Downtown street closures will start Thursday, July 2nd, and extend through Saturday, July 4th, to accommodate Fourth of July events.

The back parking lot at the Nolan Center will be closed for the dog show from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday. At 4:30 p.m., it will open for volunteers and the public at the Race Boat Show and Shine, which will be held at the south end of Campbell Drive.

Fourth of July events organizer Joan Sargent reminds the public not to use the IGA store parking lot, so that the business can keep it available for customers.

The south end of Campbell Drive in front of the Nolan Center will be closed for the Race Boat Show and Shine from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday.

On Friday, the turnaround in front of the City Dock will be closed from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to accommodate all of the events in the area.

Lynch Street will be closed from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Friday for KSTK’s wiener toss and cleanup.

On Saturday, access to the City Dock will be closed for the day, starting at 6 a.m., so that crews can set up for the evening fireworks show and for crews setting up for the logging show.

“Walk-in access to businesses on the turnaround is OK,” Sargent said.

Parking will not be allowed after 6 a.m. Saturday past the intersection of Campbell Drive and Front Street, and past the Campbell Drive and Brueger Street intersection, to accommodate the Fourth activities in the area.

The post 4th of July Road Closures appeared first on KSTK.

The Wrangell school district has applied for a major state grant that would pay for the headsets and software for a new virtual learning program to help students train for healthcare careers. 

The district is in the running for a Rural Health Transformation Program grant at $600,000.

The initiative is titled “Grow Our Own: VR-Enabled K-12 Healthcare Certification Pipeline for Rural Alaska.”

Schools Superintendent Joshua Garrett, who submitted the grant proposal with school board approval, said the technology would give students a new opportunity.

The Alaska Department of Health last month selected health clinics, hospitals, tribes, local governments, school districts and other entities to apply for a share of the $272 million in federal funding Alaska received this year through the Rural Health Transformation Program.

Congress created the nationwide $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program last year.

After sifting through nearly 1,800 proposals, Alaska state officials narrowed down the potential projects to a list of just over 400 that will undergo further consideration this month. Wrangell made that first cut.

The Wrangell proposal program is primarily designed to assist students who want to become certified nursing assistants or pursue other high-demand healthcare careers.

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A documentary on Wrangell and the people who live here is set to premiere on July 5 at the Nolan Center.

“Walk Gently on This Land” was created by three filmmakers and inspired by the unique stories the community has to tell.

Former Wrangell Sentinel reporter Sam Pausman and a couple of his filmmaking friends traveled to town last year to interview people, gather stories and shoot the video for their 20-minute documentary.

The trio narrowed down the scope of the film to covering four pillars of life in Wrangell: timber, fishing, Tlingit culture and education.

The film profiles the four sectors, featuring the Herman family who bought Canoe Lagoon Oysters in 2020 and moved up from Arizona to run it; sawmill operator Mike Allen Jr.; educator Barb Neyman; and cultural bearers and revivers Mike Hoyt and Esther Aaltseén Reese.

The premiere is set for 1 p.m. July 5 at the Nolan Center. Admission is free. A question-and-answer session with the filmmakers will follow the screening.

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    This year marks a time of transition for the annual Fourth of July logging show, with new leadership and a mix of old and new events.

And a new name.

Instead of the Chuck Oliver Logging Show, it will be known as the Wrangell Fourth of July Logging Show.

Adrienne McLaughlin, whose grandfather was Chuck Oliver, said trees add new rings which reflect growth and changing times while building around a central core.

“Grandpa Chuck’s spirit will always be a part of the story, but it’s time to enlarge the story,” McLaughlin said.

She will serve as this year’s emcee.

McLaughlin has pushed to have the games better reflect the critical role of women in logging camps. The long-standing rolling pin toss was not representative of all the work that women did in the camps, she said. So there will be a new event.

“We really work hard to keep the logging games as an expression of Wrangell history,” said Tom Roland, who served as co-chair with Randy Oliver since 2019 and took on sole leadership this year when Oliver stepped back.

The Wrangell Fourth of July Logging Show will begin at 1 p.m. on July 4 in front of the City Dock. 

The post 4th of July Logging Show appeared first on KSTK.

Starting next week, the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department will set off a noon siren on weekdays to continually test its warning system.

It’s been years since the community could set its clocks by the noon whistle. The hard-wired system from the Public Safety Building failed long ago, but the siren is coming back, with a new radio controller, according to Fire Chief Jordan Buness.

“The Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department has completed upgrades to the community warning siren located at the corner of Front Street and Case Avenue,” Buness said.

The daily tests will start next week, at noon Monday through Friday every week.

Residents will hear the siren “for approximately six seconds,” Buness said.

The noon siren will be controlled by a time-clock.

The chief said last week he wanted to give residents plenty of notice before starting the tests.

Consistent with its historical use, the siren will alert fire department volunteers and reserve members to confirmed structure fires, Buness said. The fire alert will be a repeating 12-second-on, 12-second-off siren pattern lasting approximately two minutes.

The post Noon Siren on Weekdays , it’s just a test! appeared first on KSTK.

The borough assembly last week unanimously approved a 40-year property lease for a new marine freight terminal at the former 6-Mile Mill property.

Alaska Marine Lines plans to construct and operate a barge ramp and shipping yard as a permanent replacement for the aging borough-owned downtown barge ramp that previously handled the community’s cargo.

Ryan Dixon, media director for Lynden, the parent company of AML, said in an email on Monday: “We currently expect to have designs ready this fall so we can apply for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permit.”

He added that the permit will likely take a year for approval.

“Once the design and cost estimates have been determined,” Dixon said, “we will be able to make a final decision on moving ahead with the project and what the timeline would look like.”

Under the terms of the 40-year lease, which will begin July 1, AML will pay a base rent of $1 annually. Borough officials noted that the shipping company assumes all financial responsibility for building, maintaining and operating the facility.

The post AML & Wrangell Borough move forward with property lease appeared first on KSTK.

The borough assembly has awarded a contract to Ketchikan Ready-Mix & Quarry for reconstruction and resurfacing of McKinnon Street, from Front to Church streets.

The company was the lowest of three bidders at $1.69 million.

With engineering design services and a contingency, the total project cost is estimated at $2.164 million.

Wrangell Capital Projects Director Amber Al-Haddad said she anticipated that workers could be on the job after the July 4 holiday. The contractor wants to start as soon as possible, she said.

Al-Haddad added, “They really want to get the job done before the end of November.”

The work will include digging up the street and replacing water and sewer lines, then laying down new pavement and sidewalks on both sides of McKinnon Street.

About half the money for the project will come from the state and the other half from the borough’s general fund reserves.

The post McKinnon Street upgrades coming soon! appeared first on KSTK.

The borough assembly has unanimously voted down a proposed land lease for a privately run data center. The assembly on June 9 went with the manager’s recommendation to retain the waterfront property for future maritime industry expansion.

Borough Manager Mason Villarma recommended rejecting the lease application from Greensparc, which was looking to build a 10,000-square-foot facility on borough-owned land at the 6-Mile Mill deepwater port site.

The project would have been the company’s second venture in Alaska, following a smaller data center installed in Cordova last year.

Public opposition to the data center in Wrangell focused on concerns over power consumption and environmental issues, with residents airing their complaints on social media and at an assembly meeting.

Villarma told assembly members last week that the 6-Mile site is one of the borough’s most valuable industrial waterfront assets. Because of its deepwater access, upland acreage and proximity to marine operations, the site is uniquely suited for maritime uses that cannot be easily located elsewhere in the community.

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An employee at the Tyee Lake hydroelectric power station was injured on June 11 and flown to Wrangell for medical care.

The Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department transported the worker to the hospital, arriving at the Wrangell Medical Center less than two hours after the initial call of the injury at the Tyee power station, about 45 air miles from Wrangell.

Neither the fire department nor the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, which operates the Tyee Lake facility, disclosed the nature or extent of the worker’s injury, or the worker’s name.

“The patient was reported to be in stable condition at the time care was transferred to hospital staff,” Wrangell Fire Chief Jordan Buness said in a statement on Monday, June 15.

“Our primary focus is our employee’s well-being, and we are heartened by their positive prognosis,” Robert Siedman, chief executive officer of the regional power agency, said in a statement on Tuesday, June 16.

“We are conducting a thorough review to determine the exact circumstances and identify any additional safety measures we can implement,” Siedman said.

The Ketchikan-based Southeast Alaska Power Agency operates the Tyee Lake hydro power project for Wrangell and Petersburg, and the Swan Lake hydro power station serving Ketchikan.

The Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department received the initial call at 9:39 a.m. on June 11, and used a member-owned aircraft to quickly fly emergency medical personnel to the work site. The aircraft and personnel were airborne 11 minutes after the call, Buness said.

Emergency personnel “conducted assessment and treatment, and prepared the patient for transport,” according to the fire chief’s statement, arriving back in Wrangell about an hour after they landed at the Tyee airstrip.

“No further information regarding the patient’s condition will be released out of respect for privacy,” Buness said.

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The Anan Wildlife Observatory bear cameras are online for a third summer, with the hard work of students participating in the Teaching Through Technology program.

Wrangell T3 students returned earlier this month from their third year of field work to set up the cameras to livestream the black and brown bears of Anan Creek. With support from the international nonprofit explore.org, which hosts the livestream, and the U.S. Forest Service Wrangell Ranger District, the T3 students designed and installed the camera systems that provide four different views of the creek.

The cams at Anan are the only student-run cameras of all of the sites hosted on explore.org, which shares a variety of wildlife livestreams. 

Around 390,000 viewers tuned to the Anan cams throughout the first season, but that number more than doubled in its second year with 890,000 total viewers. 

The livestream is available at friendsofanan.org.

Anan is among Wrangell’s top visitor attractions.

The first year, the students designed and installed the system from scratch, with two cameras. They then added two more cameras the second year to add more views of the bears. This year, the students focused on making things look more professional after cleaning up wire debris and other damage caused by winter storms.

There are four cameras streaming at Anan currently, with plans to add a fifth at the top of the waterfall in the future. 

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