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Over the next five years, the Division of Forestry & Fire Protection (DOF) is proposing to harvest timber on thousands of acres of state lands in southern Southeast Alaska - including 1,213 acres on Mitkof Island. This preliminary plan was revealed in a Five-Year Schedule of Timber Sales (FYSTS) scoping document outlining the timber sale activity on state land in southern Southeast proposed by DOF, which is available for public comment until early April. It can be viewed at the Petersburg...
Seth Robert Perry was born June 10, 1975, in Salinas, California. An accomplished wrestler throughout high school, he graduated Petersburg High School with the Class of 1993. Seth was a loyal son, a loving father and devoted brother, once rescuing his younger brother from a house fire. Commercial fishing became a mainstay in his life, as did all things aquaculture, marine photography, and recreation in the Tongass National Forest. He was a talented cook and a natural host. Seth was preceded in... Full story
Gears are in motion for the Forest Service to revise its Land and Resource Management Plan - a process that invites public involvement and will take years to complete. The land management plan, or forest plan, provides guidance for future decisions and sets overall management direction. The existing land management plan for the Tongass National Forest was originally adopted in 1997 and amended in 2016. According to the USFS, plans are "strategic and broad in scope" rather than site or project...
The USDA Forest Service Petersburg Ranger District announced the final decision for the Thomas Bay Young-Growth Timber Sale on Feb. 22. With the specific goal of the timber industry's transition away from logging old growth to harvesting young-growth timber, the Forest Service weighed the regulations, strategies, public input and environmental considerations and selected a plan that will allow harvest of roughly 561 acres of young-growth forest -amounting to about 12.6 million board feet of...
Pharmacy Corner To the Editor: We would like to thank the community of Petersburg, and especially our patrons over the past two weeks, for your patience in the backlog of prescriptions services. As some of you may know, pharmacies across the country were basically shutdown in billing third parties due to a cyber attack that affected Change Health. Change Health is the billing transmission platform we use to relay what we bill to the insurance to receive the copays or coinsurance you pay at the counter. Our ability to communicate that...
Alaskans often like to complain — a lot, and loudly — about national groups sticking their noses and opinions into the workings of the 49th state. So, it’s only fair to extend a “thank you” when a national group puts up its money and time into doing something Alaskans like. The National Forest Foundation, chartered by Congress in 1992 as the official nonprofit partner of the U.S. Forest Service, is partnering with the federal agency to rebuild the popular public-use cabin at Anan Bay and, in an even bigger undertaking, building new cabins th...
January 18, 1924 – An overheated stove caused a fire early Wednesday forenoon which practically destroyed the residence of Mr. and Mrs. William Stedman. The house was occupied by Miss Grissinger, teacher in the local school, who lost many of her clothes and personal belongings. The fire was caused by the heating stove in the front room and started in the partition back of the stove and quickly burned its way through the ceiling and roof. The alarm was sounded by M.S. Perkins who discovered the flames shortly after they started. The fire d...
A Ketchikan woman faces a felony charge of first-degree arson after allegedly setting several small fires in her apartment before leaving the multi-unit building located on the 100 block of Inman Street on Saturday afternoon. Firefighters responded quickly to a report of smoke coming from the eaves of the building and were able to contain the fire to the one apartment, according to Ketchikan Fire Department information. There were no injuries. Belinda Nelson, 42, was taken into custody later in...
The U.S. Forest Service approved six new recreational cabin sites in the Petersburg and Wrangell Ranger Districts for development in a final decision notice signed on Jan. 17, 2024. Out of eight potential sites proposed in the October 2023 draft decision, the final decision approved all three sites in the Petersburg district -Keex' Kwáan, Blind Slough and Woodpecker Cove Road- and three of five sites in Wrangell district - Fools Pass, Little Lakes and Mustang Lake. The USFS has already...
When Scott Roberge was in college, he made his way to Petersburg in the late 70s and worked at the cannery, then Icicle Seafoods, with a friend. With a beat up, old aluminum canoe and a couple of days off from work, the pair of pals paddled out from Petersburg and made their way to LeConte Glacier. "It was incredible - to be that close and really immersed into it," Scott recalled. "I love being out there. I didn't want a nine to five job." They camped, something Scott loves to do, in a couple...
Almost 110,000 Alaskans applied for the fall 2024 Permanent Fund dividend in the first eight days after the application period opened on Jan. 1. Applications close in 11 weeks, on March 31. Last year’s dividend was $1,312. This year’s amount will be determined as part of annual state budget deliberations, which will begin next week when legislators reconvene in Juneau. The annual dividend is paid from the state general fund, which gets most of its money from investment earnings generated by the $78 billion Alaska Permanent Fund and from oil...
In January The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously voted to award the construction contract for the Blind Slough Hydroelectric refurbishment project to McG/Dawson Joint Venture for an amount not to exceed $5,744,000. The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved an ordinance in its first reading that would rezone a lot located at 10 N. 12th Street for commercial use. The rezoning was requested by the Petersburg Indian Association ahead of their prospective purchase of the lot, which h...
"Landless" legislation passed a new milestone on December 14 after winning approval of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee. The bill still has a long way to go to become law. But if it does, it would return land to the original occupants of five Alaska Native communities in Southeast Alaska. Those communities were left out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement that the omission was "hampering their...
The Wilderness Society conservation group has changed its position and now supports a bill that would create five new Alaska Native corporations in Southeast Alaska. It historically has opposed the creation of the new corporations. Federal legislation would create for-profit Native corporations for five communities left out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The settlement act transferred almost a billion dollars and title to 44 million acres to Native corporations to make profits and issue dividends to Native shareholders....
Clear-cut logging To the Editor: I thank Mike Schwartz for his thoughtful letter to the Editor regarding the Landless Native bill in last week’s Pilot. The point regarding the traditional Native philosophy of Native stewardship of the land was both beautiful and sad at the same time. Beautiful to read how the timeless principle of reverential respect for Mother Earth guided the stewardship decisions of the Native peoples on the lands of S.E.Alaska since time immemorial. Sad to think how that beautiful philosophy from the past played out in t...
To Whom It May Concern To the Editor: I am 82 years old now. My great-grandchildren are seventh generation of family residents growing up in Petersburg. Kay and I were adopted and given Tlingit names by elder Pete Marten, Senior, fifty years ago, into a Tlingit society that has been scientifically and indisputably proven to exist in S.E. Alaska for over 10,000 years and literally hundreds of generations. Thirty years ago, Spencer Israelson, who spent his youth at Point Agassiz, took me to the mainland and showed me many petroglyphs that he and...
For some, the holiday spirit doesn’t kick in until the evening of Dec. 24, when the stockings are already on the mantle. For others, Christmastime is a monthslong extravaganza that starts when the last trick-or-treaters say goodnight and ends sometime in late January, when the Christmas tree is a pile of needles on the floor. The right time of year to put up a tree is a deeply personal decision, but regardless of your holiday decoration timeline, the annual Spotify spike of “All I Want for Christmas is You” streams has already begun, and the f...
After a yearlong public process, the U.S. Forest Service has announced eight potential sites for new recreational cabins in the Petersburg and Wrangell Ranger Districts. After considering the environmental impacts and accessibility of hundreds of sites suggested by members of the public or identified by staff, the district picked the ones that are most likely to see substantial traffic and compete for federal funding, and announced them in a draft decision published Thursday, Oct. 19. There are...
The state of Alaska, a coalition of business groups and a pair of electric-power organizations have opened a new round in the generation-long fight over environmental protections in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. On Sept. 8, the state and two other groups of plaintiffs filed three separate federal lawsuits to challenge a Biden administration rule restricting new roads in parts of the forest, which is home to some of America’s last stands of old-growth trees. Each lawsuit asks U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason to ove...
A legal challenge by the state to the Biden administration’s reinstatement of the roadless rule, banning logging and road building on more than nine million acres in the Tongass National Forest, was filed Friday, Sept. 8, in federal court. The complaint continues more than two decades of battles over the roadless rule protections initially enacted in 2001 under a policy initiated by then-President Bill Clinton. In recent years then-President Donald Trump nullified the policy and opened the forest area to development, with the administration o...
August 10, 1923 – Henry McCloskey, 20 year old native boy, was shot through the index finger of his right hand this week at Allen Bay when a 25-35 rifle was accidentally discharged. The young man was fishing and had stuck his rifle butt in the mud. He reached for the gun and in pulling it toward him the piece was accidentally discharged, the bullet striking McCloskey in the finger. He was brought to town and the member was amputated by Dr. Jones who also injected tetanus antitoxin as a preventative of lockjaw. August 6, 1948 – New fac...
Scientists and staff with the U.S. Forest Service are hopeful that the blackheaded budworm outbreak that began three years ago throughout the Tongass National Forest is beginning to decline. Data collected earlier this year revealed not only the extent of the damage done by the half-inch insect but evidence showed the worms are dying off. Elizabeth Graham, an entomologist with the Forest Service, said in a news conference on July 20 she has seen firsthand that there is lower activity of the bug...
After just barely falling short of his goal last year, Andrew Simmonds managed to complete a seven-mile swim across Frederick Sound on July 15. Simmonds-a physical therapist at the Petersburg Medical Center-started his crossing at Petersburg's Sandy Beach at 7:01 a.m. His first steps into the water marked the beginning of what would become a seven-hour long battle that pushed him to his limits. However, the challenge truly began for Simmonds when he arrived in Petersburg back in October 2021...
John Edgington was born in southern California and after high school he went to Alaska for the first time as a summer stream guard for the Department of the Interior, before Alaska statehood. After meeting and marrying the love of his life, Michale, at Oregon State University, John completed his Masters degree in fisheries at University of Idaho. He became a biologist for the State of Oklahoma and after the birth of his daughter Sarah, the family moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where John worked... Full story
WRANGELL - Competitors made of the toughest stuff have less than a month to train for the Tongass Toughman Triathlon in Wrangell. Triathletes put their endurance, strength and fortitude on display in a contest which covers a combined 72.2 miles of water, pavement and earth. The race, which will unofficially kick off the Fourth of July festivities throughout town on July 1, starts with a swim of 1.2 miles to City Dock from a starting point out in Zimovia Strait. Once athletes reach the dock and c...
