Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 310
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved the hiring of Steve Harbour as the borough's next utility director at their early November meeting. Harbour, currently an electrician-operator at the borough's power plant, will begin his new role on December 30, 2025, at an annual salary of $160,000. Current Utility Director Karl Hagerman will remain in the position until July 2026, providing a six-month overlap period that borough officials praised. "This doesn't happen very often where we...
On a Sunday afternoon in Wright Auditorium, Abbey Hardie works alongside a crew of volunteers painting set pieces for their upcoming Mitkof Mummers production, which will be Hardie's directorial debut. Around her, as the days count down until showtime, power tools are buzzing, music is bumping, people are laughing and problem-solving together to make a set that can help bring their fairy tale to life. "Just seeing everybody have fun," that's the best part for her, says Hardie. "It gets really...
Petersburg artist Ashley Lohr will open her 17th consecutive annual solo exhibition at the Clausen Memorial Museum on Friday, Nov. 21. "The history there ... it's always been a nice reminder to make work and have something to look forward to, to show my work," Lohr said of the sustained opportunity at the museum. This year's exhibition, titled "Drifting Colorways," features three distinct bodies of work: enamel earrings, acrylic abstracts, and new artistic territory for Lohr: oil paintings of...
Petersburg District Ranger Carey Case announced at the Nov. 3 Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting that the Thomas Bay timber stewardship contract has been awarded. The Petersburg Pilot has confirmed that Alaska Timber and Truss, owned in partnership by Brett Martin and Mike Duman, was awarded the contract. The stewardship project represents a significant milestone for the local sawmill and the broader second-growth timber industry in Southeast Alaska. The contract encompasses 4.6 million board feet of timber spread across approximately 140 acre...
Around three years ago Petersburg's 100-year-old American Legion post, the Edward Locken Post 14, had dwindled to three members – Paul Anderson, Butch Anderson, and Stan Hjort. Paul Anderson carried a tremendous amount of the responsibility for the veteran community in Petersburg. When he died in Jan. 2023, a new generation of local veterans stepped up to carry the mantle. Petersburg resident Garrett Kravitz was just retiring from his career in the Navy. He, along with Tony and Tracy Vinson, l...
When SNAP benefits failed to arrive this month, Petersburg residents responded with an outpouring of coordinated support across multiple organizations and businesses. Jim Floyd CEO of Hammer & Wikan organized donation efforts, offering discounts to customers who contributed food and making monetary donations to support the purchase of perishables. Rocky's Marine also contributed cash toward the food drive. "This is about understanding there's a need and figuring out how we can meet it," Floyd...
Petersburg is feeling the impact of the federal government shutdown leaving families without their November Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. But local organizations are responding quickly to ramp up food distribution efforts. "It's already hitting our community hard," said Veronica Ware, the Johnson O'Malley and Social Services Director at the Petersburg Indian Association. "I've already had calls from citizens in tears because they don't have any food and they don't have any...
Twelve Petersburg High School musicians traveled to Wrangell last week to participate in the Southeast Alaska Honor Music Festival. The students spent three intensive days rehearsing and performing alongside the region's top young musicians under the direction of guest conductors from Oregon and Southern California. The festival, held October 26-29, brings together students selected through a competitive audition process. Students record their auditions locally, which are then evaluated by...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 6-0 last week to sell seven parcels of borough-owned land to Skylark Park LLC at half their appraised value. The reduced price reflects the project's public benefit purpose: creating at least 20 new residential lots in a community facing a dire housing shortage. The assembly authorized the sale of the lots for $55,500 - 50% of their $111,000 appraised value and well below their $188,300 assessed value. The sale includes Lots 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 in Block A of...
After years of planning and development, Petersburg's Scow Bay Boat Haulout project is nearly ready for construction. PND Engineer Dick Somerville presented a progress report on the 65% design completion at a joint work session with harbor board, assembly and economic development officials on Wednesday morning. Somerville highlighted that all the necessary funding has been secured for the $15.07 million project, the permitting is in progress, and as long as the federal government eventually...
The final piece of funding is in place for replacement of the deteriorating breakwater system at Banana Point, with construction expected to begin next spring. The Petersburg Borough Assembly accepted a $78,000 contribution last week from the Petersburg Indian Association to close a gap between the project's existing budget and the lowest construction bid. The borough has issued a notice to award to bidders and plans to present a contract for assembly authorization at its next meeting,...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved the appointment of Michelle Lopez to lead both the elderly housing and assisted living operations at Mountain View Manor, consolidating two director positions that had been separate for the past three years. Lopez, who has served as the Elderly Housing Director, will assume the combined role of Assisted Living and Elderly Housing Director at an annual salary of $100,000. The assembly voted 6-0 to approve the hire at its Oct. 21 meeting. "I'm...
At the start of Monday's Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting newly elected assembly members Bob Martin and Jeff Meucci were sworn into office by Borough Clerk Becky Regula. The swearing-in was followed moments later by newly elected Petersburg Mayor Bob Lynn offering remarks of appreciation and gratitude and presenting a commemorative gavel to outgoing, long-serving Petersburg Mayor Mark Jensen....
In 1927, a 14-year-old girl named Alice Norberg left the fox farm in West Petersburg where she was raised and boarded a steamer to Seattle then a Greyhound bus to Hollywood to pursue a showbiz career. She eventually appeared in 32 movies during the 1930s and 40s. This Friday, the Clausen Memorial Museum is screening one of her films, "The Invisible Ghost" (1941), starring Bela Lugosi, in an evening designed to bring Alice's story back to Petersburg's collective memory. "People kind of forgot...
Petersburg’s nonprofit Viking Swim Club will hold its annual fundraiser auction this Saturday at the Sons of Norway Hall, with proceeds helping to keep swimming affordable for local families. “This is the main vehicle to fund the Viking Swim Club,” said Marlena Newman, the club’s fundraising chair. “If we don’t have our fundraisers, then, of course, the dues go up for families.” Newman and a team of volunteers have spent the past three months organizing the event, which includes a dinner, silent and live auctions, and a raffle. It’s one of two...
Jaime Cabral, Petersburg High School and Mitkof Middle School Assistant Principal and Activities Director, was named the 2026 Assistant Principal of the Year by the Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals (AASSP) at a ceremony in Anchorage last weekend. The recognition came while Cabral was already in Anchorage, in the middle of coaching his volleyball team at a tournament. Cabral's wife Heidi picked him up between games, drove him across town to accept the award, and rushed him back...
Construction is underway on an open-sided equipment storage shed adjacent to the Petersburg harbormaster's office, a project designed to protect the harbor's maintenance equipment from winter weather. The steel structure, being built on an existing timber dock at the intersection of Excel Street and Harbor Way, features a 10-foot interior clearance that slopes to 13 feet. The roof-only design, with open sides, will shelter harbor equipment including a telehandler, four-wheelers for snowplowing,...
This Saturday, the Petersburg Public Library is hosting the opening reception for TalisWoman, this year’s iteration of Petersburg’s long-running Women’s Art Show. While the library regularly features art displays and maintains a permanent art collection, hosting a curated exhibition complete with an opening reception is a rare occasion. The last time the library hosted a curated art show was the touring exhibition “Decolonizing Alaska” back in 2018, which spanned the library and the Clausen M...
"I wanted to do something different, challenge myself as a director and challenge the students," says Elsa Wintersteen, director of Petersburg High School's drama program. "Doing something scary... that can actually evoke feelings of discomfort in people is a really hard thing to do." For this fall's production of Dracula, that challenge includes scaring the hometown audience, then, next summer, taking their show on the road to the largest theater festival in the world - Edinburgh Scotland's Fri...
Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter Abby Posner will perform in Petersburg on Saturday, Oct. 18 and will lead a morning workshop on music theory and songwriting. Posner, who won the 28th Annual USA Songwriting Contest in 2023, is making a special stop in Petersburg during a weeklong Alaska tour centered around Parlor in the Round, an Anchorage-based songwriter showcase. Though Petersburg is not hosting the full Parlor event this year, the Petersburg Arts Council made special...
Bob Lynn decisively won Petersburg's mayoral race in the October 7 municipal election, defeating fellow assembly member Scott Newman 807 to 443 votes, while Proposition 1 - limiting the senior sales tax exemption to only low-income seniors - squeaked by with a nine-vote margin. The unofficial results showed strong voter participation, with a record-breaking number of early and absentee ballots cast before election day (647) and the highest local voter turnout (1279) since the borough formation...
During Monday's meeting, the Petersburg Borough Assembly approved a $768,330 design-build contract, for the Scow Bay standby diesel generator project, marking the next step forward on a voter-approved bond-supported capital project that has been in development for more than four years. The contract, awarded to Dawson Construction LLC of Juneau, covers engineering design, heavy equipment moving tasks and project commissioning for the new generator facility. "It is important to note that the...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly heard from Tidal Network representatives during Monday's assembly meeting, as the organization's proposed communication tower has raised some concerns in the community. On September 2, the assembly voted unanimously to proceed with direct negotiations for the sale of a small piece of borough-owned land, 10,040 square feet of adjacent to the fire hall, to the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska for its broadband enterprise, Tidal...
In the main bay of the former Wikan Enterprises building, Mike Corl fabricates a new fuel tank for a customer's Bayliner. On the other side of the wall, in what will soon be a retail space and front office, 19-month-old Charlotte hums happily on a rug, playing with a plastic T-rex. Her mother Ashley keeps an eye on her from her big desk where she is working on the launch of Corls Customs LLC. This is what family business looks like for the Corls, who purchased the Dock Street property last...
As concerns mount over the looming government shutdown which would defund the WIC program that provides food support for pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children, along with ongoing SNAP benefit disruptions in Alaska, Humanity in Progress in ramping up its efforts to address food insecurity in Petersburg with their Empty Bowls, Ending Hunger fundraiser this Saturday at the Sons of Norway Hall. The event, taking place October 4 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. offers community members...
