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Tuesday
April 05, 2005

jpg Ancient Tools

Found - Ancient Tools
Photo courtesy USFS

photosSE Alaska: Found - Ancient Tools; April is Alaska Archaeology Month - Last summer Petersburg Ranger District timber sale administrator Ted Sandhofer and forester Bryan Rice responded to a fire caused by a neglectful camper. As Sandhofer was grubbing up the duff and humus he noticed rocks rattling about his feet. He soon realized the rocks were actually stone tools that were resting on a flat-topped boulder. Apparently the three tools were left on the boulder centuries ago and hidden beneath a thick layer of duff.

Sandhofer contacted Petersburg District archeologist Jane Smith when he made the discovery and she visited the site with GIS specialist Gene Primaky to salvage information regarding the tools. According to the US Forest Service, Sandhofer's actions - leaving the artifacts in place and contacting an archeologist - are exactly how you can help them preserve the past if you make such a discovery. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005

Ketchikan: Legislation Promoting Shellfish Farming Moving Forward - House Bill 198, a bill related to aquatic farming, unanimously passed the House Floor Monday. "HB 198 will finally produce a viable shellfish farming industry in Southeast Alaska," said Representative Jim Elkins (R-Ketchikan). "This bill is a compromise between the state and the industry and will help open the doors for geoduck farming in the Ketchikan area." - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005

Alaska: Legislative Council Calls for Contract to Study PERS Issue - Chairman of Legislative Council, Representative Pete Kott (R-Eagle River) held a press conference earlier Monday to announce a contract to study the Alaska Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005

jpg Metlakatla fire...

Metlakatla Home Fire Takes Life Of Young Man
Photo courtesy Alaska Division of Public Safety

photosKetchikan: Metlakatla Home Fire Takes Life Of Young Man - The Alaska State Fire Marshal's office was notified on Friday, April 1, 2005, of a fire that had occurred at 3:19 am in Metlakatla at the home of John Scudero Jr, age 47.

According to the State Fire Marshal's office, John Scudero III, age 21, died at the scene. Scudero, Jr, his father, entered his son's room during the fire and was critically injured. Scudero, Jr. has been transported to Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle.

Friday afternoon at approximately 3:00 pm, a deputy fire marshall responded to the scene for an investigation. According to the investigation, the fire started in the deceased's bedroom, which is upstairs in the two story home. The fire spread to an adjoining family room, before it was contained. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005

jpg Sea otter...

A sea otter in Glacier Bay, one of the few places in Alaska with a growing sea otter population.
Photo by Jim Bodkin

Alaska: Glacier Bay hot real estate for sea otters by Ned Rozell - Sea otters have had a rough time since Vitus Bering's journey to Alaska: They were hunted almost to extinction in the 1700s and 1800s, made a comeback in the 1900s, then declined again in the last few decades. Though sea otter numbers are dropping in the Aleutians and elsewhere in Alaska, the animals are increasing in Glacier Bay.

About five sea otters lived in Glacier Bay in 1995, but today more than 1,800 live there. Jim Bodkin and his colleagues at the USGS Alaska Science Center in Alaska have studied the sea otter's recent emergence in Glacier Bay. A biologist, Bodkin started the study in 1993, two years before otters showed up in the bay. He and other researchers knew otters were nearby at the time and would probably soon move in. Glacier Bay National Park, located in Southeast Alaska, has been in existence for about 250 years, when huge glaciers at the mouth of the bay began retreating. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005

University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist Stacia Backensto says Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oil fields offer ravens a near-perfect human-made habitat.
Photo Courtesy UAF

audioAlaska: Alaska's Oil Field Ravens by Doug Schneider - Alaska's Arctic coast is a treeless, marshy plain in summer and a bitterly cold, windswept wilderness in winter-not exactly the best place for birds that like to nest high above the ground. But toss in a few oil pump stations, communication towers and other structures, and you create a near-perfect artificial habitat for ravens.

Ravens, those large, raucous, black birds seen perched atop streetlights or foraging in the back of pickup trucks, were never common on Alaska's treeless northern coast. But towers, buildings, and landfills in the state's sprawling Prudhoe Bay oil fields are giving ravens a reason to stay.

Stacia Backensto is a Ph.D. student with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Regional Resilience and Adaptation Program.

She says about 17 breeding pair of ravens have established nests atop communication towers, drilling platforms, pump stations, and other structures within the oil fields. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005

    

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April 2005
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Viewpoints
Opinions/Letters

letter KETCHIKAN ARCHERY RANGE MOVES FORWARD by Andy White - Tuesday
letter To the Citizens of North Tongass by David Hull - Tuesday
letter Revilla Road by Jerry Cegelske - Tuesday
letter Ketchikan's nice weather? by Jeff Kemp - Tuesday
letter Protocol for complaints by Shauna Lee - Tuesday
letter Miminum Wage: We're in this together! by P. J. Brady - Tuesday
letter Where does our oil go? by Ronald C. Currit - Monday
letter Sludge Plant At Ward Cove? by Robert McRoberts - Monday
letter Farming Alder by Donna Hamilton Baptista - Monday
letter Using time more efficiently... by Dave Timmerman - Monday
letter Minimum Wage: How much? by Tom Ferry - Monday
letter Ketchikan Community College by Travis Kirkland - Monday
letter Minimum Wage: Misguided rhetoric by Vera Plumb - Monday
letter Wish I had known earlier in life... by Joseph Branco - Monday
letter More Viewpoints/ Letters
letter Publish A Letter

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photosKetchikan: A Personal Tribute to Tom Coyne on St. Patrick's Day - St. Patrick's Day makes me think of Ketchikan's city councilman Tom Coyne and of famous author Frank McCourt. They even look a lot alike -- faces like maps of Ireland! Of course I've never met Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, but his book lays bare the bittersweet memories of his childhood. And I've interviewed Tom Coyne on several occasions and I see some of the similarities in their impoverished early years.  And they both, like everyone in the Irish land of their bloodlines, are poets at heart. - Read the rest of this story by June Allen....
Thursday - March 17, 2005

arrow It's Iditarod Race Year 33! a ghost story of the southern route

arrow Ketchikan's 'Rotary Wheel' Still Turning; Hardworking club celebrates a century

arrow Sitka's Pioneer Home Statue; Whose face is cast in bronze?

arrow L. Ron Hubbard's Alaska Adventure; His long winter in Ketchikan

arrow ACS Bids for KPU Telecom: ACS a longtime presence

arrow Betty King the Dog Lady; Ketchikan's one-woman humane society

arrow Ketchikan, Alaska - Let There Be Light! -- Citizens Light & Power and then KPU

arrow The State Capitol and Its Marble and keeping the capital in Juneau

arrow A Legendary Mountain of Jade; Just one of Alaska's Arctic Wonders

arrow John Koel, Baker to Banker; An eccentric philanthropist

arrow Harold Gillam: A Tragic Final Flight; Ketchikan remembers the search

arrow Ketchikan's 'Fish House Tessie'; She was proud of the nickname

arrow Fairbanks: Golden Heart City; A story of its founding

arrow Remembering 'Swede' Risland (1915-1991);The town's most memorable logger

arrow Read more feature stories by June Allen...


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