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Eugene Primaky Jr, a beloved son, brother and uncle, passed away on October 12, 2024 at the age of 56. Gene was born on October 3, 1968 in North Carolina to Eugene and Josee Primaky. Before coming back to Alaska he lived in Minnesota. While in Minnesota, he pursued a degree in Archaeology at Bemidji State University. During his senior year he traveled to Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. It was here that he accepted a Forestry position with the US Forest Service, marking... Full story
Fiscal conservatives like to say that Alaska has a spending problem. Solve it, cut programs, and the good tax-free life can continue — along with a fat Permanent Fund dividend every fall. The other side in the budget debate says the state has a revenue problem. They cite the political refusal to consider changes in oil taxes, mining taxes or corporate taxes, the rejection of a return to the pre-oil-days personal income tax, even the denial of an increase in the lowest-in-the-nation motor fuel tax rate. They say raise new revenues and a good l...
The federal government has revoked the visas of four international students at the University of Alaska Anchorage, without explanation or prior notice to students or the university, university officials said on Monday. “This week, we learned that the federal government has revoked visas for four individuals affiliated with UAA — one current student and three recent graduates in post-graduation training — without prior notice,” said UA President Pat Pitney in a university wide email on Monday. No students at the University of Alaska Fairban... Full story
A glass cabinet gleams near a big window in the Mountain View Manor Assisted Living apartment of George and Florabelle Rice. The display case is brimming with collected mementos: two small ceramic cats - prizes from a Quaker Oats container - given to Florabelle ninety years ago by her mother, souvenirs from the couple's travels, family photographs, keepsakes spanning nearly a century of memories. "I love this stuff that has a happy memory," says Florabelle, her eyes lighting up. "I get such a... Full story
Born in the small Norwegian fishing village of Petersburg, on Mitkof Island, Southeast Alaska in 1943, Nick was one of 6 children born to the Martinsen family. Nick grew up working on the family-owned dairy farm, milking cows, loading them on to the barge for summer pastures up the creek, and delivering milk to local customers during his school lunch hours. It was in Petersburg where Nick met his wife to be, Anna, when they were skiing at the age of 4. Anna and Nick went to Petersburg High Schoo... 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
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s transition report to the Trump administration accuses the Biden administration of carrying out a four-year assault on Alaska’s economy and that the Trump administration needs to repair the damage. Somehow in the equation for what constitutes creating economic opportunity and being pro-Alaska, the massive Willow project doesn’t count. Nor does the $10.1 billion in public investments in clean energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing. Nor does aiding Alaska’s visitor industry in a time of post-pandemic need. What about b...
WRANGELL - It was 1869 and smoke filled the winter air. Cannon balls ripped through Tlingit homes while U.S. Army shells shrieked across the sky. The same type of artillery used against the Confederates just four years prior was now turned on the Tlingit people of Wrangell, in their homeland which they called Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw. One hundred and fifty-five years later, the U.S. Army is apologizing. The apology is scheduled to take place in Wrangell on Jan. 11, 2025. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Army...
Sometimes, the best explanations are the simplest. Especially when it comes to economics. The complicated way to describe the consequences of Alaska losing population, particularly working-age residents, is to explain that fewer people have moved north than have moved out of the state in each of the past 12 years. That net outmigration is making it hard for employers to fill jobs, which means reduced hours of operation, longer waits for services and less money in the economy. The decline in working-age residents — ages 18 to 64 — is esp...
Nearly 100 high school musicians from Southeast Alaska were in Petersburg to celebrate the 50th annual Southeast Honors Music Festival. It's also the first time Petersburg has hosted the event since 1974. "I think it's really cool that we're bringing it back [honors music festival] for its 50th and I think it's a testament to the music directors and administrators throughout Southeast Alaska that have kept it going," Petersburg High School Music Director Chelsea Corrao said. The festival began...
A handful of Alaska seaweed farmers and oyster growers hung up their bibs this week to mingle with droves of professors, tech industry representatives, state and federal government staff, bankers and consultants who converged in Ketchikan's Ted Ferry Civic Center for the third-ever international Seagriculture USA conference, the first such conference in Alaska. All eyes of the 190-some conference participants were on the promise of developing a profitable seaweed industry in Southeast Alaska, with people traveling to Ketchikan from California,...
Forty-three people spent the night in Juneau's emergency shelter at Floyd Dryden Middle School on Monday night as a record-high flood from the Mendenhall Glacier inundated homes. Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the total number of people who evacuated their homes is likely several times that; shelters are usually a last resort for people who cannot stay with family, friends or in a hotel. "You can imagine how hard it would be to wake up with water in your house, not expecting there to be... Full story
A $38.6 million federal grant will help lower the cost of energy-saving heat pumps for an estimated 6,100 Alaska households stretching from Ketchikan to Kodiak. The money will provide rebates of between $4,000 and $8,500 per household for the purchase and installation of a heat pump. The funding is in addition to federal tax credits of up to $2,000 per household. The federal grant for coastal Alaska, announced July 22, will go to the Southeast Conference, a community and economic development...
Alaska's freshly signed capital budget includes state funding for a program meant to encourage land development. It's a single line: Statewide Housing Development, $4 million. But according to Republican Senator Bert Stedman of Sitka, that money could help shake loose some land for much-needed housing. He said there's a lot of land around the state, but it's not getting developed. "The economics don't work, due to the cost of the infrastructure, mainly the roads and the utilities," he said. "So...
Petersburg School District is the sole recipient in Alaska of a new grant designed to help schools source more food locally - in this case, through a partnership with Farragut Farm. PSD's food service program offers school breakfast and lunch, a fresh fruits and vegetable snack program in the grade school, an after school at-risk youth program, and also the summer food program; currently, the entire food service program is self-funded, according to PSD Food Service Program Director Carlee...
WRANGELL — A large audience turned out to hear an evolutionary biologist explain the connection between a dime-size piece of 3,000-year-old human bone found in a cave near Wrangell and present-day Alaska Natives, who welcomed the opportunity to return a distant ancestor to her final resting place. Charlotte Lindqvist, a professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo in New York, gave the presentation June 13 at the Nolan Center. The event focused on a bone fragment discovered in a cave on the mainland, across B...
University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service agent will travel by boat to nine communities in Southeast Alaska to teach classes on healthy living, food safety and food preservation. Sarah Lewis, the service’s Juneau-based health, home and family development agent, will head out on her family’s boat, the Pacific Sapphire, in July. She will visit Petersburg on July 31 – Aug. 1. Lewis will teach classes on food safety and preservation, healthy homes, and healthy eating. She will also give away free publications and test press...
After twenty three years working for the Petersburg School District, Superintendent Erica Kludt-Painter will retire on June 30. In early 2001, Kludt-Painter's dad told her there was a job opening for a principal in Petersburg, Alaska, and said he thought she'd like Petersburg, a town about the same size as her hometown of Orofino in rural northern Idaho. She jumped at the opportunity. Barb Marifern, who was on the hiring committee, said that after a series of phone interviews with each...
Cheyenne Steele How many years did you attend school in Petersburg? 13 years. What subjects or classes did you enjoy the most, and which ones challenged you the most? Shop and Jewelry; Math and History. Please describe a specific moment or event from high school that stands out as a highlight for you? Realizing that I was a senior and that it was my last year of high school. What are your immediate plans after graduation? Taking a gap year. What do you think you’ll miss most about high school, and what are you most looking forward to in the n...
Last weekend art students and teachers from nine Southeast Alaska high schools arrived in Petersburg by floatplane, Alaska Airlines, and jet boat to participate in the 28th Annual Region V Art Fest. This is the third time Petersburg High School has hosted the event. PHS art teacher Lisa Shramek, an Art Fest alumna, spearheaded the three-day event that brought sixty-eight students and sixteen instructors together for thirty hours of intensive art instruction and a lot of creative fun. The first...
April 11, 1924 – H.J. Jorgensen already has a large number of signers for a roadway proposed to be built from the city limits to Sandy Beach. It is a needed improvement. Sandy Beach in the summer time is the playground for Petersburg people, owing to the fine sandy beach there, and the roadway would give an outlet for autos and growing business interests. When roads were first started in Juneau, there were but a few autos, but with every mile of road built, the number of machines increased rapidly and the same will hold true for Petersburg. A...
Over the next five years, the Division of Forestry & Fire Protection (DOF) is proposing to harvest timber on thousands of acres of state lands in southern Southeast Alaska - including 1,213 acres on Mitkof Island. This preliminary plan was revealed in a Five-Year Schedule of Timber Sales (FYSTS) scoping document outlining the timber sale activity on state land in southern Southeast proposed by DOF, which is available for public comment until early April. It can be viewed at the Petersburg...
In 1986, two linguists, Ron and Suzie Scollon, drafted a proposal for the Sealaska Heritage Foundation to inaugurate a new kind of education, which they had developed with help from Tlingit scholars Nora and Richard Dauenhauer. It was an education that would prioritize building knowledge about the place you live in, the cultures you interact with, and the communication skills you need to flourish in an interconnected, media-saturated world. The Axe Handle Academy, as it was called, never became a physical school, but its curriculum and values...
March 7, 1924 – Of the many neglected products of our salt waters, none compare with the sea mussel in abundance, nutritiousness and palatability, according to “Fish Cookery,” by expert Dean John N. Cobb of the University of Washington college of cookery, published by Little Brown & Company. This book states that the mussel has a wide distribution, the Atlantic species extending down the eastern coast while a closely related species extends down the west coast to San Francisco on the Pacific coast, and is extremely abundant everywhere withi...
WRANGELL — A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Cen...
