Sorted by date Results 276 - 300 of 336
Patricia "Pat" Lee Walden (Ray) of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., died suddenly on Thursday, July 24, 2014, in Mount Vernon, Wash. Pat was the first of three children born to Lee Ray and Shirley Menne. She was born on August 28, 1955 in Redding, Calif. Pat grew up in the Concrete and Newhalem area of Washington State and graduated from Concrete High School in 1973. In 1978, Pat married Douglas Lawrenson of Burlington, Wash. During their marriage they had three children. At the time of their marriage,... Full story
Four past and present Petersburg artists will have their work on display in the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council’s Main Street Gallery from July 4-25. Artists Joe Viechnicki, Susan Christensen, Pia Reilly and John McCabe are all transplants to Petersburg but have lived here for decades. Their work explores themes common to island living and the Pacific Northwest including community, isolation, solitude, beauty, strength and loneliness. Christensen recently returned to Seattle after living in Petersburg for many years. She currently p...
Keep moving, Petersburg To the Editor: Petersburg Mental Health staff is grateful for the generous people that made the second annual Pedometer Challenge happen. We couldn't have done it without Mark Kubo’s amazing tracking skills, Erin Michael and Colleen Jaeger at Public Health serving as the distribution center, local businesses (Hammer and Wikan and Skate of Gear) for their contribution, and the Petersburg Indian Association for providing amazing grand prizes. Thanks to you and to all the participants. Petersburg's entire step count during...
JUNEAU (AP) — The Native regional corporation for southeast Alaska has reported losses of $35 million, with blame going to a subsidiary in Hawaii. CoastAlaska reports Juneau-based Sealaska is reporting the net loss for 2013. Sealaska says 75 percent of the loss was from a construction company based in Hawaii, which had underestimated two federal projects. The managers of the subsidiary have been fired, and it is no longer bidding on similar projects. The other losses were related to efforts to lobby Congress to transfer timber lands in the T...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly will discuss the impacts of the University of Alaska timber sale on South Mitkof Island after two members of the community shared their concerns last week. Dave Beebe represented the City of Kupreanof and spoke before the assembly. He cited studies by Geologist Dr. Douglas Swanston from the 1970s regarding unstable slopes and potential landslide issues posing threats to public safety. “Essentially the whole state holding is documented as unstable slopes within a half mile of pubic roadways,” Beebe said. “If... Full story
In the face of declining funding for the Tongass National Forest, Petersburg Ranger District managers are looking to the public for help to figure out which type of recreation programs and facilities will stay and which will go. “We’ve come up with a general niche that we think would be suitable for the community, suitable for the district to continue to maintain in the future,” Petersburg District Ranger Jason Anderson said. “But it does leave stuff off the map. There are certain things that aren’t going to get addressed and the idea was...
JUNEAU (AP) — The threat of fires in the nation's largest national forest has subsided. CoastAlaska reports Tongass National Forest Fire Information Officer Seth Ross says a fire warning has been rescinded. Continued dry, warm weather last week prompted the warning. Hunters, hikers, boaters and campers were asked to be extra careful in extinguishing fires because conditions were right for fire activity. Ross says it appears the area is now coming out of that warm, dry period into normal Southeast weather and that prompted the cancellation of t...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ Continued warm, dry weather has prompted a fire warning for all of Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. Fire Management Officer Seth Ross tells CoastAlaska that he isn't predicting large blazes. But he says hunters, hikers, boaters and campers sure be extra careful because conditions are right for fire activity. People should attend their fires at all times and make sure they are completely out when they are no longer being used. Fires are not common in the Tongass rainforest. But Ross says there's an average of...
JUNEAU (AP) — A divided federal appeals court panel has sided with the state of Alaska in reversing a decision that reinstated the roadless rule in the Tongass National Forest. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision Wednesday, found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had articulated ``a number of legitimate grounds'' in a 2003 decision to temporarily exempt the Tongass from the roadless rule. A lower court judge, in 2011, had found the decision to be arbitrary and capricious. The appeals court panel sent the matter b...
JUNEAU (AP) — House Democrats have confirmed Sam Kito III as the newest member of the state Legislature. He was sworn into office on Wednesday, Feb. 26. Gov. Sean Parnell last week chose Kito from among three candidates forwarded by the Tongass Democrats to fill the House seat vacated when Juneau Democrat Beth Kerttula resigned for a fellowship at Stanford University. Kerttula resigned Jan. 24. Under the law, the appointment must be confirmed by members in the same chamber and of the same political party as the person who previously held the s...
The Tongass Democrats announced yesterday its process for selecting three nominees to fill the Juneau House District 32 seat vacated by Rep. Beth Kerttula. Interested individuals should send a cover letter and resume to tongassdemocrats@gmail.com no later than January 27, according to a Tongass Democrat press release. The organization has elected a committee that will review the prospective candidates. It will then send Gov. Sean Parnell a list of three candidates by February 4. Parnell will select one of the three individuals proposed by the...
The Petersburg borough assembly unanimously voted in Bob Lynn by paper ballot to serve on the assembly seat left vacant by Sue Flint after she stepped down in early November. Lynn served on the committee charged with developing the borough charter the assembly now has the task to implement as it continues with borough formation. Lynn said he was actively against borough formation initially. “But now that it’s done, it’s time to move on and see what we can do to make the charter represent all the people who live in the borough,” Lynn said. Lynn... Full story
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Two environmental groups say the federal government is taking too long to decide whether a subspecies of gray wolf found in southeast Alaska old-growth forests should be considered for endangered species protection. In a letter Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether additional protections are needed for Alexander Archipelago wolves, which are found on Prince of Wales Island and are genetically distinct from other wolves in the Tongass National F...
KETCHIKAN — The changing face of visitation on the Tongass National Forest, along with the reality of shrinking budgets, has prompted Tongass managers to begin strategically planning for the future of the forest’s 152 recreation cabins. Increasing costs and declining funding resulted in a $600,000 budget shortfall in the forest’s cabin program this year. In the strategic plan, managers aim to identify cabins that are underused, dilapidated, or otherwise unsustainable, and explore how the forest can refocus available funding on those cabins whic...
WRANGELL — Local U.S. Forest Service employees express frustration with the ongoing government shutdown this week. The Wrangell Unit of the Tongass National Forest has been closed for 15 days following negotiations between the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate Oct. 1. The office’s 28 employees have been instructed call a 1-800 phone number each day to determine whether the office will be reopened, according to Forest Service Ranger Bob Dalrymple. Dalrymple himself and one other per...
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski intervened on behalf a Wrangell daycare operator after a US Forest Service officer issued her a citation in July for picnicking with her daycare children at Middle Ridge in the Tongass National Forest. US Forest Service Law enforcement officer Doug Ault fined Marilyn Mork $375 for operating a business on federal land without a permit. Mork said former U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski caught wind of the situation, made a copy of the citation and sent it to his daughter, Senator Murkowski. Murkowski happened to be meeting...
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski and Petersburg residents had a conversation Tuesday night in the Sons of Norway Hall about community, regional and state issues. The first subject Murkowski brought up was the less than ideal condition of the Petersburg jail. “You were in the running with Bethel for the worst city jail,” Murkowski said. “And now Bethel’s (jail) is looking pretty good. You win the prize in my view, of all the communities that I’ve gone to, for the worst conditions.” Murkowski f...
July 26, 1913 – The Day is rapidly approaching when there will be no “waste places” of the earth. Modernism is sweeping aside all the old customs, traditions and habits of the world and there is no spot too remote or too small to escape his attention. A railroad is piercing that Africa where Livingstone faced countless deaths and where scores of other explorers found weird animals and strange men, to add to the truthful “fairy story” of nature's wonders. Australia has ceased to be a land of oddities and is yielding to the Anglo-Saxon's push and...
SITKA — Half a century of Sitka history in a 61-foot steel hull is being auctioned off by the U.S. Forest Service. The M/V Sitka Ranger, which entered service in 1959 as the floating presence of the Forest Service in the Tongass National Forest, is on the auction block. Roy Mitchell, deputy regional fleet manager for the Forest Service in Anchorage, said the Sitka Ranger and its sister ship the M/V Tongass Ranger are being auctioned off because there’s no longer enough field work in the cou...
Dean John Weeden, 82, passed away on July 17, 2013 at St. Mary's Assisted Living in Eureka, Mont. He was born on November 7, 1930 in Lynn, Mass. to Dagny Thoresen and John Sven Weeden (Widen). Age five to seventeen he lived in Brooklyn, N.Y. with his mother and step-father Ole Olsen. Dean hopped a train out west when he was seventeen years old launching his first job in the Forest Service doing seasonal work in Idaho. In 1951 he served in the Air Force as a Surgery Technician for the 452 Bomb...
The Tongass National Forest issued its Record of Decision and Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Big Thorne Project last week. The decision allows for the harvest of 148.9 million board feet from approximately 6,186 acres of old-growth and 2,299 acres of young-growth near Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island within the Thorne Bay Ranger District. According to Tongass National Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole, the U.S. Forest Service believes the action could help stabilize the timber industry in Southeast Alaska as the...
Local preference To the Editor: I attended the Borough Council Meeting on July 1, 2013. I was disappointed to see attendance was so low but maybe the listening audience was large. Other than Department Heads, Councilpersons, me, Joe Viechnicki and the new police chief, there was only one other person present. Acting Mayor Sue Flint conducted a short, sweet, and to the point meeting that everyone appreciated. Bravo. There were two things that bothered me. The first was personal in that they are going to enter into a contract with Mike Renfro...
