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The Pilot has been trying to ride out the storm of production cost increases over recent years without passing higher costs on to our newspaper customers, but we've stretched our ability to do so as far as possible. Beginning next week, the cost of a single edition of the newspaper goes from $1.50 per copy to $2.00. Well, actually $1.88, as the two dollars includes local sales tax. Our subscription rates will also have to bump up commensurately. A local subscription will be $82 for the year -...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously on Tuesday, Jan. 21 to extend the borough's solid waste disposal contract with Republic Services for an additional year, as communities across the region continue to explore long-term solutions for Southeast Alaska's waste management challenges. The one-year extension will maintain waste disposal services through August 2026 at a rate of $192.40 per ton, with estimated costs between $425,000 and $475,000 for the year. The borough had until...
Carey Case first arrived in Petersburg in 1998 as a 24-year-old seasonal Forest Service employee, and now, after 25 years of service in numerous roles within the district, she has been hired as the Petersburg District Ranger. "I started working for the Forest Service in college in Washington State, and really liked working outdoors and getting to take helicopters and working in remote places," Case recalls. Her journey to Petersburg began when "RD Parks hired me and moved me up here. He asked... Full story
A unique University of Alaska Southeast program is teaching high school students how to participate in federal subsistence management decisions by bringing them directly into the public process. The dual enrollment course, which offers high school students two university biology credits, prepares participants to engage effectively with the Federal Subsistence Board - the body overseeing subsistence hunting and fishing regulations on federal public lands in Alaska. "I truly believe now, in my exp... Full story
Next week the Petersburg Medical Center is launching another round of its Lifestyle Balance Program, a wellness initiative that uses group support and individual coaching to help participants make and maintain healthy lifestyle changes. "The program is designed for people who may be at risk for developing diabetes, which can be based on family history, age, gender, activity levels, or weight," said Julie Walker, PMC's Community Wellness Manager. "We focus on prevention through sustainable...
Updated state demographic data published this month paints a picture of Petersburg's population showing relative stability in total numbers but significant shifts in age composition. Petersburg Borough's population stands at 3,379 in 2024, down slightly from 3,398 in the 2020 Census. During these past four years, the borough recorded nine more births than deaths, while experiencing a net loss of 28 residents to migration, resulting in an overall decrease of 19 residents. A further look at the...
Petersburg nonprofit Humanity In Progress (HIP) is preparing for its ninth annual Project Connect event, which will provide resources and services to community members experiencing housing insecurity. The event will take place Tuesday, Jan. 28 from 2-6 p.m. at John Hanson Sr. Hall, thanks to the space being donated by Petersburg Indian Association (PIA). Preparations for the event have been underway for several months. "Our main goal is just to make sure that we have resources available for the...
The Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department Association recently received a $173,000 donation to build up the Smokey Howell Memorial Fund which began in 2002 from Petersburg's response to a tragedy and continues to support local volunteer training and emergency response capabilities. The most recent donation follows an earlier $70,000 contribution in 2021 – both coming from Howell's family through the Geneva Bartlett Trust - bringing the total endowment to nearly $300,000. The fund honors L...
When Ashley Corl moved to Petersburg, she found herself running alone a lot. "I've been a runner for most of my life, and I've always run with friends or with groups that I was training with for races, mountain runs, marathons. I always had people to run with, and when I moved here, I ran alone a lot, and I saw a lot of people running alone, and I think I just started to really crave more community around running," Corl told the Pilot. "I knew that there were other runners out there. I just...
Word arrived last week that Petersburg has finally secured funding for the Scow Bay Haul-out and Washdown Pad project. $8.8 million is coming through the Department of Transportation's Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant program, part of more than $47 million for Alaska in federal transportation grants announced by U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan. The funding breakthrough came after eight consecutive applications submitted by the...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Monday to transfer seven parcels of borough-owned land in the Airport Addition Subdivision to Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority (THRHA) in exchange for the development of 11 residential lots, a project that builds on a successful 1996 partnership between the organizations. "About 25 years ago, PIA allocated federal housing monies to the Tlingit and Haida Housing Authority, and in the partnership with the assembly, several...
Rock-N-Road Construction was awarded the contract for the borough’s Pump Station 4 and force main replacement project during Monday’s borough assembly meeting on Jan. 6. Rock-N-Road’s $2,090,300 bid came in well below a competing $2.9 million bid and the engineer’s initial estimate for the project of $2.56 million. Funding for this project has already been secured by the borough through a loan from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Alaska Clean Water Fund. Petersburg voters...
The Petersburg School District plans to restore several cut positions and provide a one-time staff bonus, thanks to higher-than-expected state funding and enrollment numbers for the 2024-25 school year. The district received around $1.1 million more in state funding than initially budgeted for, with $849,000 coming from the one-time increase of $680 per student above the base student allocation (BSA) surviving the governor's veto this year. The remainder stems from enrollment reaching 456.8 stud...
Petersburg's high school drama program is heading to Scotland. The group has been accepted to perform in August 2026 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe -the world's largest performing arts festival. For PHS drama teacher Elsa Wintersteen, it's a dream come true – both for herself and her students. While she's never been to the Fringe Festival, she witnessed its impact through a high school friend who performed there years ago. "When she came back, I mean, all the pictures she had to show me, a...
A proposal coming before the Board of Fish in January, if adopted, would make it almost impossible under the current management plan to ever reopen the Southeast Alaska commercial red king crab fishery. Proposal 242 - put forward by Territorial Sportsmen, Inc of Juneau - seeks to allocate 100% of the red king crab available for harvest in Section 11-A to the personal use fishery. Section 11-A accounts for around a quarter of all the mature red king crab biomass available in Southeast Alaska acco...
Next season's Tanner crab biomass numbers in Southeast Alaska are down, but the area's golden king crab numbers continue to climb. The two commercial fisheries open on the same day – Monday, Feb. 17, 2025 – and that is by design. "Tanner seems to fluctuate across the region ... on any given year," Adam Messmer, Regional Shellfish Biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game explained the Pilot. "Permit holders with dual permits GKC/Tanner will focus on one species while it is up and provide...
U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Joey Boggs is back home in Petersburg this week after escorting the now-famous 80-foot Sitka spruce - known as "The People's Tree" - from Zarembo Island to the front lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. On Zarembo, Petersburg's Rock-N-Road Construction - Sig Burrell and his crew including Jimmy Martinsen, Clayton Martinsen, Ethan File and Tore Lenz - were the ones who harvested the tree. It was the peak of their summer construction season, and...
This is the final week of operations for Papa Bear's Pizza - downtown Petersburg's iconic pizza shop which has been family operated for the past twenty-two years. The business and the building have been purchased by Tom Westoff, owner and operator of Coastal Cold Storage - a custom seafood processor and popular breakfast and lunch restaurant which moved out of their former location on main street this fall. Coastal's restaurant is reshaping itself into Coastal Bear, with Peter Brantuas set to...
On Monday the Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution opposing a proposal coming before the Board of Fish two months from now which seeks to reduce the production of hatchery chum and hatchery pink salmon in Southeast Alaska by 25 percent. Max Worhatch, a Petersburg commercial salmon fisherman, addressed the assembly at the start of Monday’s meeting “to voice the commercial fishing industry’s support of a resolution to oppose the Board of Fish Proposal 156.” “Hatchery production has long been an important element of the vi...
Petersburg's student-run nonprofit movie theater, the Northern Nights Theater, has run out of reserves and will have to make some changes starting in January. The last few years have been very challenging and expensive for the organization. Sitting unused through the early stages of the pandemic led to major malfunctions with the movie projector, Theater Manager Cyndy Fry told the Pilot. "We basically had to buy the whole computer guts of the system, [and then] because of that change we had to...
Mitkof Highway was closed to through traffic for around eight hours on Sunday, Dec. 1, after a power pole snapped under the weight of snow and ice on the line – leaving power lines on the ground crossing the highway. The pole failure occurred around 2:30 p.m. just past 9-mile and caused an 11 hour 10 minute power outage for the entire circuit from the Scow Bay substation out to Blind Slough. Winds reached 35 mph with sideways rain as the crew from Petersburg Municipal Power and Light worked i...
The Petersburg Pilot offers its congratulations and best wishes to our now-former news reporter, Olivia Rose, who has accepted a position at Petersburg’s much beloved public radio station KFSK. The Pilot has benefited greatly for the past year and a half from Olivia’s thorough and accurate reporting. Her good understanding of what community journalism is all about has been an entirely positive addition to our staff, and we are happy to know Petersburg will continue to benefit from her reporting talents. We’ve long known of Olivia’s backgro...
During the 1940s and 1950s, Petersburg's ski hill was the place to be on a winter's day, and the new exhibit at Clausen Memorial Museum opening on Sunday, Dec. 8 shows why. "The ski hill was a really big part of Petersburg between the years of 1939 and 1959," Clausen Museum curator Anne Lee told the Pilot. "It was up where the rock quarry is now, behind the airport ... they had a ski jump, and ski competitions, the ski hill, cross country races, downhill events, and they eventually had a tow...
Chris Herren, a former NBA player and renowned addiction recovery speaker is flying in on Wednesday, Dec. 5 to speak with Mitkof Middle School and Petersburg High School students and share his eye-opening journey from success to addiction to recovery. Once a high school basketball star recruited to play in college and then two seasons in the NBA, Herren's promising career was derailed by addiction. His story has been documented in the memoir, "Basketball Junkie" and in "Unguarded," an...
The members of the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department elected Dan Bird this month to replace Jim Stolpe as fire chief. Stolpe served two three-year terms as chief, and he intends to continue his volunteering career with PVFD for as long as he is able - though he plans to let his EMT certification expire in the coming year and will slow down a little when it comes to rushing into burning buildings. "After 45 years of doing it, I figure it's time for that younger generation to pick that ball up...
