Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 450
For a third straight summer, Katie Holmlund - the youth program coordinator behind Petersburg Medical Center's Kinder Skog outdoor program - led a group of local teenagers on a sea-kayak expedition down the south end of Mitkof Island, roughly 50 kilometers over 10 days in collaboration with the guiding outfit Onward and Upward. Eight students and five instructors launched from Banana Point, worked their way out to Woewodski Island, and backtracked home. By the last few days, the adults were most...
Shannon Baird, finance director for the Petersburg School District, has been named a recipient of ASBO International's 2026 Emerging Leaders Scholarship Award, an honor that comes with a $2,000 travel reimbursement grant and free registration to the national organization's annual conference this fall. Baird said she was one of 17 recipients selected nationwide this year. The award recognizes newer professionals in school business and accounting, and winners take part in their own reception and...
Independent U.S. House candidate Bill Hill brought his campaign to Petersburg last week, fielding questions at a Q&A session hosted at the Harbor Bar and later sitting down with the Petersburg Pilot to make his case for unseating first-term Republican Rep. Nick Begich III. Hill, a lifelong Bristol Bay commercial fisherman and retired school superintendent from Naknek, is running as an independent in a race he now frames as effectively two-way, after Democrat Matt Schultz ended his campaign and...
Pink salmon - the backbone of Petersburg's seine fleet - have finally started to show up last over the past week, after what state biologists were comparing to the poorest early returns on the books. "Pink salmon's been, up until this last week - in particular Sunday - pretty poor so far," Troy Thynes, the Southeast Alaska management coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told the Pilot. He described strong escapement and harvest in District 13 near Sitka, and a dramatic jump in...
A long-delayed project to replace Petersburg's downtown streetlights is finally underway, with the first new poles installed last week and the rest expected to go up over the coming weeks, Utility Director Stephan Harbour told the assembly Monday. The borough is installing 13 new LED poles downtown and purchased two more as spares for accident replacements - 15 in all - at a cost of about $138,000. Two were already standing as of Monday, one in front of the federal building and one across the st...
Nearly seven decades ago a major Hollywood film crew rolled into Petersburg to shoot the sprawling Alaska statehood epic "Ice Palace." For their new exhibit, the Clausen Memorial Museum brings that movie back for two screenings. The museum will celebrate the opening of its new exhibit Saturday, Aug. 8, with a 3 p.m. matinee screening of the film. A second showing is set for Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. Standard museum admission covers a tour of the exhibit, the screening, and concessions - popcorn and...
Tausani Ieremia, of Sitka, was setting the net aboard the Petersburg seiner Odin on the morning of Sunday, July 26, when the boat's own purse line snared his ankle and dragged him over the stern and into the water near Saint Joseph Island, west of Prince of Wales. In the minutes that followed, the 22-year-old fisherman was pulled under by the net, lost consciousness and stopped breathing. The Odin's crew pulled him back, revived him with CPR. He was helicoptered by the Coast Guard to Sitka then... Full story
A citizen initiative that would exempt Petersburg residents 70 and older from borough sales tax will go before voters Oct. 6. In the local election last fall, Petersburg voters chose to eliminate the senior sales tax exemption that applied to all qualified residents over 65 and replace it with an income-based senior sales tax exemption. Petersburg residents will now be asked to restore the sales tax exemption for all seniors, regardless of income, with the minimum age increased to 70 years old....
After nine months of public meetings and hours of public testimony, the Petersburg Borough Assembly adopted its wireless communication facilities ordinance last Monday. Ordinance 2026-14 passed its third and final reading. Mayor Bob Lynn and Assembly Members Jeff Meucci, Bob Martin and Scott Newman voted for it. Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton Gregor and Assembly Members Rob Schwartz and James Valentine were excused from the meeting. The ordinance creates a new chapter of borough code governing wireless communication facilities and other towers and...
Tidal Network’s application for a minor subdivision at 1200 Haugen Drive, near the Fire Hall, was halted at last week’s Petersburg Planning Commission meeting on July 14 when no commissioner seconded the motion to consider the application. Last month, the Petersburg Borough Assembly approved the sale of the land — a 10,036-square-foot lot carved out of a much larger borough-owned property next to the fire hall, where Tidal Network plans to build a communication tower. The contract was signe...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously Monday to authorize the borough manager to apply for and execute two state revolving fund loans, each of up to $150,000, to pay for a pair of wastewater studies the borough is required to complete under its federal discharge permit by Nov. 1. Both loans would come through the Alaska Clean Water Fund. The first would fund a wastewater disinfection study to evaluate disinfection alternatives, develop preliminary engineering recommendations and identify improvements needed to meet current and futur...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly gave unanimous first-reading approval Monday to an ordinance that would establish nepotism standards for the borough’s elected officials, filling a gap the mayor said has sat in the borough charter without implementing code. Mayor Bob Lynn said he and Borough Clerk Becky Regula reviewed the borough’s existing provisions earlier this year and concluded they were not sufficient. “We looked at three or four different other ordinances that other boroughs here in Alaska had, and we turned it over after some thought to...
The Coast Guard Cutter Elderberry has a new officer in charge, following a change-of-command ceremony held July 15 at the Sons of Norway Hall. Senior Chief Petty Officer Jacob Pegoda, officer-in-charge of the 65-foot buoy tender for the past three years, turned over command to Senior Chief Petty Officer Craig Campomizzi. The new commander of Coast Guard Sector Southeast Alaska, Captain Ginny Naldony, traveled to Petersburg for the ceremony. Pegoda received a commendation for his years at the...
Sharlay Mamoe started work as executive director of WAVE on July 1, taking over from Rikki McKay, who departs Petersburg this month to continue her education in social work. Mamoe comes to the job from the Petersburg Children's Center, where she spent eight years, most of them as director. Before that she worked a decade at the cannery. McKay is staying on through July 24 to help with the handoff. The two have been working side by side since July 1. WAVE board treasurer Indigo Hanahan said the...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted last week to accept conveyance from the state of roughly 8.8 acres of tide and submerged land at Papke's Landing, along with the aging public dock and boat launch that generations of down-the-Narrows residents and Petersburg boaters have relied on. Resolution 2026-18, approved 5-0, accepts the parcel - comprising Alaska Tideland Surveys 251 and 921 - from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources under the state's process for conveying tide and submerged...
Studious readers of the Pilot might remember Maditha Kröger from last summer - the German project manager who read a book called "Inside: One Woman's Journey Through the Inside Passage," decided to attempt the same epic adventure herself, and stopped in Petersburg for a few days' rest along the way and tell us about her journey so far. Last week, the author of that inspiring book came to Petersburg. On Tuesday, July 7, Susan Marie Conrad told an audience at the Petersburg Public Library about...
Kito's Kave Bar and Liquor Store – one of Petersburg's two downtown bars and a well-known late-night spot – now has new owners. Jake Dougher and his brother-in-law, Anders Rosvold, took over the bar last week after the liquor license transfer was officially finalized. "We were just wanting to do something more local, more hands-on, just be a little bit more involved," Dougher said. Dougher moved to Petersburg about a year ago with his wife, a Petersburg local, Bergen Rosvold. Both have been wor...
Petersburg Borough Assembly advanced its wireless communication facilities ordinance through a second reading Monday, adopting 10 more amendments that drew sharp criticism from residents — and some misgivings from assembly members themselves — even as the assembly voted 5-0 to keep the process moving. Ordinance 2026-14A would amend Title 19 of the municipal code to regulate cell towers and other transmitters, requiring them to be reviewed as conditional uses with public notice and Planning Commission approval while remaining consistent wit...
Petersburg Municipal Power and Light will not add a diesel surcharge to customers’ bills this year to recover the cost of running the borough’s generators during the annual Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) maintenance shutdown, Utility Director Steve Harbour told the Borough Assembly on Monday. Each summer, SEAPA takes its transmission system offline for maintenance, and Petersburg must power the community entirely from its own generation. Roughly 75% of the borough’s electricity normally comes from SEAPA, with the remaining quarter gener...
The Borough Assembly voted 5-0 Monday to send a letter to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities asking the state to add pedestrian routes to its winter snow-removal work in Petersburg. The letter, prepared by Mayor Bob Lynn, focuses on non-motorized corridors that the borough says become unusable and unsafe when snow and ice go uncleared. It singles out the sidewalks and pedestrian routes along Haugen Drive leading to the Petersburg James A. Johnson Airport and Sandy Beach Park, and the Libby Strait bike path, which the...
Abbey Jackson Ferree, from Petersburg now living in Fairbanks, swam solo across the English Channel on June 21, crossing from England to France - around 40 miles in 14 hours and 23 minutes. The swim is Abbey's second leg of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, following her completion last August of the 28.5-mile 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan Island. A third event - the Catalina Channel, off Southern California, which she has a window to attempt in September - would complete the set, a... Full story
Southeast Alaska's summer commercial Dungeness crab season will close three weeks early, after Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Dungeness harvest estimate came in the lowest in at least 25 years. ADF&G announced Monday, June 29, that the 2026/27 summer season will close at 11:59 p.m. Saturday, July 25, after allowing a total of 40 days of fishing. Crab gear must be removed from the water entirely by 11:59 p.m. Aug. 1, though pots may be stored in closed waters for up to seven days if all...
Petersburg burned notably less diesel than usual during this month’s annual Southeast Alaska Power Agency maintenance shutdown, as mild weather, low industrial demand and customer conservation combined to ease the borough’s reliance on its backup generators even as fuel prices spiked, the borough’s utility directors said. With SEAPA’s hydroelectric feed offline, Petersburg Municipal Power and Light ran on diesel generation and the Blind Slough hydro plant. Outgoing Utility Director Karl Hagerman said the utility budgets for 10 days of diesel ru...
The Petersburg Indian Association is celebrating the second annual Amy Hallingstad Day this week with a full slate of events, anchored by a four-day Tlingit culture class and culminating Sunday in an outdoor gathering to honor Amy Hallingstad. The week opened Tuesday evening with Elder's Night, a community dinner at which PIA welcomed Sitka elder George Bennett Sr. and his wife, Mary. Bennett's "Tlingit 101" class began Wednesday and runs through Saturday at John Hanson Sr. Hall, with Amy Hallin...
Karl Hagerman will retire June 30 as Petersburg's utility director, closing a 33-year career with the borough that carried him from an entry-level water and wastewater worker to the head of two municipal departments - and, during the gaps between managers, to several stints as interim city manager. "This is the last full week, two days next week, and then we'll be done after 33 years and seven or eight odd months," Hagerman told the Pilot. Born and raised in Petersburg, Hagerman started with...
