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Alaska's freshly signed capital budget includes state funding for a program meant to encourage land development. It's a single line: Statewide Housing Development, $4 million. But according to Republican Senator Bert Stedman of Sitka, that money could help shake loose some land for much-needed housing. He said there's a lot of land around the state, but it's not getting developed. "The economics don't work, due to the cost of the infrastructure, mainly the roads and the utilities," he said. "So...
Petersburg School District is the sole recipient in Alaska of a new grant designed to help schools source more food locally - in this case, through a partnership with Farragut Farm. PSD's food service program offers school breakfast and lunch, a fresh fruits and vegetable snack program in the grade school, an after school at-risk youth program, and also the summer food program; currently, the entire food service program is self-funded, according to PSD Food Service Program Director Carlee...
WRANGELL — A large audience turned out to hear an evolutionary biologist explain the connection between a dime-size piece of 3,000-year-old human bone found in a cave near Wrangell and present-day Alaska Natives, who welcomed the opportunity to return a distant ancestor to her final resting place. Charlotte Lindqvist, a professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo in New York, gave the presentation June 13 at the Nolan Center. The event focused on a bone fragment discovered in a cave on the mainland, across B...
University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service agent will travel by boat to nine communities in Southeast Alaska to teach classes on healthy living, food safety and food preservation. Sarah Lewis, the service’s Juneau-based health, home and family development agent, will head out on her family’s boat, the Pacific Sapphire, in July. She will visit Petersburg on July 31 – Aug. 1. Lewis will teach classes on food safety and preservation, healthy homes, and healthy eating. She will also give away free publications and test press...
After twenty three years working for the Petersburg School District, Superintendent Erica Kludt-Painter will retire on June 30. In early 2001, Kludt-Painter's dad told her there was a job opening for a principal in Petersburg, Alaska, and said he thought she'd like Petersburg, a town about the same size as her hometown of Orofino in rural northern Idaho. She jumped at the opportunity. Barb Marifern, who was on the hiring committee, said that after a series of phone interviews with each...
Cheyenne Steele How many years did you attend school in Petersburg? 13 years. What subjects or classes did you enjoy the most, and which ones challenged you the most? Shop and Jewelry; Math and History. Please describe a specific moment or event from high school that stands out as a highlight for you? Realizing that I was a senior and that it was my last year of high school. What are your immediate plans after graduation? Taking a gap year. What do you think you’ll miss most about high school, and what are you most looking forward to in the n...
Last weekend art students and teachers from nine Southeast Alaska high schools arrived in Petersburg by floatplane, Alaska Airlines, and jet boat to participate in the 28th Annual Region V Art Fest. This is the third time Petersburg High School has hosted the event. PHS art teacher Lisa Shramek, an Art Fest alumna, spearheaded the three-day event that brought sixty-eight students and sixteen instructors together for thirty hours of intensive art instruction and a lot of creative fun. The first...
April 11, 1924 – H.J. Jorgensen already has a large number of signers for a roadway proposed to be built from the city limits to Sandy Beach. It is a needed improvement. Sandy Beach in the summer time is the playground for Petersburg people, owing to the fine sandy beach there, and the roadway would give an outlet for autos and growing business interests. When roads were first started in Juneau, there were but a few autos, but with every mile of road built, the number of machines increased rapidly and the same will hold true for Petersburg. A...
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...
In 1986, two linguists, Ron and Suzie Scollon, drafted a proposal for the Sealaska Heritage Foundation to inaugurate a new kind of education, which they had developed with help from Tlingit scholars Nora and Richard Dauenhauer. It was an education that would prioritize building knowledge about the place you live in, the cultures you interact with, and the communication skills you need to flourish in an interconnected, media-saturated world. The Axe Handle Academy, as it was called, never became a physical school, but its curriculum and values...
March 7, 1924 – Of the many neglected products of our salt waters, none compare with the sea mussel in abundance, nutritiousness and palatability, according to “Fish Cookery,” by expert Dean John N. Cobb of the University of Washington college of cookery, published by Little Brown & Company. This book states that the mussel has a wide distribution, the Atlantic species extending down the eastern coast while a closely related species extends down the west coast to San Francisco on the Pacific coast, and is extremely abundant everywhere withi...
WRANGELL — A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Cen...
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...
In Sitka, an academic institution called Outer Coast is expanding into a two-year college - marking a major milestone for both the institution and higher education offerings in Alaska. For the last handful of years in operation, Outer Coast has offered post-secondary and gap year programs for highschool graduates, as well as summer seminars for high school students to earn college credit. While the year-long academic year programs and summer seminars cultivated Outer Coast's values and... Full story
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...
Now in its 15th year, the applied fisheries program at the University of Alaska Southeast draws students from across the state and across the country. Not just ocean states like Florida, but the Great Lakes state of Wisconsin, and even landlocked Wyoming and Kentucky this semester. “Our enrollment has been increasing,” said assistant professor Lauren Wild, who has taught in the program since 2020. Students attend online or, she said, if they live in an area without adequate and reliable high-speed internet service, the school will send the...
The first thing to know about the mariculture industry in Alaska is how much money and effort are going into making it a major economic driver for years to come. The second thing is that, aside from oysters, it isn’t profitable — yet. That’s kind of the point. A collective $110 million in public investment for mariculture in Alaska is flowing into the state, a federal Build Back Better wager based on the core assets of the region, predictions about future demand — particularly for kelp — and the general need for more sustainable food sources....
The air in town is crisp, leaves continue to fall and the mornings are turning frosty. Even with the bright sunshine seen in Petersburg this week, the season is certainly shifting. The transition of summer to winter brings more than a change in weather; seasonal industries shift, and the change prompts reflection. How did this summer go? Several of Petersburg's new tourism businesses look back on their 2023 season. VIKING TRAVEL James and Madeleine Valentine are the owners of Viking Travel, a...
October 19, 1923 – The Wrangell Commercial Club voted unanimously in favor of the division of a new territory out of Southeastern Alaska and voted unanimously in favor of holding a convention at Juneau to consider the question and to make arrangements to inaugurate a campaign to bring about the division. The action of the Wrangell Commercial Club was based upon the request of the Ketchikan City Council that the people of Southeastern Alaska give serious attention to the matter of Territorial division. The Wrangell Commercial Club, acting u...
A statewide effort to build up Alaska’s mariculture industry is looking to expand production at the same time it grows the market, particularly for kelp. “Everyone talks of the chicken-and-the-egg situation,” Juliana Leggitt, mariculture program manager at the Southeast Conference, said of what comes first: More kelp or more buyers. “There are definitely challenges in both.” The Alaska Mariculture Cluster, a consortium led by the Southeast Conference, has $49 million in federal money and $15 million in cash and in-kind matching funds to use ove...
David Dodsworth Wallen, a loving husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and friend, passed away at the Evergreen Health Center in Kirkland, Washington, on September 23, 2023, surrounded by his family. The oldest of eight children, David was born to Glenn and JoAnne (Dodsworth) Wallen on December 25, 1943 in Macomb, Illinois. He graduated from Western High School in Macomb in 1961, then attended the University of Washington, where he earned his Bachelors of Science in Oceanography. While pursuing a... Full story
Carl Edward Crome passed away on September 8, 2023 at United General Medical Center in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Officially, he died of complications from Alzheimer’s-related dementia and heart disease. But really, he died of a broken heart because he couldn’t fish anymore. Carl is survived by his wife, Judy, his brother Donnie, his children Carl Hensen, James Hensen, Julie Bartholoma, Linda Jackson, Lara Stark, and Daniel Crome, as well as many, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Car... Full story
After serving 44 years as plant manager, Dave Ohmer retired last Friday. Dave's grandfather, Earl Ohmer, co-founded Alaskan Glacier Seafood Co. in 1916. When Earl died in 1955 Dave's father, Dave P. Ohmer, continued the business, and in 1979 when his father passed away, the responsibility fell to Dave. Though it turned out to be his destiny, it hadn't been his plan. "I wanted to be a teacher," said Dave, when he sat down with the Pilot the day after his retirement. "My dad always wanted me to...
JUNEAU - The gray, two-story home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came over the weekend as a glacial dam burst in Alaska's capital, swelling the levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. The bursting of such snow-and-ice dams is a phenomenon...
