(358) stories found containing 'Columbia'


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  • AMHS offers brief update on ops, planned improvements; Staffing, reliability continue to struggle

    SAM STOCKBRIDGE, Ketchikan Daily News|Nov 2, 2023

    During a virtual public open house last Tuesday evening, Alaska Marine Highway System Marine Director Craig Tornga gave a brief update on the status of the agency's capital improvements as well as its operating challenges. Operating challenges "Crewing is still a big struggle for us," Tornga said. The system operated six ferries all summer, though it had hoped it would be able to recruit enough crew to run the Kennicott as a seventh vessel. But "we have crews for about five and a half (ferries). There is a large shortage across the national...

  • Yesterday's News

    Oct 26, 2023

    October 26, 1923 – Sea water burns at Prince Rupert. What might have been a serious fire causing much damage to property was narrowly averted on the waterfront yesterday afternoon, says the Prince Rupert News. Gasoline had been spilled on the surface of the water from pumping the scow at the Prince Rupert Boat House. A passer-by coming along threw a match into the water after lighting his pipe and the combustible liquid still floating immediately ignited. The flames ran up to the scow occasioning a great deal of smoke and coming perilously c...

  • Guest Editorial: Alaska's gas line dream is out of alignment

    Lary Persily, Wrangell Sentinel Publisher|Oct 26, 2023

    Alaska officials who say the stars are aligned for the long-dreamt, long-on-the-odds multibillion-dollar North Slope natural gas project are confusing shiny stars with black holes. Like the black hole the state already has poured close to a billion dollars into over the past two decades, thinking that international markets would like expensive Alaska gas better than lower-risk, less costly gas from anywhere else. But unlike black holes, where the force of gravity is so strong that nothing escapes, the Alaska gas line dream continues to survive...

  • State plans to send Matanuska into shipyard for full-hull scan

    Larry Persily, Wrangell Sentinel Writer|Oct 5, 2023

    The state wants to send the Matanuska, the oldest vessel in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet, into a shipyard for the equivalent of a full-body scan. Management wants to find out just how much of the ship's steel has rusted, and how far the rust has eaten into the thickness of the metal. The 60-year-old Matanuska has been tied up at the dock in Ketchikan since last November, waiting for the state to decide whether to repair the vessel and restore it to working order, or give up on the...

  • Yesterday's News News from 25-50-75-100 years ago

    Sep 28, 2023

    September 28, 1923 – Testifying in her action for divorce in Judge Hall’s court, Mrs. Otto Burkhardt branded her husband, Frederick Otto Burkhardt, the wealthy Alaska salmon packer, as an arsonist and testified that he purposely set the fires which destroyed the cannery at Chilkoot in 1919 and for which $290,000 insurance money was collected [$5,206,870 today]. Her testimony reads as follows: “I followed him down from the house to the cannery. He did not see me or know that I was there. I watched him go in and, from one end of the canne...

  • Yesterday's News News from 25-50-75-100 years ago

    Aug 31, 2023

    August 31, 1923 – The cannery of the Petersburg Packing Company, this year will set a new high mark for number of cases of salmon packed, having already exceeded their previous high mark set in 1918 and with still a week to run. This concern also has the honor of having the largest pack put up by any single cannery in Alaska this year. Although the salmon run is properly over there are still enough fish being caught to keep the plant going for another week on part time, which will add several thousand cases to their season total. At the c...

  • Firefighters report more progress against Canadian wildfires and wait for rain

    ROB GILLIES and JIM MORRIS, Associated Press|Aug 24, 2023

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Petersburg’s continually hazy sky hints at the wildfire conditions being battled by our neighbor to the South and East. Firefighters successfully prevented wildfires from destroying more structures in a scenic region of British Columbia, authorities said Monday as the prospect of rain raised hopes for the effort to contain the flames. Fire Chief Jason Broland said fire crews made more progress in the West Kelowna area known as a summer destination for families. He reported no new property losses in the pre...

  • Southeast wolves are not threatened or endangered, federal agency concludes

    James Brooks, Alaska Beacon|Aug 24, 2023

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has again rejected a request to list Southeast Alaska's Alexander Archipelago wolves as endangered or threatened. The wolves, found in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, range among the region's large, old trees and are a subspecies of gray wolves. Putting the wolves on the Endangered Species List, either as endangered or threatened, likely would have resulted in new restrictions on development, logging and construction in the region, and the state of... Full story

  • Yesterday's News

    Aug 17, 2023

    August 17, 1923 – Word has been received from Juneau that a force of men will arrive here soon to finish the Petersburg Scow Bay road this fall. The money necessary has been appropriated and the appropriation has been approved by the Secretary of Agriculture. The work will be under the charge of the Bureau of Public Roads and it is intended to put a full gravel surface over the entire roadway and to fix the road bed wherever necessary to hold the surfacing. Sand and gravel will be taken from either Five Mile or Sukoi for this work, and a b...

  • Bursting ice dam in Juneau highlights risks of destructive glacial flooding around the globe

    Becky Bohrer and Mark Thiessen, Associated Press|Aug 10, 2023

    JUNEAU - The gray, two-story home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came over the weekend as a glacial dam burst in Alaska's capital, swelling the levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. The bursting of such snow-and-ice dams is a phenomenon...

  • Guest Commentary: Powerful interests should stop targeting Alaska hook and line fishing

    Joe Emerson, For the Alaska Beacon|Aug 10, 2023

    Nine years ago on Aug. 4, the mine waste dam at Mount Polley mine in British Columbia’s Fraser River watershed failed, releasing 6.6 billion gallons of wastewater into a once-famed sockeye salmon nursery just as the salmon were returning. It scared me. Nine years later, Fraser River sockeye runs have tanked. The mine has re-opened and has been allowed for years now to spew its wastewater directly into one of the Fraser River’s key sockeye salmon nurseries, Quesnel Lake. And British Columbia corporations have doubled down on digging up and lay... Full story

  • Guest Editorial: About time the pipeline dream ran out of gas

    Larry Persily|Aug 3, 2023

    Elected officials who say the proposed Alaska North Slope natural gas project is closer than ever to putting steel pipe in the ground and money in the pockets of construction workers should take a break from their political grandstanding and pay attention to the facts. Not a single analyst tracking gas projects around the world ever mentions Alaska when they list developments with the best potential of getting built. The talk about multiple liquefied natural gas export projects going to construction along the U.S. Gulf Coast, in Qatar,...

  • To the Editor

    Jul 13, 2023

    Join the Volunteer Fire Department To the Editor: Now that we have seen the ugly damage to the church that a structure fire does so quickly, it should be obvious why Petersburg needs a fire department. But a fire department is not just big red trucks, air packs, hoses, and axes. It needs volunteers — people who have the skills to deal with the serious problems that lesser mortals run away from. PVFD always needs more volunteers to learn to serve as firefighters, emergency medical technicians, search team members, and non-tactical supporting w...

  • Limited southbound ferry service to Petersburg for six weeks in draft winter ferry schedule

    Larry Persily, Wrangell Sentinel writer|Jul 6, 2023

    Petersburg will go without any southbound ferry service in alternating weeks from Oct. 1 to mid-November under the Alaska Marine Highway System's draft fall/winter schedule. The town is on the schedule for its usual weekly northbound stop during that period. The rest of the winter schedule shows once-a-week service to town in each direction, with the bonus of two stops in each direction the second week of each month from mid-November through February when the Kennicott will shorten its...

  • State sets commercial troll harvest limit at 74,800 kings

    Garland Kennedy|Jul 6, 2023

    The Department of Fish and Game has announced that 74,800 "treaty" king salmon (non-hatchery fish) will be available for taking in the summer commercial troll season's first opening, which started Saturday. The department released summer king salmon harvest numbers on June 22. In total, 106,800 kings remain on the table following the spring fishery harvest, the agency said, and the troll fleet will be able to target 70% of those in the summer's first opener. The fleet hooked 24,700 fish in the...

  • Yesterday's News News from 25-50-75-100 years ago

    Jun 29, 2023

    June 29, 1923 – Leonard Martins suffered a cracked bone in one of his legs and Leif Mathieson suffered a severely bruised foot last Thursday night, week, when a large wheel of an engine being installed at the West Lumber Company mill was tipped over and caught the boys as it fell. The two boys, with several others, were playing around the mill site and in some manner the wheel, which had been removed from the engine and set to one side, was pushed over and caught the two boys. Young Martins was removed to the hospital where his leg was d...

  • State ferry Columbia expected back at sea this week

    Wrangell Sentinel staff|Jun 29, 2023

    The state ferry Columbia, after a week in the shop to repair leaky pipes and its bow thrusters, was expected back at work starting Wednesday, June 28, with its regularly scheduled run from Ketchikan to Bellingham, Washington. The vessel was pulled from service on June 20, missing two southbound stops and one northbound stop in Wrangell. The 50-year-old Columbia left Haines that day — without any passengers — and headed straight for the Vigor shipyard in Ketchikan for repairs, canceling all stops along the way. “There’s a manifold down in the...

  • State ferry system says it is unable to provide hiring numbers

    Larry Persily, Wrangell Sentinel writer|Jun 29, 2023

    The Alaska Marine Highway System, which five months ago embarked on improving its hiring process to address chronic crew shortages, is unable to say how many new employees it has hired since then. The push started after a consultant’s report in January determined the state had hired just four out of 250 job applicants the over prior 12 months. The crew shortage forced the state to pull the Kennicott, the second-largest operable ship in the fleet, off this summer’s schedule and keep it tied up at the dock in Ketchikan. Asked how many new emp...

  • In "major victory" for SE Alaska trollers, federal appeals panel reverses king fishery closure

    Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal|Jun 22, 2023

    A federal appeals panel issued a last-second ruling Wednesday that will allow this summer’s Southeast Alaska troll Chinook salmon fishery to open as scheduled July 1 — reversing a lower court ruling that would have kept the $85 million industry off the water. “It’s a major victory,” Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said in a brief phone interview. “We can go fishing.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel, in a five-page ruling, said that the entities defending the fishery — the Alaska Trollers Association, th...

  • Columbia cancels sailings for at least a week due to repairs

    Mark Sabbatini, Juneau Empire|Jun 22, 2023

    The Columbia state ferry has cancelled its sailings for at least a week due to a mechanical issue, affecting stops at ports between Haines and Bellingham, Washington, according to a service notice by the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS). The primary interruption to service is a seven-day period starting Wednesday, with a sailing from Ketchikan to Bellingham and back through Southeast Alaska cancelled, the AMHS notice issued Monday notes. The decision is due to a "mechanical issue with the ves...

  • Lower 48 group plans to seek endangered species listing for SE kings

    Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journel|Jun 15, 2023

    A Washington state-based conservation group whose actions have already caused the closure of the Southeast Alaska king salmon commercial troll fishery is now planning to ask the federal government to list several Alaska king salmon stocks under the Endangered Species Act. Last month, the Wild Fish Conservancy formally notified the state of Alaska of its plans to file the ESA petition for multiple populations of king salmon — also known as chinook — in Southeast, Southwest and Cook Inlet, just outside Anchorage. If successful, experts said the...

  • Yesterday's News: News from 25-50-75-100 years ago

    May 18, 2023

    May 18, 1923 – Assistant Forester E.A. Sherman has presented seventy-one volumes as a nucleus for a marine library to the Forest Service boats operating in this district, according to word received by C.H. Flory. The library will be known as the Sherman Marine Library. The books are now on the way to Alaska. They include works of high class fiction, travel, exploration and history. Following the plan suggested for the library, the headquarters will be on the Ranger Tahn and from that boat will be distributed throughout the Forest Service f...

  • Fishermen, state respond to judge's SE troll ruling

    Anna Laffrey, Ketchikan Daily News|May 11, 2023

    Tom Fisher, a commercial troll fisherman and the president of the board of the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, has been catching salmon out of Ketchikan and surrounding communities since 1973. When he heard that a federal judge in Washington made a ruling last Tuesday that could shut down the small boat troll fishery in Southeast Alaska, Fisher was "flat dumbfounded." "Currently I'm at my boat in Wrangell," Fisher told the Daily News during a phone interview last Thursday. "I was slated to get hauled out of the water...

  • To protect orcas, federal judge orders closure of iconic Southeast Alaska troll fishery

    Max Graham and Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal|May 4, 2023

    A federal judge issued an order Tuesday that appears to close an iconic Southeast Alaska salmon fishery for at least the summer season - a decision that threatens hundreds of jobs and a $30 million industry in response to a conservation group's lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed by the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy, seeks to protect endangered orcas off the coast of the Lower 48 and British Columbia - whales that feed on some of the same salmon harvested by Southeast Alaska troll... Full story

  • Guest Commentary: The pollution continues at Tulsequah Chief mine

    Brian Lynch, Rivers Without Borders Petersburg|May 4, 2023

    The Taku River is usually the most productive wild salmon river in Southeast Alaska and one of the most prolific on the west coast of North America that is also vitally important to Petersburg and other Southeast Alaskan fishermen and processors. For over 60 years the abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine has been spewing toxic acid mine drainage into the Taku River watershed. For over 20 years Alaska Tribes, fishermen, elected leaders, tourism operators and many others have been fighting to get the British Columbia (B.C.) government to close down...

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