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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A brown bear mauled two wilderness guides who were leading a hiking excursion in Alaska after the group came between the female animal and her cub in the Tongass National Forest, state troopers said Friday. The guides a man and a woman were rescued by the Coast Guard after being injured Thursday on a trail on Chichagof Island about 30 miles north of Sitka in southeast Alaska. Troopers said the bears left the area after one of the victims used pepper spray. Authorities said they have no plans to hunt down the bear, and t...
WRANGELL – Last week a new public cabin was added to Wrangell Ranger District’s list, with the U.S. Forest Service’s administrative camp at Deep Bay converted into a two-building recreational site. The cabin will be the district’s 23rd, and its first on Zarembo Island, located about five miles to Wrangell’s southwest. Due to its proximity and size, Zarembo is a popular destination for locals in the mood for activity, be it hunting, camping or taking the all-terrain vehicle out for a spin. The cabin is primarily accessible by two approache...
WRANGELL – Events for the 7th Annual Bearfest are already underway, with the first two workshops and symposium presented yesterday at the Nolan Center. The annual activity was started in 2010 by Sylvia Ettefagh, an outfitter with Alaska Vistas and commercial fisherman. Drawing a number of notable speakers and participants each year, Bearfest serves to highlight the local bear population, particularly that found at nearby Anan Wildlife Observatory. About 30 miles southeast of Wrangell, the o...
Overwhelming generosity To the Editor: We, as a family, continue to be overwhelmed by the generosity and outpouring of support and love from Petersburg, our family, and our friends. Thank you. It does make a difference. I cannot say that we are doing okay, but we are surviving and slowly, more accepting of our loss. A very bright light in our lives has gone out, but we have many more. Joey and Josh, our families, friends, folks from Electra, Texas, and the amazing community of Petersburg. All of you lighten our lives, and are helping us...
Navigating the Wrangell Narrows can be tricky, if not treacherous, depending on the vessel size and time of year. On June 14, Britta Adams of Ketchikan became the first known individual to swim the body of water from south to north. "I just knew that I had a tide, and I had six hours," she says. "My goal was to get from Marker 1 to Marker 42, the end of Pinball Alley, and everything beyond that was just a bonus." The water was 48 degrees when Adams jumped in at 4:45 a.m., and 15 minutes later... Full story
July 1, 1916 – Captain A. W. Thomas, general manager of the Alaska Herring and Sardine Company, at Port Walter, was a business visitor in town. He states that they are confident of having a prosperous season. They have not started the work as yet of putting up the sardine herring, but are canning kippered herring and preserving the fish in other fancy styles. Twenty-three girls and twenty-two men are now employed at the Port Walter plant. They have a large quantity of herring corraled. Captain Thomas visited the Petersburg shrimp plant, and h...
Visitors will soon be able to request the last four daily permits for the Anan Wildlife Observatory this summer. Requests will be made by filling out a form at the front desk of the Wrangell Ranger District office. Individuals listed on the form must be physically present at the time of request, with the exception of family members. Weekly requests will be collected by Mondays at 4:30 p.m. and awarded on Tuesdays by noon. If several requests are for the same day, a lottery for awarding reservation space will be held on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. If...
April 15, 1916 – A new course of procedure in the matter of changing master's papers, which will be of great convenience to Petersburg's boats, is being arranged by the customs officials at Juneau, according to word brought from there by K. L. Steberg this week. The plan as stated by Deputy Collector Garfield is as follows: Owners of boats at Petersburg that wish to change papers without making the trip to a port of entry they will be permitted to have the master's oath taken here before a notary public. The notary is then to mail the papers t...
wrangell — A crowd-drawing discussion on recreation funding held by the Forest Service Tuesday evening made the council chambers at City Hall feel unusually short for space. About two dozen members of the public met with staff of the Wrangell Ranger District to share their concerns about facilities maintenance. Listing concerns from greatest to least, residents participating at the meeting identified cabins, ATV trails and the overall recreation program as their top priorities, followed by trails, berry access, subsistence and stoves. F...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly approved a Petersburg Planning Commission letter regarding a proposed amendment to the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan. On its website, the U.S. Forest Service stated an amendment was needed after U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack directed the Tongass to transition its management plan to be more ecologically, socially and economically sustainable. “An amendment is needed to accelerate the transition to a young-growth forest management program, and to do so in a way that preserves a vi...
State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss Tomkins and Alaska Department of Revenue Director Ken Alper gave a state budget crisis presentation for community members two weeks ago. They used colored blocks of wood representing different revenues and expenditures balanced on a large scale to provide a visual representation of the state's budget deficit and the continued gutting of our state's savings should the legislature not create a more sustainable budget for the state. On the revenue side of the scale sat a... Full story
January 29, 1916 – Sergeant Wardell received word yesterday morning that his successor, Sergeant Michael McLaughlin, from Fort Worden, Wash, will arrive here on the next steamer from Seattle. Mr. Wardell will probably leave for the south next week. He is to go on duty in the cable office at Seattle. Fourteen degrees below zero, at an early hour last Saturday morning was the lowest temperature noted by Sergeant Wardell at the radio station during the prevailing cold snap. At six o' clock yesterday morning the mercury stood at zero. The t...
Ned Pence, 78, passed away January 15, 2016 peacefully at home. Ned was born on July 21, 1937. He grew up in Mackay, Idaho, with his parents and four brothers. In 1955 he left Mackay to attend the College of Forestry at the University of Idaho to study Forest Management. He received his B.S. degree in Forest Management in 1959 and married Arleen Westfall, the love of his life in Salmon, Idaho. After graduation he worked at many jobs as a professional forester in Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and... Full story
Permits will soon become available for those wanting an opportunity to visit Anan Wildlife Observatory this summer. Known primarily for its abundance of bears, the observatory was identified as Wrangell’s top attraction by a survey conducted by the city last summer. According to Forest Service records, Anan draws between 2,400 and 2,800 visitors each summer. These travelers contributed around $1.5 million to the local economy in 2014, making up more than a third of all tourism-related spending. Starting Feb. 1 at 8 a.m. the public will be a...
WRANGELL - Members of the community were invited to the Wrangell Ranger District Office on Jan. 13, to meet and greet with some of the minds behind the latest proposals for the future Tongass management plan. The United States Forest Service is amending the current Land and Resource Management Plan for the Tongass National Forest, which is the largest in the country. Covering 16.7 million acres in Southeast Alaska, 3.4 million acres of that has been set aside for resource development. The...
The U.S. Forest Service announced Dave Zimmerman as the new Tongass National Forest Petersburg District Ranger. Zimmerman will arrive from Medford, Ore. where he served as the Timber and Special Forest Products program manager for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. "My current national forest is 1.8 million acres spread across five districts, so working on a district of similar size to my former forest will be exciting," Zimmerman said in a press release. "This will necessitate continued...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A federal agency has concluded that a southeast Alaska wolf affected by logging and hunting does not merit placement on the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that Alexander Archipelago wolves on Prince of Wales Island and neighboring islands do not warrant additional protections. “Although the Alexander Archipelago wolf faces several stressors throughout its range related to wolf harvest, timber harvest, road development, and climate-related events in Southeast Alaska and coastal Brit...
9 marks a quarter of a century for this weekly column that targets Alaska’s seafood industry. At the end of every year, I proffer my ‘no holds barred’ look back at the best and worst fish stories, and select the biggest story of the year. The list is in no particular order and I’m sure to be missing a few, but here are the Fishing Picks and Pans for 2015: • Most eco-friendly fish feat: The massive airlift/barge project led by the Dept. of Environmental Conservation that removed more than 800,000 pounds of marine debris from remote Alaska be...
The future Mitkof Project To the Editor: Recently Forest Supervisor Stewart withdrew the Mitkof Project citing local industry concerns and the opportunity to better serve an ongoing, market based transition to second growth. The question for Mr. Stewart is “What is being done to further support the transition for central S.E. communities”? This question is especially pertinent given the deteriorating markets for Tongass old-growth that is being milled in China. Why should federal taxpayers proceed to subsidize any further timber dev...
Laura L. Nelson, 70, went home to heaven on November 17, 2015, in Cape Coral, Fla. after battling pancreatic cancer. She was born on March 14, 1945 in Gore, Ohio to Dolly and Hazel (Breeze) Hartman. She grew up one of five siblings in rural East Clayton, Ohio, graduating from Nelsonville York High School in 1963. Following a cross-country move with her two children, she met and married Lester Nelson of Eugene, Ore. in 1978. Enjoying a career with the U.S. Forest Service that spanned decades,... Full story
Sealaska has shamed themselves To the Editor: Last week in Petersburg, Alaska's newest environmental group 'The Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community,' (gsacc.net) gave a slide show on the latest industrial logging now taking place on state land, Sealaska land and other land grant interests. The slideshow consisted of images from 'Google Earth' satellite overviews of Sealaska lands on the Cleveland Peninsula, and also on P.O.W.'s Election Creek and other examples. Needless to say, the push to privatize land from the Tongass National...
In a media release last month, the United States Forest Service Alaska Region announced it is proposing a system-wide cabin rental fee adjustments for the Chugach and Tongass national forests. The two forests are managed by 13 ranger districts, which together maintain 184 cabins year-round for public use. For visitors and residents alike, public cabins become the hub for a variety of recreational trips, from nature walks, family gatherings, hunting and sport fishing to subsistence use. Cabins are most regularly booked during the summer and...
Last month, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) agreed to withdraw their plans to harvest over 28 million board feet from designated sites on Mitkof Island by use of helicopters. The proposed logging sites, located south of Petersburg, were stretched out among just over 4,100 acres. The withdrawal comes after five environmental groups brought a lawsuit against the USFS to block the sale. Greenpeace, Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community (GSACC) were among the environmentalist groups responsible for the...
Alaska author and historian James Mackovjak's latest book, "Alaska Salmon Traps" details the sordid history of salmon traps, and the lasting impression they left within the state. This week, Mackovjak traveled to Petersburg to give a presentation about his book to over 20 locals at the Public Library, and then took time for a book signing and reception hosted by the Clausen Museum. In 1889, Congress outlawed barricades as a means for catching fish, but salmon traps slipped through the cracks...
Three concerned Petersburg and Kupreanof residents spoke out against a resolution being considered as part of last Thursday’s Borough Assembly agenda. Though three Assembly members—Mayor Mark Jensen, Bob Lynn, Nancy Strand—voted in fav or of the resolution, four votes were needed for it to pass. The resolution would have called for the governor to petition for an appeal of the Ninth Circuit court’s late July ruling which overturned the Tongass National Forest’s exemption to the Roadless Rule. The Wrangell Borough and Ketchikan Gateway B...
