Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 7335
Students in Petersburg High School's new Emergency Trauma Technician course spent two days this month learning to cut into wrecked vehicles, then used those skills to free a volunteer "patient" from the cab of an overturned pickup. The training took place Thursday, Oct. 8, and Friday, Oct. 9, at the borough baler facility at the landfill, where several junked vehicles slated to be crushed were held back for the exercise. Six ETT students and 10 students from the high school's Certified Nursing...
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!...
A fire damaged part of a Petersburg apartment complex about two miles south of town on Friday, Oct. 16. No occupants were in the building when firefighters arrived, but a pet dog died in the incident, according to Volunteer Fire Department spokesperson Dave Berg. He said the apartment unit is now "uninhabitable because of the smoke and fire damage." Petersburg police, fire and EMS were called to the scene at a four-unit apartment building on Cornelius Road around 11:38 a.m. About 15... Full story
Petersburg experienced a power outage on Monday, Oct. 19, after a regional hydropower supplier’s system went offline. The town ran on diesel generation until around 8:00 p.m. once the supplier’s feed was available again. Petersburg gets much of its electricity from Southeast Alaska Power Agency, or SEAPA, which also supplies power to Wrangell and Ketchikan. Those two communities also reported outages Monday morning. SEAPA was working on its Tyee hydro project and needed to take its power feed offline on short notice, according to Pet... Full story
A Petersburg student biking to school was injured in a collision with a car on Oct. 15. The student is with their family and receiving care at the local hospital, according to Superintendent Robyn Taylor on the day of the incident. "As they were heading towards the school, a vehicle pulled out of a [parking lot], and the student and the vehicle struck paths. So, the student was injured," Taylor said. Taylor declined to share the child's name or grade, citing privacy concerns. Multiple sources... Full story
Petersburg's newest musical group held its first rehearsal Oct. 14 in the Petersburg High School band room. Matt Lenhard, the school's former band director, is starting the Petersburg Community Jazz Band, an ensemble for adult musicians. Before the first players arrived, Lenhard compared the evening to the start of a school year. "This is weirder than the first day of school," Lenhard said. "Because at least on the first day of school, I have a roster and I have some idea of skill level." He...
The Oktoberfest Art Share returns to the Petersburg Community Gym on Saturday, Oct. 24, for its 50th year, with a full slate of local artists, crafters, nonprofits and food vendors. Doors open to the public at 10 a.m., and the event runs until 3 p.m. The Muskeg Maleriers, Petersburg's longstanding rosemaling group, host the event. Sally Dwyer, one of the Oktoberfest organizers, remembers that a local arts council started the art share 50 years ago, but after four or five years the Maleriers...
Petersburg audiences will get a sampling of four centuries of Western drama later this month, when a cast of local adults and high school students stages a theater revue built from six scenes from six plays. The show runs 7 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, and 7 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, at Wright Auditorium. Tickets are $10 and are available at Lee’s Clothing and at the door. Organizer Elsa Wintersteen, who teaches drama at Petersburg High School, said the format will be new to many local theatergoers, who are more used to full-length productions l...
The Viking Swim Club’s annual auction returns this Saturday. This year’s theme is “The Price Is Right.” “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a few years,” said organizer Marlena Newman. “So it’s been really exciting to watch it come together.” The auction will be held Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Sons of Norway Hall. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., dinner will be served around 6:30 p.m. and the live auction will begin shortly after. Tickets are $50 and available at Lee’s Clothing. Jamie Cabral serves again as auctioneer. “His energy is just unm...
Abbey Jackson Ferree – who grew up in Petersburg, swam for the Viking Swim Club and now lives in Fairbanks – swam across the Catalina Channel off Southern California on Sept. 11. The crossing made her the third Alaskan ever to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. She entered the water off Santa Catalina Island at about 11 p.m. on Sept. 10 and reached the mainland shortly after 11 the next morning. Her official time was 12 hours, 2 minutes and 55 seconds, for a crossing of about 21....
The Petersburg Borough Assembly took two steps toward regulating data centers on Oct. 5. In a 6-0 vote, members directed Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht to draft an ordinance establishing a nine-month moratorium on certain data center development. In a second 6-0 vote, they directed him to begin drafting amendments to Title 19, the borough’s zoning code, to address data centers specifically. Neither vote puts rules in place yet. The moratorium and any zoning changes must each come back to the Assembly as ordinances and pass three readings. The...
Getting rid of solid waste - trash, in a single word - is expensive in Alaska, particularly in Southeast communities that lack road access to haul and dump garbage in a nearby landfill. "It's a problem that's never going away," said Tom Wetor, director of Wrangell's Public Works Department and a board member of the Southeast Alaska Solid Waste Authority, or SEASWA. The collection of nine Southeast municipal governments, in conjunction with the Southeast Conference and a consultant, has been work...
Petersburg certified the official tally of votes for its municipal election on Oct. 9, finalizing the results. When the polls closed on election night, there were two questioned ballots and two mail-in ballots outstanding. The questioned ballots were invalid. The outstanding ballots did not arrive before the Petersburg Borough Assembly met as the canvass board to certify the results on Friday. But those potential votes would not have changed the outcome of the preliminary results - at least not... Full story
The Petersburg Medical Center has received a three-year grant from the state health department to offer free case management services to seniors in Petersburg and Wrangell. Brandy Boggs, PMC’s hospital patient navigator, explained the new program during KFSK’s PMC Live show in late September. “Case management services under this grant would be for anybody 60 and older,” Boggs said. “Or if you’re under 60 and you have Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia or something similar.” Boggs said the purpose of the program is to help connect elders... Full story
The weather station atop Five Finger Lighthouse is operational again after more than two months offline, and it came back this fall instead of next spring thanks to the insistence of the volunteers who care for the lighthouse. Three NOAA technicians replaced the station's tower and instruments Oct. 3 and 4. They teamed up with the Five Finger Lighthouse Society for the haul of gear and transportation of techs to and from the island. The new and improved weather station "is up and running, and...
By the time Petersburg's polls closed on Tuesday night, 1,120 ballots had been cast and counted. That's about 160 fewer than last year. The preliminary results remain unofficial until the election is canvassed. Ballot propositions Three questions were on Petersburg's municipal ballot this year. Proposition 1 came from the Borough's power department, and authorizes a $3.3 million revenue bond for a diesel generator project south of town in Scow Bay. Unofficial results show Prop 1 passed by a...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly on Monday overturned the Planning Commission's denial of a minor subdivision at 1200 Haugen Drive, moving the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska a step closer to buying the borough lot next to the fire hall where it plans a broadband tower. Sitting as the Board of Adjustment, the Assembly voted 6-0 to grant Tlingit & Haida's appeal and approve the subdivision, Assembly Member Scott Newman was excused from the meeting. Tidal Network, a t...
Alaska Timber and Truss has secured a $2.5 million financing package to modernize its sawmill on Falls Creek Road, connect it to Petersburg's hydroelectric grid and install an additional mill built to process young-growth timber. Co-owner Brett Martin said the goal is to have the expanded operation running well by the middle of next summer. "We're taking a gamble," Martin said. "We're obtaining a couple of loans to expand our mill, or essentially retool our mill to bring it up to modern...
Running your own commercial fishing operation may offer more freedom, but that freedom comes at a premium. That cost can make it particularly hard for those looking to enter the industry or update their fleet. The Alaska Department of Commerce investments division held a public session in Wrangell on Sept. 16 to share information with potential borrowers and check in with current ones. The program offers low fixed-interest loans to commercial fishermen. On June 30, 2027, the legislation that fixed rates at 5.25% for the loans will expire,...
Wrangell’s efforts to add to its downtown waterfront, develop the former 6-Mile Mill property for a possible shipyard and replace its leaking water diversion flume to the community reservoirs will receive a $43 million boost from the federal government. The borough applied this past spring for a federal Economic Development Administration Industry Transformation Pathway Grant. The official announcement is not expected until later this month, but Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is in a tight reelection race, delivered the news last week. Sullivan,...
Alaska Airlines will retire its fleet of Boeing 737-700 aircraft next year, switching over to larger 800 Series planes — providing more passenger and cargo capacity, particularly on Southeast Alaska runs. Alaska generally uses the 700 on its multi-stop flights through Southeast, such as the morning “milk run” from Seattle to Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau and Anchorage, and back again in the afternoon. The larger Boeing jets are configured for 161 passengers, a 37-seat gain over the 124-passenger 700 Series. The 800 Series is about...
Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton Gregor will ask the Petersburg Borough Assembly on Monday to begin work on a borough-wide moratorium to prevent data centers that would use on-site power generation. The proposal would leave room for a smaller, grid-connected project like the one Mazzella Alaska has proposed for the former Ocean Beauty plant. At their meeting on Sept. 21, the assembly deadlocked 3-3 on a Planning Commission recommendation that was broader in one way and narrower in another. The commission had asked the assembly to start a one-year...
For the second year in a row, the Wrangell-Petersburg area has the lowest rental housing vacancy rate among 11 areas covered in the state’s annual survey. The combined vacancy rate for single-family rental homes and apartments in the two communities in March 2026 was 1.1%. That is far below the statewide median of 5.4%, and a lot lower than the 4.1% in Juneau, which is chronically short of housing. Fairbanks had the highest vacancy rate at 10.1%, followed by Ketchikan at 8.4%. This year’s Wrangell-Petersburg vacancy rate was much tighter tha...
Sarah Fine-Walsh Sarah Fine-Walsh moved to Petersburg six years ago, to her husband's hometown, and said she still feels lucky to live here. "I pinch myself a lot, especially on a beautiful sunny day when it's flat calm," she said at the candidates forum. That feeling is why she is running for one of two three-year seats on the Petersburg Borough Assembly. "When you feel really, really lucky to live somewhere, the least you can do is give back using the skills that you have to contribute and mak...
Jeigh Stanton Gregor Jeigh Stanton Gregor is seeking another three-year term on the Petersburg Borough Assembly, where he said he has served "a little over a decade now, in total." "I think I'm easy to work with. I'm approachable," he said at the assembly candidates forum. "If re-elected, I will work hard for everyone, whether they vote for me or not." He and his wife, Lea, have been married 19 years and own True North Counseling and Consultation, a private counseling practice. They have two...
