state to pull the Kennicott, the second-largest operable ship in the fleet, off this summer’s schedule and keep it tied up at the dock in Ketchikan. Asked how many new emp...
The Columbia state ferry has cancelled its sailings for at least a week due to a mechanical issue, affecting stops at ports between Haines and Bellingham, Washington, according to a service notice by the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS). The primary interruption to service is a seven-day period starting Wednesday, with a sailing from Ketchikan to Bellingham and back through Southeast Alaska cancelled, the AMHS notice issued Monday notes. The decision is due to a "mechanical issue with the ves...
Brad King, the current principal at the K-12 school in Gustavus, visited Petersburg over the weekend as a candidate for secondary school principal. He's lived in Southeast Alaska ten years, serving as principal in Hydaburg and then Gustavus. Before that he was the district curriculum coordinator in the Fairbanks school district. A teacher for 14 years before turning to administration for the last 19, King still tries to teach a class at every school he works at. He's taught social studies, Germa...
Though Wrangell appears to have led the state with its overall 56% increase in assessed property values this year, residents in Petersburg, Juneau and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough also are receiving significantly higher assessment notices in the mail this month. Cordova, Nome and Valdez, too. Average home values in the Alaska communities are up 10% to 20%, part of a nationwide trend of rising property values the past few years as construction costs escalated, the supply of homes for sale was tight and buyers tried to close on deals before...
The Alaska Marine Highway System is short more than 100 new crew to safely and dependably put the Kennicott to sea. Without enough onboard workers, the state ferry system will start the summer schedule in six weeks with its second-largest operable ship tied up for lack of crew. Though management has said they could put the Kennicott into service if they can hire enough new employees, filling all the vacancies would represent more than a 20% gain in current ferry system crew numbers, setting a very high hurdle to untie the ship this summer. The...
Just eight weeks before the start of the summer timetable on May 1, the Alaska Marine Highway System has released its schedule and opened its online reservations system for bookings. The schedule, which was announced March 7, came later than usual this year as the state continues to wrestle with crew shortages that will keep a couple of ships tied to the dock for the summer. Petersburg will see a weekly ferry stop in each direction May through September. “The Kennicott and Tazlina will be off-line for the time being due to skilled crew s...
The Alaska Marine Highway System is working faster to hire more crew, trying to fix problems that slowed the process so much the past four years that the state failed to keep up with retirements and resignations. The hiring process was so cumbersome and excessively choosy that the state brought aboard just a few new workers out of 250 applicants forwarded by a search agency over the past year, according to a January report from the recruitment contractor. “Since 2019, AMHS has lost more staff annually than recruitment efforts can replace. F...
In a change of plans from just a few weeks ago, the Alaska Marine Highway System reports it lacks enough crew to operate the Kennicott this summer. The loss of the Kennicott from the schedule likely would mean dropping service to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and the loss of two additional port calls in Petersburg each month, May through September. It also could jeopardize state ferry service to Yakutat on the cross-gulf route, and abandoning plans to run the Kennicott to Bellingham, Washington, once a month to help move the heavy load of su...
An ongoing shortage of crew is the “No. 1 risk factor” for the Alaska Marine Highway System, Transportation Department Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith told legislators. As of a Feb. 2 presentation to the Senate Transportation Committee, the ferry system was short just over 100 crew for full staffing to efficiently operate the winter schedule, about a 20% vacancy factor for onboard employees. The ferry system, however, is able to run its schedule with crew members picking up extra shifts and overtime to cover the work, and with man...
The federal ship has come in for the Alaska Marine Highway System, carrying more than $284 million for upgrades to old vessels, money to help pay for a new ferry, dock repairs, additional service to small communities and even a proposed electric-powered ferry for short runs. The Federal Transit Administration announced the awards last week. The grants were awarded under a competitive application process, but Alaska’s congressional delegation wrote the provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2022 with the intent of s...
