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It seemed everyone in Wrangell piled into to the Nolan Center to witness the blessing of the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. Led by the Wrangell Cooperative Association, the event was moved indoors after a persistent storm turned a cloudy afternoon into a rainy one. The event was attended by folks from Wrangell, from throughout Alaska and from Washington, D.C. Even Smokey the Bear made a surprise appearance. Kate Thomas, the borough's economic development director, played emcee for the afternoon,...
Two thousand and ninety to one. Those were the odds of winning the only elk-hunting permit on Zarembo Island this year — the first time in nearly 20 years the state Board of Game has permitted elk hunting on Zarembo after they were urged to do so by the Wrangell Fish and Game Advisory Committee. Quite literally against all odds, Wrangell resident Curtis Kautz won the lottery. His prize? A 31-day window to try and bag a creature Kautz described as smart, skittish and fast. "They're hard to s...
WRANGELL – The borough wants a data center to plug into Wrangell. Better yet, it could even move into the unused formal hospital property. Data centers are large hosting sites for multiple servers that provide computing power and storage for cloud-based service providers. While at Southeast Conference, held in Ketchikan last month, borough representatives spoke with Sam Enoka, founder and CEO of Greensparc — a San Francisco-based technology company that specializes in setting up modular, small-scale data centers for cloud computing. Enoka gre...
WRANGELL — Though it was important to pinpoint the exact location and extent of damage to the community’s wastewater outfall pipeline into Zimovia Strait, officials also discovered that the 12-inch plastic pipe and the seabed around it have become home to hundreds of sea cucumbers. “Over the years and years, wildlife has figured it out,” Tom Wetor, the borough’s Public Works director, said Sept. 26. Sea cucumbers, a bottom-dwelling invertebrate, proliferate around the nutrient-rich waters near the diffuser end of the outfall line, he said. “I...
Wrangell is trading in the stormy skies of Seattle and heading east, hoping for favorable tourism trade winds in Chicago. For the first time in two decades the borough will not send any representatives to the Seattle Boat Show. Instead, the Economic Development Department has elected to attend the Travel and Adventure Show in Chicago. The two-day event kicks off on Feb. 1 of next year. Economic Development Director Kate Thomas said she expects an audience as large as 19,000 travel enthusiasts and an additional 2,000 to 3,000 attendees who work...
WRANGELL — The borough hopes to learn this week the exact location and condition of the kinked blockage in the treatment plant outfall pipeline that has forced a temporary solution — discharging the wastewater on the beach near City Park. “It’s essentially been bent in half,” Public Works Director Tom Wetor said of the 12-inch-diameter plastic pipe, which was hooked Aug. 30 by a boat anchor and damaged as the anchor line was being pulled up. Repairs could take a couple of months, he said Sept. 6. It just depends on how much work is needed. T...
WRANGELL - The Oakland Museum of California has housed the Kadashan cane for the past 65 years. Now, with help from the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the five-foot cedar cane is due to arrive in Wrangell in the coming days. Lu Knapp, a direct descendant of Chief John Kadashan, was thrilled when she learned of the cane's imminent return. "It just gives me a really good feeling hearing that it's coming back," Knapp said. "It was my great-grandfather's!" While any...
So, you want to see bears at the Anan Wildlife Observatory. But maybe you couldn't get one of the limited number of permits, or you live out of town and can't make the trip, or maybe you are a little more afraid of them than you care to admit. But now, thanks to the U.S. Forest Service, explore.org and 14 Wrangell high school students in the T3 Program, anyone worldwide can view Anan's fish-crazed black and brown bears. Last week, after months of preparation, planning and prototyping, the two...
Wrangell is not immune to the nationwide shortage of electrical transformers, and the delivery delay has pushed back the borough’s sale of 20 lots at the residential subdivision near 6-Mile Zimovia Highway until the spring. The borough wants to wait until the streets and utilities are finished at the property before opening access to the land for potential buyers to evaluate which lots they may want to buy. The transformers and buried electrical lines are part of the work. The land sale had been tentatively planned for late summer or fall, b...
When Dan Trail took his dogs to play fetch on June 20 at Petroglyph Beach, the last thing he expected was to find himself involved in a statewide baby seal rescue mission. But when he reached for his tennis ball and noticed it lying on the tail of a 1-week-old lost seal pup, he sprang into action. The seal - now called Rocky by her rescue team - was extremely dehydrated when Trail found her. Wedged in between two rocks, high above the receding tide, she was sucking in air on a warm June day....
WRANGELL - Bearfest is returning for its 15th year on July 24 – 28. The annual event is dedicated to bears and the surrounding environment, where attendees can enjoy symposiums, cultural and educational activities, art and photo workshops, fine dining, marathons, a bear safety session and more. In two of the workshops, kids and families are invited to create bear-themed ornaments to decorate the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree and smaller companion trees that will represent Alaska in Washington, D.C., this holiday season. The trees are coming f...
WRANGELL — Georgia-based real-estate developer Wayne Johnson has rescinded his offer to purchase the former Wrangell Medical Center property and six adjacent lots from the borough. Johnson had negotiated a new purchase agreement covering the parcels, but said he withdrew his proposal due to community concerns over the new deal. He blamed a Sentinel headline for stirring up concerns. Johnson notified borough officials on Friday, June 28, of his decision to walk away from the project. The Sentinel reported on Johnson’s requested changes to the...
Mountain lions are not commonly spotted in Southeast Alaska, but earlier this month one was killed on the south end of Wrangell Island. Alaska Wildlife Troopers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game were notified that a mountain lion had been shot and killed on June 3. They took possession of the carcass and are conducting an investigation. Troopers leading the investigation declined to comment. Riley Woodford, information officer with the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation in Juneau, said he knew of three other documented sightings...
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...
WRANGELL — The Wrangell Chamber of Commerce has moved the dates for this month’s salmon derby to June 15-30 to allow anglers more time to try their luck after popular areas near Wrangell open to sportfishing on June 15. The chamber had initially scheduled the derby for two weekends — June 7-9 and June 14-16 — but decided at a May 28 derby committee meeting to move the days to later in the month. State Department of Fish and Game District 6, west of Etolin and Zarembo islands, and most of District 7, east and south of Wrangell, are closed to kin...
WRANGELL — The Wrangell Borough Assembly approved the sale of the former medical center and six adjacent lots to property developer Wayne Johnson on April 9. Johnson is a Georgia-based real estate developer hoping to build a 48-unit condo-style housing development with covered parking on the property. The borough sold the 2 acres of the former hospital property to Johnson for $200,000, which required approval from the economic development board and the planning and zoning commission as it was below the property’s appraised value of $830,00. Mun...
WRANGELL - One hundred and fifty years ago, the Stikine beckoned people to its rugged landscape with the promise of wealth. This was the Cassiar gold rush of 1874, a huge moment in Wrangell history, according to Ronan Rooney, historian and creator of the podcast "Wrangell History Unlocked." Rooney's newest series "Strange Customs" tells the story of the gold rush in Wrangell in three parts. The story, however, is not just about the search for gold on the Stikine. It involves a political corrupti...
WRANGELL — Clean water advocates believe a seafood consumption survey among Wrangell residents might help in their push for higher water quality standards. Together, the Wrangell Cooperative Association and the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission will conduct a survey in Wrangell to determine the quantity and types of seafood community members consume. The goal of the survey is to update the region’s outdated fish consumption rate, said Esther Aaltséen Reese, WCA tribal administrator. The metric is used by the U.S. Envi...
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...
Wrangell has lost three cruise ship stopovers this summer to Klawock, where a partnership of three Native corporations is developing a tourist destination with facilities, shore excursions and other activities for passengers. The 746-passenger Seven Seas Explorer has crossed Wrangell off its schedule for a May visit, with the 670-passenger Regatta canceling a stop in June and one in September but retaining a Wrangell stop earlier in September, according to the schedule posted by the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau earlier this month. The...
WRANGELL — The borough is waiting on a federal disaster declaration to cover the expense of power line repairs and other immediate and near-term costs from the Nov. 20 landslide at 11.2-Mile Zimovia Highway. The Wrangell Cooperative Association is seeking federal funding for the longer-term expense of cleaning up the tidelands of debris and toxic material. Under federal law, only the governor can request a federal disaster declaration, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency reviews before sending it to the president for signature. The s...
Assembly members agreed that a port commission proposal to require boat owners to carry marine insurance — or pay a monthly fee in addition to their stall rental — needs a lot more work. The port commission has been discussing since 2022 the financial risk to the borough when an uninsured vessel catches fire or sinks in the harbor, requiring cleanup and removal. The commission last month voted unanimously to recommend assembly approval of an ordinance requiring boat owners show proof of insurance or pay an additional monthly fee so that the...
Wrangell borough officials are concerned that Wrangell continues to lose population, while those who stay in town grow older and leave the workforce. As a whole, the state has lost more residents than it has gained in new arrivals every year since 2013, with only the birth rate keeping Alaska from showing a population decline. However, unlike the statewide totals, Wrangell recorded more deaths than births between 2017 and 2022, adding to the community’s overall population decline. The state’s latest estimate for Wrangell’s population, as of las...
WRANGELL — State geologists were able to more accurately measure the movement and damage from massive landslides that poured across roads in the middle of the island in November because just a few months earlier the state and U.S. Forest Service had collected detailed images and data — literally laser-focused — of the terrain. The Forest Service and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys partnered in July to conduct an aerial survey of the entire island, using airborne lasers to map out ground cover, geology and slopes for f...
WRANGELL — John Florschutz was surprised to learn that his parents’ homeowner’s insurance policy did not cover the loss from the Nov. 20 landslide that destroyed their home and killed his father, Otto Florschutz. “I think it’s a shock to everyone I talk to,” he said last week. “What’s the point of home insurance. … You would expect flooding to be on the policy.” But floods, landslides, mudslides and other “earth movements” are not covered by standard home insurance policies. “There’s not a lot of people who know that,” commented Florschutz...
