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Katie Holmlund didn’t quite believe it at first. “When they called about this 40 Under 40 thing, I was like, that seems like a trick,” she said with a laugh, recalling a piece of junk mail she’d received months earlier promising similar honors. “I’m like, this isn’t real.” But it was. Holmlund, Petersburg Medical Center’s Youth Programs Development and Advocacy Coordinator, has been named to the Alaska Journal of Commerce’s 2026 Top Forty Under 40, a statewide honor recognizing professionals und...
The Alaska Board of Game has approved a change expanding where archers can hunt on Petersburg's Mitkof Island. The change opens bow hunting in an area that has been closed to harvesting big game, except for wolves, since 1962. It eliminates a closed area south of town around the Petersburg road system, which served as a quarter-mile corridor for decades, and adds it to a larger management area. The Board approved the change with a 4–3 vote at a late January meeting in Wrangell. Board Member J... Full story
Two softly humming glass cabinets, brightly lit from within, cause students and grown-ups to pause and peer on their way through the Petersburg High School commons. They are hydroponic gardens, complete with lights for growing greens and flowers year-round. This provides Petersburg students not only with quality food, but a nice splash of greenery and light in the commons, and a brilliant hands-on learning opportunity. Hydroponic gardens have been a big goal for Alex Helms, Farm to School...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously Monday to hire an Anchorage engineering firm to revive a water treatment plant upgrade that stalled more than a decade ago — replacing a rusting open-top tank that has outlived its useful life. The assembly approved spending up to $200,600 to retain GV Jones & Associates Inc. for design and technical services on the clearwell tank replacement project. The clearwell is a storage tank in the water treatment system, holding fully treated water before it enters the distribution system and a...
Ryan Gilkey arrived in Petersburg via the ferry on Super Bowl Sunday with his two dogs and about 1,700 emergency calls worth of experience under his belt. The 35-year-old says he has spent years methodically working his way toward Alaska for a job like this. Gilkey is Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department's new EMS Coordinator, a full-time administrative and training position that serves as the department's primary point of contact for all things emergency medical services. "The job is an admin...
Young growth Sitka spruce from Mitkof Island, milled at Alaska Timber and Truss and shipped via the Alaska Marine Highway, now forms the timber-frame structure of an outdoor learning shelter at Pacific High School in Sitka. The impressive posts and beams of the pavilion showcase what Southeast Alaska's 50 to 60-year-old second-growth trees can produce. The structure will serve as an outdoor classroom for the alternative high school's garden-based education program. Andrew Thoms, executive...
American Cruise Line's long-discussed cruise ship dock project in Petersburg took another step forward last week when the borough assembly approved the first reading of an ordinance rezoning a 22,500-square-foot parcel at the end of Dock Street to accommodate ACL's proposed facility. The ordinance, which must pass two additional readings before final adoption, changes the parcel from un-zoned to Industrial with Marine Industrial Overlay. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended the...
After their acclaimed but ominous rendition of "Dracula" last fall, Petersburg High School's drama program is ready to brighten up the vibe with a Victorian-era romantic farce, "The Matchmaker," opening Feb. 19 at Wright Auditorium. The Thornton Wilder comedy - best known as the basis for the Broadway musical "Hello Dolly" - features a large ensemble cast navigating love, loss and the search for joy in 1880s New York. Director Elsa Wintersteen said she deliberately chose the play to give...
Petersburg Medical Center's Home Health department is settling into its new space in the former office of Public Health and is working to expand community awareness about the services available to local residents. The move brings Home Health nursing staff into closer proximity with PMC's clinical departments, emergency room, and therapy services. "It's so nice to be on campus and just be able to have conversations face to face," said Ruby Shumway, PMC's Home Health and Community Based Services...
Petersburg is one big step closer to receiving $8 million in federal funding to engineer the disinfection upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant. The funding was included in a spending bill that passed the Senate on Jan. 15 and the House a week earlier, according to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office. The bill now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature. The $8 million will fund a disinfectant study, engineering work and plant design for the facility, which discharges into Frederick Sound. The total project was initially estimated to cos...
As Petersburg residents are all too aware, it was exceptionally rainy last year. 133.90 inches of precipitation fell in 2025, making it the fourth-rainiest year since records began in 1924. Last year's total fell just short of the all-time record of 136.88 inches set in 1991, according to data from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Juneau. The second-wettest year on record was 2015 with 135.98 inches, followed by 1987 with 134.32 inches. "Based on the data we have, Petersburg was...
On January 9, heavy snow melt and rain saturated outdoor electrical panels at the Petersburg Aquatic Center, causing a failure of the main electrical breaker. Borough staff and local contractors quickly responded and restored electricity within three days, averting what could have been a costly, extended closure. "It was [around 4:14 p.m.] on Friday, and Julie texted me that the power on just the Aquatic Center had gone out," Parks and Recreation Director Stephanie Payne said. Payne immediately...
Petersburg utility customers will see a small surcharge on their January bills to cover the cost of running diesel generators during December’s extreme cold snap, following a 6-1 vote by the Borough Assembly at its Jan. 20 meeting. The diesel generation adjustment charge of 0.32 cents per kilowatt will apply to all electricity used in December and is expected to recover about $24,000 in unbudgeted expenses for fuel, lubricating oil and overtime, according to Utility Director Karl Hagerman. “The extreme cold temperatures experienced in Dec...
An ordinance introduced at Tuesday’s Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting proposes a 10 percent increase in harbor moorage and use fees. Petersburg Harbormaster Glo Wollen told the assembly the increase is needed to keep harbor revenues in line with rising expenses. Wollen said the harbor department has absorbed cost increases for four years since the last fee adjustment in April 2022. Rising utility rates, material costs and employee compensation are driving the need for additional revenue, she said. The largest expense in the harbor budget i...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted Tuesday to schedule two work sessions about the Tidal Network communication towers. The assembly approved a January 28, 6 p.m. work session where community members can voice concerns to the assembly about communication towers, in addition to the Monday, February 2 evening work session where Tidal Network representatives will be present and available to answer questions. Both meetings will be held in the Assembly Chambers. These meetings are in addition to a virtual community outreach event on January 27 at...
The annual Project Connect resource fair returns to Petersburg on Tuesday, Jan. 27 to provide resources to community members experiencing housing insecurity, including free clothing and winter gear, cleaning supplies and hygiene products, medical resources, and a warm meal. The event will run from 2 to 6 p.m. at the John Hanson Sr. Hall, with the first three hours intended for those who identify as housing insecure. From 5 to 6 p.m., the fair opens to the entire community. “I don’t want anyone to be hung up on not knowing if they’re housi...
Leo Juel Kernin made his arrival on January 5 at 1:53 p.m., claiming the title of Petersburg's first baby of 2026 and earning his family a bounty of gifts from local businesses. Each year, Petersburg businesses donate gifts to be collected by the family of the first baby born to local parents. This year's gifts were published as the centerspread in the Jan. 8 edition of the Pilot. Sam Kernin said she got a kick out of how the community kept tabs on the pending arrival. "I had [a friend] at the...
Living in a small town like Petersburg often means traveling to Anchorage or Juneau for specialized healthcare. Medical travel can be inconvenient and costly, which means some people delay seeking important preventative care, like colonoscopies. For years, colonoscopy clinics were few and far between in Petersburg. But the cancer-spotting procedure will be returning in February on what's expected to be a quarterly basis. During a colonoscopy, a doctor uses a camera on a flexible tube to look... Full story
Petersburg Medical Center's long-awaited MRI project has reached its final regulatory hurdle, with the state accepting the facility's Certificate of Need application and scheduling a public hearing for Feb. 4. The Alaska Department of Health declared the application complete and is now seeking public input on the proposed project, which would bring MRI services to Petersburg for the first time. "We're cautiously optimistic," said PMC CEO Phil Hofstetter. "This is really the last step." The...
A Petersburg man arrested in 2024 for felony charges related to child sexual abuse material has pleaded guilty. Over a year ago, Alejandro “Alex” Melendez Aguilar, age 46, was indicted on 10 felony counts for possession and distribution of the material, which he initially pleaded not guilty to. Prosecutors and the defense made an agreement to dismiss most of the charges, with Aguilar pleading guilty to one count of possession. Aguilar would serve the minimum sentence allowed by state law for the offense: four years — two in prison and two s... Full story
The Petersburg Borough Assembly has approved having temporary sales tax exemption cards available for seniors with pending eligibility. Petersburg voters passed a proposition this fall that limits the town’s senior sales tax exemption to only seniors who qualify as low-income. That eligibility is determined by the state’s income-based Senior Benefits Payment Program. As the Borough’s qualification change goes into effect in January, seniors applying for an exemption card need to show the Petersburg Borough’s finance office proof of eligibi... Full story
Some Petersburg residents spent the day in single-digit temperatures and several feet of fresh snow Dec. 20 to participate in the annual Christmas Bird Count, documenting 57 species and a total of 7,318 birds around Mitkof Island. "The Christmas Bird Count weather this year provided a snow challenge unlike any we've had for many years," said Brad Hunter, who coordinates the Mitkof Island bird count which has been conducted annually since 1989. "Most people involved commented that there didn't...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously approved prioritized lists of capital projects for state and federal funding requests at its Jan. 5 meeting. The priority list is topped by two projects that have been selected for Congressionally Directed Spending but have not yet survived the congressional appropriations gauntlet – $2 million for an overhaul of the Banana Point boat launch facilities and $8 million toward wastewater treatment plant improvements. The Banana Point project — which has been supported in appropriation bills by U.S. Sen...
