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Petersburg celebrated its second annual Amy Hallingstad Day on June 28, honoring the life and legacy of the late Alaska Native rights activist. She was known for helping to desegregate schools in Alaska, as well as advocating for better healthcare for Alaska Native people and equal pay for female cannery workers. Amy Hallingstad was a prominent advocate for tribal sovereignty. She helped incorporate Petersburg Indian Association as a federally recognized tribe in 1949. Last year, over 50 years... Full story
Kito's Kave Bar and Liquor Store – one of Petersburg's two downtown bars and a well-known late-night spot – now has new owners. Jake Dougher and his brother-in-law, Anders Rosvold, took over the bar last week after the liquor license transfer was officially finalized. "We were just wanting to do something more local, more hands-on, just be a little bit more involved," Dougher said. Dougher moved to Petersburg about a year ago with his wife, a Petersburg local, Bergen Rosvold. Both have been wor...
From 2013-2023, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins represented Alaska's 35th district, including Petersburg, in the Alaska House of Representatives. Kreiss-Tomkins returned to Petersburg on July 5, this time as a candidate for governor. He held a meet and greet at Kito's Kave where he chatted with community members and delivered a speech. Kreiss-Tomkins grew up in Sitka. At the age of 13 he developed a passionate interest in politics. And by age 14, he launched a statewide grassroots campaign for then...
The Petersburg School District approved the budget for the next fiscal year on June 30. Due to higher projected student counts, one-time state funding and one-time energy relief funding, the district anticipates receiving roughly $900,000 in additional revenue to spend. Much of that money comes from the Alaska Legislature's approval of up to $115 million in one-time funding for districts. But, that funding is contingent on oil prices staying high. The state Department of Revenue has until the... Full story
Petersburg Borough Assembly advanced its wireless communication facilities ordinance through a second reading Monday, adopting 10 more amendments that drew sharp criticism from residents — and some misgivings from assembly members themselves — even as the assembly voted 5-0 to keep the process moving. Ordinance 2026-14A would amend Title 19 of the municipal code to regulate cell towers and other transmitters, requiring them to be reviewed as conditional uses with public notice and Planning Commission approval while remaining consistent wit...
Petersburg Municipal Power and Light will not add a diesel surcharge to customers’ bills this year to recover the cost of running the borough’s generators during the annual Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) maintenance shutdown, Utility Director Steve Harbour told the Borough Assembly on Monday. Each summer, SEAPA takes its transmission system offline for maintenance, and Petersburg must power the community entirely from its own generation. Roughly 75% of the borough’s electricity normally comes from SEAPA, with the remaining quarter gener...
The Borough Assembly voted 5-0 Monday to send a letter to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities asking the state to add pedestrian routes to its winter snow-removal work in Petersburg. The letter, prepared by Mayor Bob Lynn, focuses on non-motorized corridors that the borough says become unusable and unsafe when snow and ice go uncleared. It singles out the sidewalks and pedestrian routes along Haugen Drive leading to the Petersburg James A. Johnson Airport and Sandy Beach Park, and the Libby Strait bike path, which the...
The Petersburg Fire Department is hosting a free training that teaches everyday civilians how to react and be prepared for emergencies. The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) three-day training sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be held at the fire station July 10-12, 2026. Alisha Sell, with Tlingit and Haida, is travelling from Juneau to teach the course. Aaron Hankins, Petersburg Emergency Services Director, will learn the course and hopes to then become an instructor and continue to reoffer the course in the comm...
Abbey Jackson Ferree, from Petersburg now living in Fairbanks, swam solo across the English Channel on June 21, crossing from England to France - around 40 miles in 14 hours and 23 minutes. The swim is Abbey's second leg of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, following her completion last August of the 28.5-mile 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan Island. A third event - the Catalina Channel, off Southern California, which she has a window to attempt in September - would complete the set, a...
The Alaska Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Alaska Division of Elections to include Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg on the primary ballot as a candidate for U.S. Senate. The ruling upholding a lower court’s decision came just hours after oral arguments in a fast-tracked case ahead of the division’s deadline to certify and print primary election ballots at noon on Tuesday. A full opinion on the case will be issued at a later date, the court said. The decision ends a weekslong saga between the state and the challenger with the same name Republic...
Petersburg's Fourth of July weekend schedule has been released for an eventful three days in the town–the traditional two-day local holiday celebration on the 3rd and the 4th and with an additional third day celebration on Sunday, July 5th featuring a community potluck to celebrate America's 250th birthday. Parks and Rec facility supervisor Julie Anderson, Chamber of Commerce Director Kelli Slaven, and Robyn Cardenas took the lead on planning this year's celebrations. July 3 It all begins w...
Two high-quality interactive web cameras have recently been installed atop Five Finger Lighthouse – one of the world's most renowned humpback whale watching locations. The Five Finger Lighthouse Society (FFLS) installed a similar camera earlier this year at the lower boathouse level. Now, there are two more atop the lighthouse – one facing north, one south. The FFLS is a Petersburg-based non-profit organization. All summer, the lighthouse is maintained by volunteer keepers, who stay in the lig...
Petersburg burned notably less diesel than usual during this month’s annual Southeast Alaska Power Agency maintenance shutdown, as mild weather, low industrial demand and customer conservation combined to ease the borough’s reliance on its backup generators even as fuel prices spiked, the borough’s utility directors said. With SEAPA’s hydroelectric feed offline, Petersburg Municipal Power and Light ran on diesel generation and the Blind Slough hydro plant. Outgoing Utility Director Karl Hagerman said the utility budgets for 10 days of diesel ru...
JAG Ketchikan LLC, which began operating the state-owned Ketchikan Shipyard in September, has secured a nearly $100 million contract for a service-life extension project involving a federal research vessel. The $99.6 million contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for its Rhode Island based fisheries survey ship Henry B. Bigelow has a start time of June 6 for procurement of long lead-time materials and an estimated completion date of April 14, 2029, according to information from NOAA and the Alaska Industrial...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge on Tuesday agreed to expedite a lawsuit whose outcome will determine whether the namesake challenger of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan will appear on the state’s Aug. 18 primary ballot. Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews, in a status hearing Tuesday, said the case was moving at a “very, very fast pace.” “I can make every effort that I can to get a decision out as quickly as possible,” he said. The challenger, Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg, filed an appeal to the court Monday after Carol Beecher, head of the Alask...
The Petersburg Indian Association is celebrating the second annual Amy Hallingstad Day this week with a full slate of events, anchored by a four-day Tlingit culture class and culminating Sunday in an outdoor gathering to honor Amy Hallingstad. The week opened Tuesday evening with Elder's Night, a community dinner at which PIA welcomed Sitka elder George Bennett Sr. and his wife, Mary. Bennett's "Tlingit 101" class began Wednesday and runs through Saturday at John Hanson Sr. Hall, with Amy Hallin...
Petersburg voters will decide this fall whether to raise the town's sales tax cap. Petersburg's sales tax is 6%. Currently, sales and services are only taxed on the first $1,200, which means tax on a single purchase is capped at $72 max. Now, the Borough wants to raise that cap to $300 by changing the taxable amount to $5,000. Borough officials say Petersburg has the lowest cap among major towns in Southeast Alaska. The cap has been adjusted only once since it was established nearly 70 years ago...
A U.S. Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crashed near Sitka during a routine training flight on Monday morning, with the four crew members aboard rescued and brought to Mount Edgecumbe Medical Center, according to officials. In an updated press release on Monday afternoon, the Coast Guard reported that all four crew members are safe with non-serious injuries. “We are incredibly relieved our crew members survived with only minor injuries,” said Rear Adm. Bob Little, commander of the Coast Guard’s Arctic District. “We are grateful for the swi...
Summer has arrived, and, these days, summer in Petersburg means electric scooters all around town used for transportation, often by youth. The 17 Levy electric scooters that showed up in town in August of 2024 are locally owned by Stikine Services, run by Wes and Angie Davis. A few years ago, the Davises, when traveling to Nashville, noticed electric scooters around the town, and thought they would be a valuable addition to the Petersburg community. "Everyone we have talked to loves them, and...
Due to construction that began on May 18, the Aquatic side of the Parks and Recreation building will remain closed, without a set reopening date. The remainder of the building is still open – just without power. Contractors have been cutting concrete to access drain lines beneath the locker rooms. The process has been lengthy and has experienced some setbacks, but safety remains the priority. "I absolutely will not compromise for my safety, for the contractors, our staff, patrons, and the f...
Karl Hagerman will retire June 30 as Petersburg's utility director, closing a 33-year career with the borough that carried him from an entry-level water and wastewater worker to the head of two municipal departments - and, during the gaps between managers, to several stints as interim city manager. "This is the last full week, two days next week, and then we'll be done after 33 years and seven or eight odd months," Hagerman told the Pilot. Born and raised in Petersburg, Hagerman started with...
On Monday, Petersburg's Dan Sullivan was deemed ineligible to run for the office of United States Senator by Alaska's Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher. "My determination in this matter is final. Although you have 30 days to appeal this decision." In a letter to Sullivan on Monday, Beecher stated that his filing for Senate "was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy for the office of United States Senator, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or...
Two weeks after rejecting it, the Petersburg Borough Assembly on Monday approved the sale of a borough parcel to Tidal Network for a wireless communication tower - with all four members who had blocked the deal switching to yes and the resolution passing unanimously. Resolution 2026-16 authorizes the sale of an approximately 0.23-acre borough-owned parcel to the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, doing business as Tidal Network. The resolution had failed 2-4 at the...
On Friday, June 12, botanist Joni Johnson led a "Friends of Raven's Trail" invasive plant walk. She informed attendees what harmful invasive plants look like, as well as what they could do to stop their spread. "I'd like more people with more eyes and more willingness to help pull plants," Johnson said. "It's Whack-a-Mole, it's everywhere... more people that are willing to play Whack-a-Mole, the better we are at preventing the march of invasive plants up the hill." Johnson throughout the hike...
