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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...
Despite a light turnout due to threatening weather on Saturday, a handful of volunteers showed up to finish compacting gravel on the Bike Park's newest trail addition. "Today was basically putting the park to bed," said Pat Blair of Wheelhouse Bikes, a board member of Friends of the Petersburg Bike Park. "I wanted to finish that trail. That was my intent." The newly completed portion of the trail extends the ride through the woods, adding some length with "a lot of slope to it," allowing riders...
Another field season of whale research has concluded at Five Finger Lighthouse, and Dr. Fred Sharpe will hold an open forum on Thursday at the Petersburg Public Library to discuss their latest efforts. Five Finger Lighthouse provides an extraordinary whale research venue because of its isolated location – miles from the nearest shore in the rich waters of Frederick Sound, buffered from the open ocean by miles of mountainous islands. "We're shielded from the global rise of ship noise in the Pacif...
The first week of moose season has been relentlessly windy and rainy across Southeast Alaska, but there was a break in the weather on Tuesday, September 16 so Joe Willis pounced on the opportunity and harvested the first moose of the season on Mitkof Island. "When I left in the morning, I told my wife, 'don't expect me back till after dark,'" Willis said. "It was still really wet at daybreak... my enthusiasm level was not what you would call epic," Willis recalled. "The phone says it's going to...
Bob Lynn's decision to run for mayor wasn't made lightly. "It wasn't an easy decision for me at all."But he sees a need for the community to become more self-reliant as times become more challenging and costs shift from state and federal government to the local level. He says he is willing to listen to and work with all and has demonstrated his ability to help guide decision making: "I have the time to do this, and I have the experience. I'm hoping that I get a chance to try some ideas and see...
Scott Newman decided to run for mayor because he feels "there hasn't been strong leadership, advancing any advocacy towards the big projects in the community like the hospital and in tourism ... I kind of feel like we've had a bit of a dysfunctional process." "We could be advocating more strongly, at a state and federal level for these projects that we have going on, mainly the hospital," Newman told the Pilot in an interview. "I just don't feel like we've been doing enough in that direction....
As wind gusts exceeded 30 knots on Wednesday morning a roughly 180-foot barge broke loose from its moorage around a mile south of Scow Bay in the Wrangell Narrows. The Coast Guard issued a maritime security alert warning vessels in the area, while the harbormasters office contacted residents along the shore of Kupreanof Island, "just to let them know that if it does end up ricocheting down that Narrows, to be aware of it," Harbormaster Glorianne Wollen said, "to potentially pull your outhaul in...
During midday mass on July 6, 2023, an accidental fire broke out at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Petersburg. All parishioners and church staff safely escaped the fire, which burned for nearly ten hours. The Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department fought the blaze and successfully prevented the tragic fire from spreading to nearby homes and businesses like the neighboring Petersburg Children's Center. The church building was left in ruins, though firefighters were able to recover some...
Petersburg voters will decide October 7 whether to limit the borough’s senior sales tax exemption to only low-income seniors. Proposition 1 would restrict the current exemption — available to all residents 65 and older who qualify for the PFD — to only those who qualify for the State of Alaska Senior Benefits Payment Program. That means individuals earning less than $34,213 annually or married couples making under $46,253 would retain the exemption, while higher-income seniors would lose it. On September 15, KFSK Petersburg hosted call-in show...
Southeast Alaska's commercial red king crab fishery will open Nov. 1 after stock assessments revealed the highest red crab populations in decades. Last week, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced a regionwide guideline harvest level of 211,573 pounds for the 2025/2026 season, exceeding the 200,000-pound threshold required for a traditional competitive commercial fishery. The biomass numbers and the available surplus for harvest, came as somewhat of a surprise to fishery managers fishermen who had been preparing for a different type o...
The 2025 Southeast Alaska Purse Seine Fishery closed in early September with just under 20 million pink salmon landed - well below the forecast of 29 million and marking the lowest odd-year harvest since the 1980s. "Fair to say that the season was a disappointment as far as pink salmon harvest goes," said Troy Thynes, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Region I Management Coordinator. The disappointing harvest adds pressure to an industry already facing high fuel costs, inflation, and low...
Petersburg Medical Center is launching a new cohort of its on-the-job training Certified Nursing Assistant program next Monday, offering people in Petersburg a valuable opportunity to get paid while earning a professional healthcare certification in just five weeks. "We hire people who say they want to become a CNA, and then we pay them while they're taking the class," explained Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Bryner. "At the end of the class, if it's a good match, then we would offer a... Full story
Whether it's online strangers sending kids messages in Roblox, scammers phishing for passwords, or artificial intelligence platforms targeting young people with relationships that can distort how an entire generation views human connection - families with children and teens are facing new kinds of online safety challenges. New digital dangers exist as the results of tools and devices that "were released to the public without long-term studies or clear guidelines, leaving families and schools to...
New York's Manhattan Island is surrounded by the East River, the Harlem River, and the Hudson River - all three are tidal estuaries that create a natural 28.5-mile open water course around the island. In 1915, a lone swimmer first completed this circuit, now known as the 20 Bridges Swim, and since then only around 1,400 endurance athletes have successfully finished the marathon swim. On August 24, Abbey Jackson Ferree, of Petersburg, completed the 20 Bridges Swim in eight hours and 51 minutes -...
After 35 years working in local public radio - 27 years as general manager of KFSK in Petersburg - Tom Abbott has reached retirement. It'll just require a bit more crisis management before he can fully clock out. In an interview with the Pilot, Abbott said he provided KFSK's board of directors a resignation letter last year, with 18 months built in to pass the torch to the station's next manager. He hoped a successor could be hired and would arrive by this summer and the two could work together...
Living close to the land inspires Diyet van Lieshout's songwriting for her band Diyet & The Love Soldiers, which is touring Southeast Alaska and will be stopping for a performance in Petersburg this month. In coordination with the Petersburg Arts Council, the Indigenous singer-songwriter, who draws from Southern Tutchone, Tlingit, Japanese, and Scottish roots, will bring her trio to Petersburg's Wright Auditorium on September 16 for a 90-minute show combining storytelling and music. Diyet...
The Petersburg will host its second annual live music swing dance benefit concert in the Elks Ballroom on Saturday, Sept. 27, with free Lindy Hop dance lessons being offered this month leading up to the fundraiser. The event will benefit The Petersburg Arts Council, The Market in Petersburg which will be providing mocktails, and the Petersburg High School Drama program who are providing appetizers. Matthew Wintersteen, who teaches the swing dance lessons with Elsa Wintersteen, said the Tuesday...
Petersburg's Rainforest Festival is back, after several years with dispersed year-round programming but without the customary fall festival. Taking place mostly on the weekend after Labor Day, September 3-7, the festival will once again offer an immersive celebration of local ecology, art, science, and locally harvested food. "We're really excited to have it back," says Sunny Rice, one of the festival's organizers. "While the dispersed events were lovely, it left us kind of without a Rainforest...
After six years of collecting data using trail cameras, radio collars, and DNA analysis, a deer population research project on Mitkof Island, currently led by Ketchikan-based Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wildlife Biologist Tessa Hasbrouck, is entering its final phase. Historically, deer population monitoring in Southeast Alaska relied on relatively simple methods. Biologists would walk through the woods each spring counting deer pellets, or fly over alpine areas in summer tallying visible...
Kacey Hammer is stepping into her first official teaching role this fall as Stedman Elementary’s newest kindergarten teacher. Hammer is currently completing her Master’s degree in Elementary Education at the University of Alaska Southeast, working toward her K-8 certification. She’ll begin the school year on a provisional license while finishing her student teaching requirements in her own classroom — an arrangement that her UAS advisor encouraged. “He was like, ‘You’re ready,’” Hamm...
Newly college graduate Trinity Edwards grew up in Winnifred, Montana, population 150, and was looking for a place like Petersburg - a tight-knit community that supports its schools - as the place to start her teaching career. "I wanted a school that's going to be supported by the community," Edwards says. "Back home, our big thing was basketball too - the entire town showing up for games. It was going to be really important for me to have a community that was supportive of the school - like...
Life in small town Alaska will probably be a pretty smooth transition for Stedman Elementary's new fourth grade teacher Trevor Wilson, who grew up in Unalaska – an island community on the Aleutian chain similar in size to Petersburg -- where his father worked as a school principal. As a younger man Wilson had not wanted to follow too closely in his father's footsteps and didn't want to be a teacher. But when he went off to college at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, he had a c...
After 16 years in special education and a recent year teaching in one of Alaska's most remote villages, Jocelynne Parker is bringing her passion for those needing extra support to Petersburg High School. Parker comes to Petersburg from Houston, Texas, by way of Nuiqsut, a village of 600 people on Alaska's North Slope, where she taught PreK through 12th grade special education for the past year. The transition from Houston to the Arctic Circle was dramatic, but Parker connected with the culture...
The elementary school's new counselor Dave Fonken comes to Petersburg from Southern Oregon. He says he found Petersburg's thriving school community and endless local outdoor recreation opportunities very appealing. "I was looking for a combination of a really healthy district with a lot of places to play," Fonken explains. "Both of those things really came together here." Fonken brings eleven years of school counseling experience to his new role. His journey in education began as a Spanish...
