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When Dave and Nancy Berg sold Viking Travel at the start of 2023, they said they were handing the keys to the right people. Three years later, the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce resoundingly agreed. The chamber named Viking Travel the 2025 Business of the Year at its annual banquet Saturday, citing the business - co-owned by James and Madeleine Valentine - for their community involvement, their contribution to the Petersburg economy, and their commitment to keeping Petersburg a vibrant place to...
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Cora Campbell, president and CEO of Silver Bay Seafoods, returned to her hometown of Petersburg as guest speaker Saturday evening at the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce Annual Banquet. Over the course of about 20 minutes, she drew a through-line from the town's 1897 founding to the hard lessons of the 2023 salmon crisis - and outlined an optimistic slate of value-added products she said will soon be flowing through the Petersburg plant. "As pink salmon goes, so goes the economy," Campbell told...
After more than three decades of planning, Petersburg’s Scow Bay marine facility project is approaching construction, and the borough has begun the process of clearing the site — notifying businesses leasing borough-owned parcels at the location that their leases will end this fall. Harbormaster Glo Wollen sent letters April 3 to tenants at the Scow Bay site outlining a schedule that calls for all leases on borough property there to end Sept. 30, 2026, at the earliest. Tenants then have 60 days under their lease terms to remove equipment and...
Molly Taiber recently returned from Juneau, where she spent several days this legislative session doing what she has done every year for the past six years: sitting across from state legislators making the case that Alaska’s public employees are heading toward a retirement they will not be able to live on. For most of Alaska’s history as a state, a career in public service came with one of the better retirement packages in the country — a guaranteed pension that rewarded workers for building careers in Alaska. That system was dismantled in 20...
For the second time in his music career, Petersburg senior Canek Sosa was selected to the All-State Jazz Band. Sosa was also selected to the Juneau Honor Jazz Band. Only one drum set player is selected to the All-State Jazz Band and the Juneau Honor Jazz band, it's rare. "It's definitely exciting. I'm not someone that's pressured very easily so I would say I didn't feel as much pressure as people would think. I took it very well knowing I was the only drummer there," Sosa said. Sosa got to play...
Stephanie Pfundt has spent the better part of a decade building a career in classical music far from Petersburg - graduate school in Boston, performing across the East Coast, a produced opera in Massachusetts, a growing network of colleagues at some of the country's top music institutions. And now the award-winning Petersburg-born soprano is bringing a long-dreamed-of project to life and bringing chamber music home to Alaska. "This has been a project I've dreamt of for six years," Pfundt said....
As the Alaska Marine Highway System moves around its limited fleet of operational vessels, Petersburg, Wrangell and the other communities served by the Southeast mainline route will see a gap in service from April 15 to May 3. The Kennicott, which has been serving Southeast this winter, is being pulled from the run mid-April to provide a couple of weeks of service on the cross-gulf route to Yakutat, Whittier, Kodiak and other communities that have been without any service while their usual ferry, the Tustumena, has been in winter overhaul since...
A Petersburg man indicted in 2024 on felony charges related to child sexual abuse material will spend two years in prison. Alejandro “Alex” Melendez Aguilar, 46, pleaded guilty in January to one count of possession as part of a plea deal between state prosecutors and the defense that dismissed most of the charges. Aguilar was indicted on 10 felony counts for possession and distribution of the material, which he initially pleaded not guilty to over a year ago before changing his plea. He was sentenced at the Juneau Courthouse on March 27. Dur... Full story
Tickets to ride the Alaska Marine Highway System will go up a little more than 2% effective May 1, the first fare increase since 2019. That 2019 increase instituted “dynamic pricing” of higher fares on popular routes, much like airlines and hotels price their rates to maximize revenues. But dynamic pricing was not popular among ferry riders and the state rescinded the fare structure in 2022, leaving tickets unchanged since then. Craig Tornga, marine director for the state ferry system, told legislators last month that it’s important for the m...
WRANGELL — Brian Herman, owner of Canoe Lagoon Oysters, didn’t attend last month’s Mariculture Conference of Alaska in Anchorage. He was busy at work. Last year, he shipped out about 110,000 oysters raised at his farm 30 miles south of Wrangell on the Blashke Islands. This year he expects to more than double that volume. “There is a ton of growth potential,” Herman said. While the in-state market “is fairly well tapped … shipping to the Lower 48 is a completely untapped market.” And that’s where he focuses his efforts. “I have inquiries ever...
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Begich visited Petersburg last week, holding a community meet and greet and sitting down afterward with the Pilot and the KFSK radio station. Begich, a former state senator from Anchorage, is running for governor on a platform centered on education funding, affordable energy, fiscal accountability, and a governing style he says is defined by dialogue rather than division. The meet and greet drew a roomful of Petersburg residents and discussion touched on...
Every day the Petersburg wastewater plant handles between 300,000 gallons to 1.8 million gallons during heavy rain, but there have been some changes in how they do that in an attempt to meet new EPA requirements. While the wastewater staff have been able to greatly improve the water quality discharged by the plant, it's going to take more equipment to fully meet the disinfection requirements. That's going to mean either chlorination and dechlorination equipment (as discharge of both bacteria...
In last week’s story “Petersburg High School poets recite on KTOO,” the English teacher for the students Freya Tucker and Mette Miller was incorrectly identified as Tim Shumway. Jill Lenhard is actually their teacher this year in AP Language & Composition where they did the initial assignment in class and received extra credit for performing in the school-wide competition. The Pilot apologizes for that inaccuracy.... Full story
Petersburg’s elementary school will be getting new accessible playground equipment next school year as part of a $173,000 grant from the Hurst Wood Education Foundation, a nonprofit that supports special education projects in schools. The current playground at the Rae C. Stedman Elementary School has swings, slides, monkey bars, and a variety of climbing equipment. For students in wheelchairs or with limited mobility, playing on that equipment can be challenging. Special Education Director Cyndy Fry said having a playground that’s ina... Full story
Two drivers have been transported to the Petersburg Medical Center after a collision around 10 a.m. Tuesday on the Mitkof Highway near Petersburg's cemetery, about two miles south of town. "There was a car heading southbound, and as he was accelerating into the 40 mile an hour zone, he ran into a patch of ice and lost control of the vehicle," said Dave Berg, a spokesperson for the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department. "He crossed the center line and hit another vehicle." Berg said when the two... Full story
June 1 will be the golden anniversary of Alaska Airlines jet service to Wrangell and Petersburg, marking when the first scheduled Boeing 727 passenger flight touched down in the communities in 1976. Before the arrival of the 104-passenger jets, which provided daily same-plane service to and from Seattle, travelers had to take a plane with one-fifth the passenger capacity and catch a connecting flight in Ketchikan or Juneau. "It would be nice to get on a jet at Wrangell and relax all the way to...
The Alaska Senate approved a measure to boost state taxes on oil and gas production on Wednesday. Lawmakers tacked it on to what would have been a routine renewal of a state oil royalty agreement. Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, sponsored the amendment to House Bill 194, saying it would close a corporate income tax loophole and potentially capture more than $100 million in new state revenues each year — at a time when Alaska is in dire need of revenue to pay for state services. “Can we afford this loophole while we close schools? Can we aff... Full story
The Alaska House of Representatives approved a resolution urging the Trump administration to waive a steep visa fee for international teachers. The vote comes amid a growing teacher shortage throughout the state. Lawmakers are calling for the Trump administration to waive the fee for teachers hired through the H-1B visa program, which allows employers to recruit highly-skilled workers from overseas. The federal government raised the fee from $5,000 to $100,000 for each new applicant to the H-1B visa program in September. The House passed the... Full story
A federal judge in Alaska has rejected a lawsuit that sought to reinstate a management plan that would allow heavier logging in the world’s largest temperate old-growth rainforest. The result leaves an Obama-era management plan in place, but it could be short-lived: The administration of President Donald Trump is already at work on a new plan that could allow more logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. In an order published Friday, Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the lawsuit filed by Viking Lumber, Alcan Timber and the Alaska Forest Ass... Full story
U.S. Forest Service leadership is in flux as the agency takes sweeping actions in managing the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest and making regulatory and administrative changes at all levels, Alaska-based officials reported last week. At the beginning of a four-day federal subsistence Regional Advisory Council meeting in Juneau on March 10, Tongass Supervisor Monique Nelson spoke about shifts in the agency since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025. Nelson said staffing on the Tongass is down 30% from this time last year....
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously Monday to formally oppose three proposals before the Alaska Board of Fisheries that would impose broad restrictions on Alaska’s private nonprofit salmon hatchery system — measures that Assembly Member Bob Martin, who brought the resolution forward, called the latest iteration of proposals that fisheries stakeholders across the region have consistently fought off. Resolution 2026-06 directs opposition to Board of Fisheries Proposals 170, 171 and 172, which are scheduled for consideration at the...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly directed Borough staff on March 2 to start rewriting part of its zoning code to be implemented beyond municipal limits. The move follows months of work and deliberation over potentially updating Petersburg’s zoning code as the Borough navigates emerging concerns about constructing new communications towers in the community. Zoning determines how property can and cannot be used. Different types of zoning allow for different uses, and some require landowners to get permission from the municipality for certain p... Full story
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously Monday to extend the borough’s municipal solid waste transportation and disposal contract with Republic Services for one more year, buying time while a regional study examines longer-term alternatives for Southeast Alaska communities. Petersburg’s garbage is baled at the local baler facility and shipped via container to the Roosevelt Regional Landfill in Washington state, with Republic Services handling transportation and disposal. The contract extension runs from September 1, 2026 through the e...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly authorized an agreement with Axon Enterprise Inc., earlier this month, which provides the equipment and services that Petersburg’s Police Department uses. Under the agreement, the Borough would pay a $378,897.58 quote gradually over the next decade. Police Chief Jim Kerr said Monday that they typically do shorter contracts with the company. But this extended version that AXON offered includes some perks, especially for routine equipment replacement. “If they have a new technology that comes out, since we hav...
