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Sorry, there is no resemblance To the Editor: Can Alaskans trust the government of British Columbia to act honestly, responsibly and openly as B.C. authorizes and proposes to manage a series of mines (up to six of them) in the watersheds of some of the greatest, wildest and most productive watersheds in North America? Is BC “basically the same” as Alaska, as Mines Minister Bennett claims, when it comes to process and regulation of industrial activity? There is no question B.C. has a “mine approval” process, but make no mistake, it is vastly...
The 8th Annual Rainforest Festival kicks off next week and those attending the festival are going to be offered diverse opportunities, including watching an impactful documentary about a basket weaver, a field trip to listen for bats and wine-making with local ingredients followed by wine tasting. Things get started on Labor Day with the 2nd Annual Rainforest Run Half Marathon. Participants will be faced with the task of completing the 13.1 mile long course. Organizers are hoping to increase... Full story
August 14, 1915 – The fast and commodious launch Trigby will leave Petersburg next Monday for Cape Fanshaw, Port Houghton, Pybus Bay, Tyee, Warm Springs Bay, Kuiu Island points, and Kake. Such is the announcement of S.L. Hogue, who this week purchased the Trigby from Conrad Dahl. It is Hogue's intention to make a trial trip to the points above listed, and if it appears that business will justify the enterprise, to make weekly return trips, carrying passengers, mail, and freight, and also to take orders for and deliver merchandise to people a...
The first seagoing electric powered passenger vessel in the U.S. is set to launch next summer in Juneau. The E/V Tongass Rain is a 50 foot, 47 passenger catamaran designed for eco-education and whale watching tours. Its primary fuel source will be rain, delivered to the boat via Juneau’s hydroelectric power grid and stored in a bank of lithium batteries. The more modern batteries are less than half the weight of a traditional lead acid battery, and they provide three times the power and charge three times as fast, said Bob Varness, president a...
Deer hunting season began for Alaska residents and nonresidents in much of the Unit 3 management area last Saturday, lasting through Nov. 30. Bow hunting on Mitkof Island and the Petersburg Management Area, hunting on the remainder of the Mitkof, Woewodski and Butterworth islands, and residential hunting on the Lindenberg Peninsula portion of Kupreanof Island all begin on Oct. 15, and are subject to other limitations. Outlooks for this year’s season for Sitka black-tailed deer are much the same as last year, with smaller harvests expected t...
The US Forest Service and Korpela Construction crews have broken ground on a new half-mile portion of the Raven's Roost Trail. Construction began July 17 on the section which will connect the new trailhead that was built last year-beginning across from the Sandy Beach parking lot-to the existing trail that winds through the muskeg behind the airport up into the Tongass National Forest. The new portion of trail will be similar to the half-mile portion of easy-grade, gravel trail built last year.... Full story
July 31, 1915 – John A. Einmo, for the Pacific Mildcure Company, on Tuesday purchased 182 barrels of herring from Louis Seiversen, of the seine boat John P., and 31 barrels from R. Enge. The price paid was $9.00 per barrel. The fish were repacked and started on the way to Eastern markets Thursday. Fifty-five barrels of herring were also shipped to other purchasers. July 26, 1940 – Three aids to navigation were relighted during the past week and one permament change will be made, according to the weekly notice to mariners issued by the Coa...
The United States Forest Service (USFS) announced the next step has been taken in a land deal with Alaska Mental Health Trust (AMHT), after signing an Agreement to Initiate on June 30. The agreement as currently envisioned could see the transfer of nearly 40,000 acres of state and federal lands between the two agencies. For AMHT, the deal will allow it to develop the lands’ timber and mineral resources. Founded by Congress in 1956, AMHT is a state corporation set up to assist the state in funding its mental health program. The trust manages l... Full story
A limited number of Anan Wildlife Observatory permits will be made available at the Wrangell District Office. Visitors are required to obtain a permit to visit the observatory from July 5 through August 25. Earlier this spring the United States Forest Service began using the National Reservation System for those wishing to visit Anan, 30 miles to Wrangell’s southeast. To facilitate the transition to this new system, up to four permits per day will still be offered through the Wrangell District Office using a weekly lottery. To apply for one o...
KETCHIKAN (AP) — Alaska State Troopers are asking for help in their investigation of the death of a woman found floating off Ketchikan. The body of 34-year-old Angeline Tanya Dundas was recovered Thursday in Tongass Narrows about a quarter-mile from the Coast Guard Base in Ketchikan. Troopers say they took a call on the body at about 1 a.m. Troopers and Coast Guard personnel recovered the body. An autopsy has been scheduled to determine the cause of death....
Five of Alaska Marine Highway System’s 11 ferries will be laid up at some point next year under a draft vessel deployment plan released on June 24. The Taku will be held in layup status the whole year, while the Kennicott will be from October until entering overhaul in early January. The Fairweather and Chenega will enter federal projects in October and mid-September, respectively, and will both be laid up starting in May 2016. The Malaspina is also scheduled to enter layup status in late May of next year. Under the draft schedule, from O...
KETCHIKAN – As the Fourth of July holiday approaches, residents, visitors and campers are reminded that all fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited in the Tongass National Forest. “People assume the restrictions apply just to developed recreations areas managed by the Forest Service, including campgrounds, picnic areas and day use areas,” said Forest Fire Management Officer Tristan Fluharty, “but no fireworks or pyrotechnic device of any kind may be discharged anywhere within the National Forests, regardless of weather conditi...
WRANGELL — The United States Forest Service this month released a new fact sheet regarding wild salmon populations in the Tongass National Forest, available online and at the agency’s various offices. “It’s to demonstrate to the public just how important salmon are,” explained Martin Hutten, a supervisory biologist with the Wrangell Ranger District. The facts speak pretty clearly for themselves. The waters of the Tongass National Forest produce more wild salmon than all other national forests combined. Supporting these populations, TNF biologis...
JUNEAU (AP) — Congress is picking up a bill that would create corporations for residents of five southeast Alaska communities left out of a landmark land settlement decades ago. The bill authored by U.S. Rep. Don Young went before the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs Wednesday, the southeast Alaska radio network CoastAlaska reported. The Alaska Republican chaired the hearing. Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced similar legislation. Haines, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Tenakee were e...
Petersburg has moved from its wettest April on record to what’s looking to be its driest May. Despite rain Wednesday and more precipitation forecasted for today (Thursday), this May is “definitely still looking like it’ll be the driest,” said meteorologist Geri Swanson with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Juneau. Petersburg still had less than 0.3 inches of rain Wednesday afternoon, and was expecting less than a 10th of an inch with the day and Thursday’s forecast — the area’s “best chances” for rain before moving back into a high pressur...
Not common for the area, a short-lived thunderstorm caused a minor disturbance in Petersburg on Tuesday. At about 3:10 p.m., a lightning strike hit a tree, transformer line and transformer, putting "the whole island in the dark," Petersburg Municipal Power and Light Superintendent Joe Nelson said. "The tree was kind of hurt bad, the transformer line is OK, the transformer was destroyed and had to be replaced," he added. That work took about an hour and a half before power was back on. The transf...
After a nine month process, the Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC) has approved its recommendations for a transition to young-growth timber in the Tongass National Forest. “It’s a pretty complex set of recommendations, but there were two important pieces, I think,” TAC Co-Chair Lynn Jungwirth said: agreement on the timberland base and what to do with it. She added that TAC agreed to a no-net-loss of the existing young-growth land base last week, and to “a different kind of forestry” in which timber comes out as habitat, recreational and touri...
Tongass concerns To the Editor: Dear Mr. Jason Anderson (Deputy Forest Supervisor, Petersburg Ranger District), The board of directors of the Greater Southeast Alaska Conservation Community collectively represents over two hundred years of experience on Tongass conservation issues. We are writing this open letter to express our displeasure on 2 counts: the skewed process the Forest Service used to form the Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC), and the predictably skewed product that committee is fabricating as evidenced by the current Draft...
The City of Kupreanof has asked the state to reconsider its proposed Southeast State Forest Management Plan. City Councilor David Beebe wrote a letter on the city’s behalf and submitted it during a public comment period that ended April 30. Representatives from the Division of Forestry traveled across Southeast Alaska to collect feedback and provide information on the plan during public meetings last month. It would affect over 3,800 acres on Mitkof Island. Beebe wrote that the plan “relegates the Southern Southeast State Forest to that of an i...
Comments are still being accepted for the proposed Southeast State Forest Management Plan that has raised some concerns among Petersburg residents. The plan applies to lands designated by the Legislature in 2010 and 2011 as the Southeast State Forest, which has the primary purpose of timber management. It’s meant to guide long term management of the lands and identify policies to be followed. The plan includes a total of 4,467 acres in the Petersburg Management Area: 664 in the Rowan Bay Unit on Kuiu Island, 890 in the Frederick Point Unit, 1...
John Kenneth Pickens III, 60, died peacefully on April 11, 2015 in hospice care in Sterling, Va. Death resulted from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The Alexandria, Va. native lived in Petersburg, Alaska, but had returned to the Washington D.C. area last year for medical treatment. He was born in DC and grew up in Alexandria. He graduated from T.C. Williams High School in 1972 and Virginia Tech in 1977. John worked for Beiro Construction in Alexandria from 1978 to 1990 and for the U.S.... Full story
ANCHORAGE (AP) – An iconic Alaska tree may warrant protection as a threatened or endangered species due to climate warming, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday. The agency will begin a status review of yellow cedar, a tree revered and used by Native Alaska cultures and valued as of high value to the timber industry. The decision is great news for the Tongass National Forest and for yellow cedar, said Rebecca Noblin, an attorney in Anchorage for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that petitioned to list the...
Environmental organization Earthjustice announced last Friday groups it is representing in a trio of lawsuits opposed to U.S. Forest Service’s Big Thorne timber sale have filed two notices of appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, following the dismissal of their suits by a federal judge in a March 20 ruling. The Big Thorne sale involves the harvest of around 6,200 acres of forest on Prince of Wales Island and includes the clearcut of old-growth rainforest. Klawock-based mill Viking Lumber was awarded a contract last September to h...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A logging project in the Tongass National Forest is closer to beginning after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservation groups. KTVA reports U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Service on Friday. The Forest Service last year approved selling 6,000 acres of old growth trees for logging as part of the Big Thorne timber project on Prince of Wales Island. Environmental groups have raised concerns about how the logging would affect wolf and deer populations. The Forest S...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ The supervisor of the Coconino National Forest in Flagstaff, Arizona, will move north to become supervisor of the nation's largest national forest. The Juneau Empire reports Earl Stewart has been named supervisor for the Tongass National Forest, which spans more than 26,500 square miles in southeast Alaska. The U.S. Forest Service in an announcement says Stewart likely will take the new position in May but a start date hasn't been decided. Stewart says working in the Tongass is a lifelong dream. He will replace Forrest...
