Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 7158
Subscribers can use the link below to access this week's PDF Edition, or use the E-Editions button on the homepage for all of our current and archived PDFs. Click here to view this week's PDF. Thanks for subscribing!... Full story
The first reading of an ordinance that would raise Petersburg electric utility rates by 4% starting on July, 1, 2026 came before the Petersburg Borough Assembly at last week’s meeting. The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 7–0 to advance Ordinance 2026-08, which updates electric utility rates and charges for fiscal year 2027. The increase was identified through the borough’s Waterworth financial forecasting software, which Utility Director Karl Hagerman implemented last year in place of the previous rate study process. For a typical residential...
The 68th year of Little Norway Festival opens Thursday, May 14, for four days of parades, smørbrød, live music, competitive herring-tossing and all manner of communal revelry that could only happen in this town. The celebration runs through Sunday, May 17. "I love that everybody comes to town," said Kelli Slaven, who coordinates the festival schedule for the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. "I love seeing all the people downtown - the kids running, familiar faces and new ones. It just kind of mak...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly approved the first-reading of an ordinance increasing the borough’s marine passenger fee by $3 per passenger, from $5 to $8, effective January 1, 2027. The fee is assessed once per cruise on marine passenger vessels upon first entry into any borough port. The borough has collected the fee since March 2018, using it to offset costs tied to cruise traffic — including restroom cleaning, janitorial services, library operations during the tourist season, and bridge and trail maintenance. The ordinance cites substantia...
After 36-years leading Petersburg's Séet Ká Kwáan Dancers, Kash Kaaní Jeanette Ness is retiring and passing leadership of the group to veteran dancers Kalxeich Kayla Perry and Xáay Sháawát Laurel McCullough, both of the Wooshketaan clan. In 1989, Ness was on the parent committee for the Johnson O'Malley (JOM) program for Native students. The committee decided to hold a Potlatch in March 1990, inviting over 300 JOM students from Southeast Alaska to Petersburg. "Ruth Demmert of Kake came over t...
Petersburg is home to skilled quilters, knitters, and other textile artists, but it's been years since the island town had a dedicated craft store. That changed on Wednesday, May 6, when Olivia Martinsen opened Tangled Thread. The bright, colorful craft store is tucked into the first floor of the Petersburg Indian Association's Hallingstad-Peratrovich building. Martinsen has a little bit of everything: yarn, fabric, embroidery supplies, weaving materials, felting options, and lots of crafty... Full story
WRANGELL – Free public Wi-Fi is available at Shoemaker Harbor thanks to a partnership between the borough and Tidal Network, a program of Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The wireless internet service, which covers the general area of the harbor, has been operating successfully for more than two months and sees new users daily, according to Chris Cropley, director of Tidal Network. “We wanted to come up with a system that would provide a meaningful service to the people of Wrangell and anybody who’s coming into...
WRANGELL — Officials from the Southeast Alaska Power Agency and the Wrangell borough are working on a plan to bring a solar farm and battery storage system to the island, a move aimed at stabilizing the power grid. The regional power provider is looking for federal funding to pay most of the cost. The solar panels and batteries are estimated at $6 million. The project was the centerpiece of a town hall meeting May 6 at the Nolan Center, where roughly 25 residents gathered in person and online to hear about the future of their utility s...
This year's Little Norway Festival is bursting with music. Local acts take the festival's downtown main stage across Friday and Saturday this year, spanning jazz, classic rock, Appalachian folk and everything between. Evening shows at Kito's Kave and the Harbor Bar keep the live music rocking and the dance floor bumping into the middle of the night. And the weekend closes with a classical music piano concert at the Lutheran Church. "I absolutely love it," said Robyn Cardenas, who curated the...
Sally Dwyer will arrive at Sons of Norway Hall at 5 a.m. this Saturday as she has been doing for the past 50 years. Dwyer coordinates the smørbrød - the traditional open-faced Norwegian sandwiches - served at the Sons of Norway Kaffe Hus, held Saturday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Sons of Norway Hall on Sing Lee Alley. Even for those 18 years when she didn't live in Petersburg, she flew home for every festival to continue the traditions. Dwyer's preparations this year include 150 m...
"Anchor's Aweigh!" keeps the cast in constant motion, but not just since it's set on an old schooner, the SS Flounder. Intrigue and misadventure keep the characters coming and going, not to mention the fact that they're aboard for a singles cruise. After a long day at Little Norway, it'll be a treat for the audience to take a seat and watch the Mitkof Mummers work their magic. This magic doesn't make itself though. The Mummers have rehearsed 4-plus nights a week since March, all leading up to...
Mike Corl grew up with softball in his bones. He remembers that there were games practically every night. There was a local softball league. "Back 25, 30 years ago, I'd be in Little League or my mom would be playing softball," he said. "There were lots of teams. Traveling teams." That era wound down eventually, and the league went with it. But the tradition found a way back has been a fixture of the Little Norway Festival ever since, returning this year with six teams, roughly 80 players and...
Walk downtown Petersburg during Little Norway Festival and you'll find artwork just about everywhere you look. It's in the galleries and on the walls of pop-up shows. It's on the parade floats. And it's in the storefronts of Petersburg-Wrangell Insurance, IGA, First Bank and Wells Fargo - where the students of Rae C. Stedman Elementary School have their work on display for anyone passing by. "[The festival] is quite a concentrated experience of visual creativity," said Firelight Gallery owner Ma...
Somewhere along the way, a trunk ended up in the Clausen Memorial Museum's storage. Nobody knows how it got there. It has no museum reference number, no donation record, no accompanying note. What it does have is a name, carved into the wood: Gertrude, Arnie's daughter. "We don't know where it came from at all," said Anne Lee, curator at the Clausen Memorial Museum. That trunk - "an America trunk," the kind Norwegian emigrants packed for a one-way journey to the States - became the seed of the...
The Little Norway Festival closes Sunday evening with a world class piano concert at Petersburg Lutheran Church. Corbin Beisner - a concert pianist who has performed at the Conservatoire Liceu in Barcelona, the Liszt Saal in Rome, and concert halls across Europe and the United States - arrived in Petersburg this week for a 7 p.m. recital Sunday at Petersburg Lutheran Church. The program includes the complete Moonlight Sonata, a full Grieg section, Christian Sinding's "Rustle of Spring" and...
Construction on a long-planned sewer line repair project at the Petersburg Community Aquatic Center will begin May 18, and the pool will close for at least the first month of work as contractors cut through concrete slab floors to access blocked and disconnected drain lines beneath the locker rooms. Parks and Recreation Director Stephanie Payne told the Petersburg Borough Assembly on Monday that the project, carried out by Ketchikan Mechanical Inc. and Rainforest Contracting, will run through...
Petersburg’s street sweeper is back on the job after a weeks-long breakdown, as the borough and the Alaska Department of Transportation race to clear months of accumulated safety sand from local roads ahead of Little Norway Festival week — and ahead of the annual repainting of lines on the state’s highways. The heavy sand load is evidence of the region’s punishing winter. Relentless snowfall through the season required repeated applications of sand and grit to keep roads safe, leaving more material on the ground than a typical year. Getting...
Petersburg juniors and seniors will get a crash course in adult financial life Friday morning when Tongass Federal Credit Union hosts its biennial Get Real Financial Reality Fair at the Parks and Recreation gym. The fair works like a high-stakes simulation game. Each student arrives at a registration table, picks a career and receives a corresponding income, then works their way around a circuit of staffed tables — buying a home, choosing transportation, selecting health insurance, setting up a phone plan and managing daily expenses — all while...
Petersburg Medical Center Youth Programs is heading into summer with roughly 1,300 hours of programming planned, a slate of new and redesigned camps, and a message for families who might think the cost puts it out of reach: help is available. “If your kid wants to participate in a program, we’ll get them in a program,” said Katie Holmlund, who directs the PMC Youth Programs. Several successful former summer programs are returning, as are many of the mentors who run them. Holmlund said 75 percent of this summer’s staff are returning mentors...
The Petersburg Public Library and the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program are offering two youth programs this summer, backed by a new grant that will help cover the cost of both — part of a broader menu of learning and outdoor opportunities available to Petersburg kids in the coming months. The library’s annual reading program is returning in a new form this summer, rebranded as the Great Summer Challenge and running from June 5 through July 19. Program Coordinator Kari Petersen said the six-week initiative is open to children ages zer...
The U.S. Forest Service is organizing a push to clear invasive plants from the lower Raven Trail this month, with volunteer opportunities open to the public. Forest Service invasive species coordinator Joni Johnson told the Petersburg Borough Assembly on Monday that two maintenance problems have been building along the lower trail: the spread of invasive non-native plants, and sod-forming vegetation encroaching on the trail tread itself and contributing to erosion. Reed canarygrass, she said,...
SEARHC cut the ceremonial ribbon on its new $300 million Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka on April 23. The event for the five-story, 234,528-square-foot facility featured a traditional blessing, a welcome and addresses by leaders of SEARHC and the Sitka community. Charles Clement, SEARHC president and CEO of 14 years, said in his remarks, “This has been a real challenging project to pull together, beginning to end.” “It has come to represent much more than a building for me,” said Clement, of Metlakatla. “It represents our commitmen...
A free Tai Chi program at Petersburg Medical Center has quietly been building a following since fall 2023, and this month it's opening the door to new participants with a beginner class starting May 13. The program is part of a substantial four-year federal grant focused on fall prevention, administered through the Administration for Community Living under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The grant funds two evidence-based programs in Petersburg: Bingo Size, an exercise and...
On a Friday afternoon in Jill Lenhard's class, the sound of crying babies filled the room – crying robot babies, that is. The babies were new, and the class, including Lenhard, was still figuring out how to use them. "I took one baby home to see how it all worked, and I took it home in a grocery sack because I didn't want to walk down the street carrying a baby," Lenhard told the class. "But then when I got home and I laid it on the counter my husband was like, 'What is this?!'" These robot b... Full story
The state ferry Columbia, the largest vessel in the fleet, has been delayed a second time coming back to work on the busy summer route between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. The ship is now scheduled to make its first northbound run from Bellingham on June 5, according to the Alaska Marine Highway System’s online reservations site. The state will keep the Kennicott on the route until the Columbia is ready to go back into service. When the Columbia returns, the Kennicott will tie up at the dock in Ketchikan. The Marine Highway S...
