ANCHORAGE — An orphaned polar bear cub that arrived at the Alaska Zoo two months ago will soon depart for a new adventure: meeting another young cub at the Buffalo Zoo.

Kali (KUL’-ee) made his final Alaska zoo appearance Monday. He will be flown by UPS from Anchorage to the company hub in Louisville, Ky., and then New York, with arrival in Buffalo expected Wednesday. A play date with Luna, a nearly six-month old cub born to an adult female at the zoo, could follow in about two weeks.

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The first small cruise ships of the year arrived in Petersburg last week. The local visitor industry is expecting about a 15 percent increase over last year in the number of port calls to town. Viking Travel President Dave Berg helps arrange services for those ships and their passengers, as well as independent travelers who visit town on their own.

According to Berg, the outlook continues to improve for the local visitor industry which lost a lot of business with the 2010 closure of Cruise West. That company once dominated local port calls. Berg spoke with Matt Lichtenstein about the 2013 season:
For mobile-friendly audio, click here.

The herring sac roe harvest in Seymour Canal off Southern Admiralty Island closed at 4pm Saturday and just a handful of gillnetters kept fishing until the very end. According to Alaska Fish and Game biologist Scott Forbes, the total catch was an estimated 727 tons. That’s roughly 70 percent of the guideline harvest level.

Forbes says there were only eight to ten boats still fishing by the closure on Saturday.

The fishery opened Wednesday night with 56 permit holders and four buyers on the grounds. By Friday morning, they had caught around 600 tons. Boats started leaving after that as catches declined significantly and it looked like the major spawning event was done.

The fish are targeted for their roe sacs and the department tries to open herring fisheries just before the major spawn, when the females are the ripest with eggs and large schools of fish mass near the beach.

Forbes thinks the state timed the opening right and he says it went smoothly. According to preliminary reports, this year’s roe content averaged 12 to 14 percent which is good. Forbes says the participants were happy with the quality of the fish.

Biologists saw a total of 8 miles of spawn after the fishery was over according to Forbes, who says that looks good for the next generation of herring. It’s more than last year’s 6 miles of spawn but below the ten year average of 12.5 miles. About two miles of the milky-colored water was inside Seymour itself and the rest was outside in Stephens Passage to the east of the Glass Peninsula.

Overall, this years participation was about average for the past decade, but much higher than the last few years when prices were low. Last year, Gillnetters never got to fish at Seymour. They waited on the grounds for a few weeks and there were herring, but biologists said the fish never schooled up enough to allow for an opening.

This year, the fleet went on notice and headed to the grounds just a couple days before the fishery opened.

Seymour was the only herring harvest for Southeast Gillnetters this year.

Eighth-graders from Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island will gather at Schoenbar Middle School and the UAS Tech Center all day Thursday for the fifth annual Career Fair.

The event will feature 10 stations, at which the kids can spend half an hour talking with a professional about their career. The students also can try an activity, such as mining for gold, running a TV camera or trying on a survival suit.

Some of the organizations that will offer presentations are the local police and fire departments, state troopers, Coast Guard, Vigor Industrial and the UAF Marine Advisory Program.

The event is cosponsored by the University of Alaska Southeast Ketchikan campus, Schoenbar Middle School and the Ketchikan Job Center.

Governor Sean Parnell was in Ketchikan Saturday, and came by the KRBD station for an interview. Parnell talked about what Alaska – and specifically Ketchikan – can expect from the rest of this term, and his potential second full term.

Officially, Parnell was in town to be inducted into the local Eagle Killer Whale clan, during a ceremony in the Native village of Saxman. But he made time to talk about everything from capital projects to school funding.

The governor indicated that $15 million approved by the Legislature for upgrades to the Ketchikan Medical Center would remain in the final capital budget.

“The legislature and I worked very hard on setting a spending limit, and they were aligned with me on that,” said Parnell. “It was about 1 billion dollars less than the current fiscal year we’re in. That was in large part to preserve more of our savings for the future — the oil markets are softening, it was time for us to reign in spending overall.”

“Because at this point the legislature met the spending limit I had set, really what I’m looking for is whether there are any projects that should not go forward,” Parnell said. “Certainly in Ketchikan with the hospital being a top priority I’ve been fully supportive of that issue, and don’t see that being an issue. But we’re going through a legal review of what the legislature did, and so the final decisions will be made just prior to about May 22 or so.”

State money for the Medical Center had been in question. The Legislature added it and other local projects to the capital budget after the governor proposed a budget without them. Parnell has line item veto power.

The governor also suggested that he would not support initiatives by borough governments to have the state fund more for schools. He cites the importance of local control.

“I don’t know why the people of Ketchikan would want to give up their management authority, their say, over Ketchikan schools,” Parnell said. “And when you take away that small portion of control of funding, you get what other people tell you you’re gonna have, in this case Juneau or beyond that in Washington. I really do believe the people of Ketchikan know best about what their schools should look like and how their kids should be educated.”

The issue of how schools are funded in Alaska has been a hot topic in Ketchikan this year. The potential loss of federal funds to the borough has drawn attention to how much the state gives to the school district here. Boroughs in Alaska must pay at least 20 percent of  school costs, while the state foots the rest. The Borough Assembly passed a resolution earlier calling for the reduction or repeal of that mandate, which would lead the State of Alaska to pay more for schools.

Parnell also reaffirmed his commitment to not retroactively pay back federal funds for schools that the state received earlier this year. He says there is quote “no legal basis” for the federal government to ask for those funds.

The governor, whose first full term in office ends next year, also discussed what he would focus on if re-elected.

“It’s about jobs and families, it’s about creating economic opportunity, it’s about strengthening families, so Alaskans can expect that,” Parnell said.

Parnell, who recently announced his intention to run for re-election, says he is consistent both personally and politically, and that Alaskans can expect more of the same in the future.

The governor also says it is a quote “tremendous honor” to be inducted into the Eagle Killer Whale clan.

Listen to KRBD later this week for a story on Parnell’s induction ceremony into Eagle Killer Whale.

 

The former site of the Redoubt Lake Cabin, photographed a day after it was destroyed in a landslide on May 12, 2013. (Kevin Knox photo)

Two people are safe after a massive landslide destroyed the cabin they were camping in Sunday morning (5-12-13) near Sitka.

An air taxi pilot rescued the pair from a debris field estimated to be 20 feet deep. All their belongings were buried in the slide. Their dog remains missing.

Listen to iFriendly audio.

Kevin Knox, 41, and his girlfriend Maggie Gallin, 28, were staying at Redoubt Lake, a popular Forest Service recreation cabin about 15 miles southeast of Sitka.

The cabin is located at the head of the valley, and is surrounded by steep mountain slopes and rocky cliffs that climb 4,000 feet above the surface of the lake.
Knox says the mountainside behind the cabin was showing signs of instability the previous evening.

“There’d been a lot of rock activity from this slide that was off back behind the cabin, all night on Saturday night. I was just kind of watching it. It was just small rocks kind of tumbling off and making a lot of racket.”

The Redoubt Cabin was located at the north end of the lake, about 15 miles southeast of Sitka.

The next morning, Knox and Gallin went out on the lake in the rowboat provided by the Forest Service, to do a little fishing. The mountainside came down as they returned to shore at about 11 AM.

“We had just tied the boat up and Maggie was in the cabin, and it just let loose — a huge piece off of the side of the mountain. I yelled for Maggie to run, to get out of the cabin. We started running down the beach.”

Redoubt Lake is a glacier-carved fjord. It’s just a few feet above sea level. What passes for a beach there is a narrow strip of pebbles. Knox and Gallin did not have much room to make their escape as old growth timber, mud, and rock began to press down the valley.

“We were running along the lakeshore and got thrown into the water, trees kind of toppling on top of us. We both popped up three or four feet from each other. Then we got our wits about us and just tried to hunker down.”

Kevin Knox and his Border Collie, Luna, at the Redoubt Lake Cabin site before the slide. Luna possibly escaped with Knox and Gallin, but remains missing. (Maggie Gallin photo)

Knox and Gallin were soaked to the skin. The cabin — and all their belongings — were under a debris field Knox thinks is about 20 feet deep. They wrung out clothes and tried to shelter as best they could until their scheduled pick up three hours later.

They also spent time calling for Luna, Knox’s ten-year-old Border Collie.

“She was in between Maggie and I as we were running down the beach. I think she thought it was a little bit of a game because I was shouting, Run run!, Go! and she jumped up and nipped at my sleeve. So I know she was right there. I kept laying in bed last night thinking, How did we get through it, and she didn’t?”

The couple flew back to look for Luna on Monday morning, but there was no sign of her. Because of the instability of the slide area, the pilot chose not not to land the float plane. The slide originated 600 feet up the mountainside and is about 200 yards wide. The lake’s inlet stream — Knox says — is beginning to carve a new channel through the debris field.

Knox is grateful to Harris Air, and pilot Mark Hackett in particular, for putting his plane down and looking for them on Sunday in marginal conditions. Knox says he signalled Hackett by waving his bright yellow raincoat.

At about 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Ketchikan Troopers received a 911 call from a 35-year-old Georgia man, reporting that he and his 14-year-old son were stranded near the Harris River Drainage near Hollis on Prince of Wales Island.

The two were members of a five-person black bear hunting party, all from the Lower 48. The other three hunters had dropped them off, and then taken the skiff to the head of 12 Mile Arm to hunt, and were two hours overdue to pick up the man and his son. Weather conditions were deteriorating, and the man said nobody in the group had gear to spend the night outdoors.

Klawock Troopers went to Hollis and borrowed a boat for a hasty search.  At about 12:15 a.m., the man and his son were found and picked up.  Troopers continued toward the head of 12 Mile Arm, where they found the other three hunters.

Investigation shows that the outgoing tide had stranded the skiff on the beach, and by the time the tide had come up enough to refloat the vessel, it was too dark for the three hunters to navigate back.

All members of the hunting group were safely escorted to Hollis, and no injuries were reported.

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Ellen Ruhle, event chair, and Sarah Robinson, executive director, discuss this year’s Relay for Life (6 PM July 12 through noon July 13, lower Moller Park). Learn more or sign up for Relay for Life online.

Listen to iFriendly audio.
Assembly gives ‘balanced’ budget a reality check in final work session. Sitka Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins gives graduation address at UAF-Bristol Bay in Dillingham. Sealaska posts increased profits in 2012.

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Participants in Rotary’s Group Study Exchange speak on Morning Edition.  The group from Brazil are in Alaska to learn and share knowledge about water research and sanitation.  RotaryGSE

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Monday announced the lingcod sportfishing season for southern Southeast Alaska starts May 16 and lasts through November 30th.

According to Fish and Game, the bag limit for residents is one daily, two in possession, with no size limit.

Nonresidents can catch one daily, one in possession, and an annual limit of two fish.

There is a size limit for nonresidents of 30 inches or longer, but less than 45 inches; or 55 inches or longer. For the annual limit of two fish, one must be 30 to 45 inches long, and the other longer than 55 inches.

Nonresidents also must record all lingcod harvested on the back of their sportfishing license, or on a nontransferable harvest record.

For more information, contact the nearest ADF&G office or visit: www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=fishingSportFishingInfo.eonr

 

JUNEAU — An historic house in downtown Juneau that has undergone more than $500,000 in recent renovations could one day serve as a home-away-from-home for Alaska’s lieutenant governor.

Lawmakers added language to the state operating budget saying they want the Department of Natural Resources to negotiate with the governor’s office to establish the House of Wickersham State Historic Site as lodging for the lieutenant governor when he or she is in the capital city. The department manages the site.

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KENAI — Harriet Moravec retired in 1985. But it didn’t last forever.

Her retirement fund shriveled up, “and then in 2008 the government had fun with what was left,” Moravec said.

So what else could she do? About nine months ago, after more than 25 years out of the workforce, the 90-year-old Kenai resident got a job.

And she’s quite happy.

“It’s great. I don’t care. I could care less. As long as I can keep my body in great shape,” she said.

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ANCHORAGE — Nurses Monica Negaard and Linda Hackenbruch can be found together on Alaska Regional Hospital’s critical care unit much of the time these days, their Dansko clogs clopping on the floor in unison as they visit patients.

Normally a new nursing school graduate like Negaard wouldn’t start her career by caring for some of the hospital’s most acutely ill patients. But Negaard has been paired with Hackenbruch, who has been a nurse for 30 years and in the critical care unit for 15, as part of Alaska Regional Hospital’s first registered nurse residency.

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FAIRBANKS — The long search is over. After 56 years, the grave of the late Fort Yukon Chief Esias Loola has been located in Washington state and plans are in the making to return his remains to the Yukon River village to be buried next to his wife, Katherine, and his stepson, John Stevens.

Loola was a beloved chief, well known and respected for his generosity, hard work and humanitarianism.

Loola and his wife, Katherine, took in many orphan children during their lifetime when death from flu, measles or tuberculosis, was commonplace.

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Cultural Heritage Guide Faith Grant discusses Tlingit heritage with cruise ship visitors. Courtesy Alaska Native Voices.

A Southeast village Native corporation wants to export its cultural tourism expertise. It’s opened a consulting business to build on more than a dozen years in the business.

Huna Totem Corporation has more than 1,300 shareholders with ties to the Tlingit village of Hoonah, about 40 miles west of Juneau.

It places cultural interpreters onboard cruise ships sailing the ancestral homeland of Glacier Bay. It also presents educational programs at the national park’s lodge, the jumping-off point for many visitors.

Now, those efforts have a different name and goals.

“Alaska Native Voices is going to be an expansion of what we are currently working on,” says Mark McKernan, who heads up what Huna Totem used to call its Interpretive Services Department.

“We’re going to now provide consulting services for other cultural interests, Native groups, small communities and what have you. We’ll provide these services to them to help them answer the big questions of how do they start, where do they start and what goals should they be aiming for,” he says.

A number of other Alaska Native corporations and tribal entities use cultural tourism to make money and employ shareholders or members. (Scroll down for links to some other cultural tours.)

But McKernan says others are looking for help.

“What we have learned and what we can pass on is just as relevant in Southeast Alaska as it would be in Costa Rica or somewhere on the East Coast or the Midwest,” he says.

Alaska Native Voices began operations early this month.

McKernan says it has no formalized consulting agreements. But several groups have expressed interest and are discussing options.

Rosita Worl, president of the Juneau-based Sealaska Heritage Institute, says Hoonah Totem is well-equipped for the business.

“I think they have the experience. They’ve got the professional background and business experience in it. And I think they’ve done a great job in terms of trying to educate people about their culture and their history and meanwhile making a profit,” Worl says.

Huna Totem’s heritage guides are scheduled to be on about 200 cruise ships this year. That includes the Holland America Line, which sails large ships, and Alaskan Dream and Lindblad Expeditions, which operate much smaller vessels.

McKernan says cultural tourism programs need to tap traditional knowledge — and not just be another stop on the road.

“We do consult regularly with elders and others in the community and develop resources for these cultural guides to be able to grow and expand their knowledge base,” he says.

Huna Totem operates its own attraction, Icy Strait Point, which expects about 135,000 cruise passengers this year. Traditional culture is part of most of its excursions and programs.

McKernan says Icy Strait managers could also consult with other businesses interested in similar developments.

Learn about some other Alaska Native cultural tourism programs:

• Goldbelt Corporation, Juneau.
• Cape Fox Corporation, Saxman, near Ketchikan.
• Sitka Tribe of Alaska.
• Alaska Native Heritage Center, Anchorage.
• Chilkat Indian Village, near Haines.
• Wrangell Tours.

Do you want your local cultural tour listed here? Email the website link to ed@coastalaska.org.

Sealaska Plaza is the corporation’s Juneau headquarters. Officials just released the regional Native corporation’s 2012 report.

Sealaska is making more money.

Southeast Alaska’s regional Native corporation says it brought in almost $312 million during 2012.

That’s close to 20 percent more than the previous year — and the largest amount from the past five years.

The numbers are for total income, also called gross revenues.

Sealaska’s profits, or net revenue, are $11.3 million for 2012.

That’s 40 percent more than 2011. But it’s lower than the previous two years.

The numbers are in Sealaska’s 2012 annual report, which was released Friday. The Juneau-based corporation has about 21,000 shareholders. Corporate officials were not immediately available for comment.

Link to a copy of the annual report.

More than half Sealaska’s 2012 gross revenues were in the service sector, including environmental contracting and security.

About a quarter came from manufacturing, mainly plastics factories in the Lower 48 and Mexico.

A little less than a fifth of the overall earnings came from natural resources, including timber and gravel operations. The rest was from investments.

The manufacturing, service and investments had higher profits than the previous year. But natural resource profits dropped. We’ll take a closer look at some of those business sectors in a future report.

Read the corporation’s press release describing its annual report and future goals.

Sealaska Corp. saw both its gross revenues and net income rise considerably in 2012 from the previous year, according to an annual report released to Sealaska shareholders Thursday.

According to the 2012 annual report, Sealaska’s consolidated gross revenues went from $263.7 million in 2011 to $311.6 million in 2012, while its net income almost doubled, going from $6.7 million in 2011 to $11.3 million in 2012.

The data comes from an independent audit of Sealaska’s finances conducted by KPMG LLP, a Seattle-based firm.

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ANCHORAGE — Dallas Seavey knows what it’s like to mush across the wilds of Alaska. Now it remains to be seen how he survives being dropped off in the middle of that wilderness and navigates his way out without the help of a dog team.

Seavey, 26, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the 1,000-mile sled dog race across Alaska last year, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska.

“Ultimate Survival Alaska” premieres Sunday (10 p.m. EST) on the National Geographic Channel.

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ANCHORAGE— Two names have been added to the Alaska Police Memorial: Manokotak Village public safety officer Thomas Madole and Alaska State Trooper Tage Toll.

At a ceremony at the state’s new crime lab in Anchorage on Friday, 64 names were read, joined by the ringing of a bell to mark each one, in honor of Alaska Police Memorial Day, KTUU-TV reported.

Troopers say Madole was fatally shot by Leroy B. Dick Jr. during a March 19 confrontation, when Madole responded to reports that Dick was suicidal. Dick has been charged with first-degree murder.

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