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A bell recovered from a Southeast Alaska shipwreck that claimed 112 lives more than a century ago rang Thursday, May 29, for the first time in 117 years, signaling its future role in a Wrangell maritime tradition. Jeanie Arnold, director of the Nolan Center, struck the bell at the close of a community presentation, marking a significant moment for the artifact. If the bell can be restored in time, it will be used to ring out names at the community's annual blessing of the fleet in 2026. The...
January 2024 A prized Mental Health Trust lot by Blind River Rapids, a popular recreation site for sport fishing, was sold at auction to a USCG family. Toler and Jessie Alexander are eager to return to Petersburg after retiring from the Coast Guard in a few years. The borough listed its top priority capital projects, and the Petersburg Medical Center replacement was first and second on the list – for the main hospital construction and the main hospital interior build out. Petersburg Indian A...
“I’ve never seen market conditions as bad as they are now,” Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told a conference of Southeast business, community and municipal government leaders last week. “Last year we said we reached rock bottom,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said of low prices, weak markets and reluctant consumers. But then he added, “we’ve scraped off more levels,” reaching deeper to the bottom. All of the participants in the fisheries panel discussio...
A statewide effort to build up Alaska’s mariculture industry is looking to expand production at the same time it grows the market, particularly for kelp. “Everyone talks of the chicken-and-the-egg situation,” Juliana Leggitt, mariculture program manager at the Southeast Conference, said of what comes first: More kelp or more buyers. “There are definitely challenges in both.” The Alaska Mariculture Cluster, a consortium led by the Southeast Conference, has $49 million in federal money and $15 million in cash and in-kind matching funds to use ove...
A statewide coalition of fisheries and economic development organizations, led by the Southeast Conference, has won a $49 million federal grant to help build up Alaska’s mariculture industry. “This is a moon shot,” Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, said of the challenges ahead and the potential rewards of growing the industry to raise and harvest shellfish and seaweed in larger commercial quantities. “It’s a big deal,” said Wrangell’s Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development F...
Shellfish hatcheries could be in Alaska's future, under legislation recently signed into law. The measure allows the Department of Fish and Game to manage shellfish enhancement and restoration projects. Restoration projects are designed to bring a struggling stock back to a self-sustaining level, while enhancement projects would boost the stock to allow for commercial harvest. The new laws give the department another tool to address declining shellfish stock, such as red and blue king crab, sea...
5 students in the Class of 2022 will graduate next Tuesday in a ceremony which will run similar to those before the pandemic. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the high school gym and will be open to everyone with no assigned seating. It will also be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person and the link has been posted on the school's website. PHS Principal Rick Dormer said staff and seniors will organize around the community center and will be welcomed into the gym as the band plays Pomp...
A state and federally designated economic development organization for Southeast Alaska has received $1 million in two grants to build up mariculture in the region, with half the money to go toward applying for an even larger grant and the other half going to design a processing facility on Prince of Wales Island. A $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration will be used "to build an application to allow us to compete for $50 million," Robert Venables, executive director...
The scholarship fund created to honor the memory of Helen and Sig Decker is a little different from most. In addition to the usual requirements of being a graduating high school senior who is going on to postsecondary schooling, applicants must have worked in commercial fishing or seafood processing. It's recognition that the Deckers worked in the industry for years before they died in a car accident in Petersburg on July 28, 2020, at 19 and 21 years old, respectively. The family made...
WRANGELL - A Wrangell company that makes bath and body care products has nothing to do with fish, but that's OK because it won this year's beyond-the-plate award at the Alaska Symphony of Seafood competition. Waterbody won for its Deep Blue Sea Bath Soak, which counts Pacific sea salt and Alaska bull kelp among its ingredients. Angie Flickinger started the business in 2015 as Gathered and Grown Botanicals. The idea began when she wanted to give handcrafted soap as a gift. She rebranded in 2020 a...
WRANGELL - Aquatic farming in Alaska could be a big industry, and completely sustainable. That's according to Wrangell's Julie Decker, executive director of Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on research and development for the seafood industry. Shellfish and seaweed farming are the only types of aquatic farming permitted in Alaska. Mariculture includes saltwater farming, differing from aquaculture which "farms" in freshwater. Mariculture development, if managed...
It took freedom of information requests, weeks of queries to administrators and more than three months past a legal deadline for Governor Dunleavy to finally release his choice for a Board of Fisheries seat. Dunleavy announced last Friday his appointment of INDY Walton of Soldotna to fill the vacant seat on the seven-member Board that directs management of subsistence, personal use, sport and commercial fisheries in state waters out to three miles. The vacancy came 115 days after the Alaska Legislature on May 11 rejected his choice of Abe...
Alaska’s salmon landings have passed the season’s midpoint and by August 7 the statewide catch had topped 116 million fish. State managers are calling for a projected total 2021 harvest of 190 million salmon, a 61% increase over 2020. Most of the salmon being caught now are pinks with Prince William Sound topping 35 million humpies, well over the projection of 25 million. Pink salmon catches at Kodiak remained sluggish at just over three million so far out of a forecast calling for over 22 million. Southeast was seeing a slight uptick with pin...
Alaskans who are engaged in or interested in mariculture are invited to become founding members in a new group that will advance the growing industry across the state. The newly formed Alaska Mariculture Alliance (AMA) is a private non-profit successor to a five-year task force formed in 2016 by Governor Walker and re-authorized in 2018 by Governor Dunleavy. The task force will sunset on June 30. “One of the priority recommendations was to create a long term entity that would coordinate and support development of a robust and sustainable m...
The Borough Assembly unanimously approved an ordinance in its first reading that reestablishes user fees at the Parks and Recreation Center and allows anyone under the age of 18 to use the facility for free. Ordinance #2021-03 groups all users into two categories and establishes three types of fees. Those under the age of 18 are free to use the facility without payment, according to the ordinance. Those over the age of 18 either pay $5 per visit, $300 for an annual pass or $48 for a punch pass...
This year marks the 30th year that the weekly Fish Factor column has appeared in newspapers across Alaska and nationally. Every year it features “picks and pans” for Alaska’s seafood industry - a no-holds-barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst fishing highlights, and my choice for the biggest fish story of the year. Here are the choices for 2020, in no particular order - Best little known fish fact - Alaska’s commercial fisheries division also pays for the management of subsistence and personal use fisheries. Biggest fishing t...
January The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposed establishing critical habitat areas for humpback whales in three distinct population segments located off Mexico, Central American and the Western Pacific. The Petersburg Borough sent a letter of disapproval to the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the proposed critical habitat for humpback whales after residents spoke out against the proposal. The Petersburg Borough authorized the hire of Josh Rathmann to fill the...
Alaska State Troopers continue to investigate a fatal accident that claimed the lives of four seine boat crewmembers sometime after 10 P.M. on Monday, July 27. A Ford Excursion driven by Siguard Decker drove off the roadway near the 27-mile marker of Mitkof Highway at a high rate of speed, according to Alaska State Troopers. Megan Peters, communications director with the Alaska Dept. of Public Safety said Siguard Decker, who was driving, seems to have had lost control of the vehicle and then...
WRANGELL - Last week, four people died in a car wreck in Petersburg. Among them were two Wrangellites, Siguard and Helen Decker, 21-years-old and 19-years-old. Their deaths shook the community, which has come together in a variety of ways to express their grief and support for the Decker family. A GoFundMe page was put together by the United Fishermen of Alaska, to raise money in their memory. As of Tuesday morning, Aug. 4, $161,273 has been raised. "The initial $10,000 in funds raised will go...
Four individuals died in a car crash that occurred late Monday night or early Tuesday morning on Mitkof Island when their SUV drove off the roadway near the 27 mile marker of Mitkof Highway at a high rate of speed, according to a press release from the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Two of the passengers were Wrangell citizens Siguard Decker, 21, and Helen Decker, 19, according to the ADPS press release. Another passenger was identified as 29-year-old Ian Martin of Petersburg, according to...
Four individuals died in a car crash that occurred late Monday night or early Tuesday morning on Mitkof Island when their SUV drove off the roadway near the 27 mile marker of Mitkof Highway at a high rate of speed, according to a press release from the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Two of the passengers were Wrangell citizens Siguard Decker, 21, and Helen Decker, 19, according to the ADPS press release. Another passenger was identified as 29-year-old Ian Martin of Petersburg, according to... Full story
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — Shoppers will no longer see a blue-sticker label on Gulf of Alaska cod after its sustainability certification is suspended starting in April. The label designates which fish are sustainably caught. Alaska’s Energy Desk reported Friday that the Marine Stewardship Council, which sets standards for sustainable fishing, will suspend the label starting April 5. “What the MSC certification really does is along the supply chain it allows for there to be traceability,’’ council spokeswoman Jackie Marks previously told Alaska’s...
Alaska shellfish farmers and divers fear they won't be 'open for business' much longer if they're forced to pick up the tab for federally required lab tests as outlined in Governor Dunleavy's budget. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has proposed shifting the state cost to the harvesters which last year totaled almost a half million dollars. Geoduck clam divers in Southeast Alaska, for example, pay about $150,000 each year to collect samples that are sent to the single...
Weed is set to give a big boost to Alaska’s blue economy! The interest in growing seaweeds in Alaska is gaining momentum and training more farmers is the goal of a program starting next February in Kodiak, Sitka and Ketchikan. The training is phase two of the 2014 Alaska Mariculture Initiative that aims to grow a $100 million industry in 20 years. “We’re doing this training because there is immense interest from coastal communities and commercial fishermen,” said Riley Smith, development director with the which helped spearhead the maricul...
