Ketchikan: Updike qualifies for Olympic Trials in steeplechase with PR - Just two weeks ago at the Oregon Twilight, Isaac Updike of Ketchikan had PR’d in winning the steeplechase. - More... Alaska Sports Hall of Fame alaskasportshall.org Ketchikan: Seattle U. sweeps Bonck off his feet, signs Ketchikan ace pitcher - Nathan Bonck of Ketchikan was so sure he wanted to play baseball for Seattle University he commitment to the Western Athletic Conference school before his junior season of high school. - More... Alaska Sports Hall of Fame alaskasportshall.org Photo of the Month Ketchikan: Cruise Ship Calendar for 2016 (pdf) - Courtesy Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska Ketchikan: Public Meetings Ketchikan: Upcoming Events Historical Ketchikan June Allen Dave Kiffer Louise B. Harrington Ketchikan Today's Forecast KTN Weather Extremes Ketchikan Weather Data Current Weather Alaska Ketchikan Tides & Currents Search the News Ketchikan Alaska Sitnews RSS widget

Ketchikan: Reception for 2016 Recipients of Prestigious Red Apple Awards - On Thursday, May 26th, a special reception is being hosted by Ketchikan’s Delta Kappa Gamma International Society, the Epsilon Chapter. The Red Apple Awards will be presented at 5:30p.m. at St. John ‘s Parish Hall, 503 Mission Street, located downtown. Each year the prestigious award is given to community organizations or individuals for their significant contributions to the education of Ketchikan’s youth and families. The public is welcome to attend.

The 2016 recipients are:

1) Credit Union 1 - This financial institution is being recognized for raising funds over $10, 000 for non profit organizations which benefit youth and their families in Ketchikan above and beyond. Every month they sponsor.

2) Harley Riders - This group of bikers are being recognized for their Toys for Tots program. They have been doing this program for 26 years in Ketchikan, raised over $11,000; statewide sponsor in support of March of Dimes. In Ketchikan over 350 children have received three toys each this past year.

3) Dave Timmerman - This individual is being commended for the time above and beyond his work day to help make Ketchikan a better place. In addition to serving on the school board, he has coached soccer, Schoenbar boys junior high basketball teams and baseball teams, and currently coaches softball.

4) Steve and Grace Kinney Special kudos go out to this Dynamic Dual who have focused on children and youth since moving to Ketchikan in 1965. A commercial fisherman has hired numerous students as deck hands. They have volunteered as youth leaders in Ketchikan and at Rainbow Glacier Camp and have been foster parents. They have ben instrumental in hosting families for the Kanayama Exchange Program. - More...
Wednesday PM - May 25, 2016

Ketchikan: Ketchikan Rated #2 in Small Cities for Green Transportation - Survey results collected from the U.S. Census over a five-year period have given a glimpse into which cities' residents are taking an eco-friendly approach to their daily commutes. SaveOnEnergy.com dug into this data and ranked which areas have the highest percentage of green-minded commuters in the U.S.

Ketchikan was ranked among the top 10 Small Cities in the nation where commuters are using green transportation – carpooling, biking, walking and using public transportation – the most. According to SaveOnEnergy.com, when commuters use these green methods of transportation they can help save money, reduce overall dependence on fuel and improve air quality.

Ketchikan is rated No. 2 most walkable small city, with approximately 11 percent of people walking to get around town. Residents also do a great deal of carpooling, with almost 18 percent sharing rides according to SaveOnEnergy.com. - More...
Wednesday PM - May 25, 2016

Alaska: Witnesses tell Senate EPA implementing water rule despite court stay - U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife, chaired a hearing yesterday entitled, “Erosion of Exemptions and Expansion of Federal Control – Implementation of the Definition of Waters of the United States.”

The principal topic of discussion was how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are expanding federal control over land and water, including implementing the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule to the Clean Water Act - despite a stay on the rule issued by a federal court and no change in law - and how regulatory overreach is stifling businesses and hurting our economy and private property rights.

Among the witnesses presenting was Damien Schiff, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, who is representing a business in Fairbanks, Alaska. The business has outgrown its current location and wants to expand to a neighboring location which the firm has acquired. The Corps, however, has asserted jurisdiction over the property’s approximately 200 acres of permafrost, claiming the acreage constitutes a “wetland.” Permafrost can be found beneath 80 percent of Alaska. This is in direct contradiction to congressional testimony from the EPA administrator and federal law. - More...
Wednesday PM - May 25, 2016

Alaska: Travellers transiting to and from Alaska reminded to declare their firearms at the Canadian border - The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) reminds travellers transiting through Canada to and from Alaska to declare any firearms in their possession to a CBSA officer when entering Canada. Failure to declare firearms may result in criminal prosecution in a court of law.

Last year, CBSA officers in Western Canada seized 297 undeclared firearms, and of these, approximately 50 per cent were from travellers bound for or leaving Alaska. Many of these travellers faced criminal charges and/or a monetary penalty that could have been avoided by simply declaring the guns.

Canada’s firearm laws require that all guns must be declared upon entering the country. Before arriving, follow these border-smart practices: - More...
Wednesday PM - May 25, 2016

Alaska Science: Big changes on a big peninsula in Alaska By NED ROZELL - Larger than West Virginia, the Kenai Peninsula has the best of Alaska: coastal rainforests, two icefields, majestic deepwater fiords and a sapphire river home to the largest king salmon ever caught. It also has some of the best-documented changes of any geographic feature in Alaska, enough that a biologist now sees the peninsula evolving into a human-driven system.

This image of the Kenai Peninsula on June 15, 2015, was acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Aqua satellite.

John Morton of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge recently gave examples of ecological transformations on the Kenai Peninsula. He cited studies by many others in a presentation he gave from his office in Soldotna. Here are some examples:

The Kenai has become a much warmer and drier place in the last 50 years. There has been a 60 percent loss of available water on the peninsula since 1968.

Glaciers on Harding Icefield have shrunk the height of a five-story building in the last 50 years.

In the 1990s, spruce bark beetles that like warm summers killed 30 million spruce trees.

Forestry officials now consider April 1 the start of the Alaska wildfire season after a grassland fire burned on the Kenai in early spring 2005. For years, the start of fire season was May 1.

Where beetles and wildfire have intersected on the southern peninsula, grasslands seem to be replacing stands of spruce. What was forest is now savannah. There is now a 40,000-acre grassland in the Caribou Hills between Homer and Ninilchik.

Forty-seven of 48 streams measured in July 2009 were warm enough (above 55 degrees Fahrenheit) to cause heat stress in salmon.

Bird-watchers have identified 27 new species on the peninsula since 2007. Many species are arriving earlier in spring and migrating out later in fall.

Black spruce and shrubs have begun creeping into peat and sphagnum bogs that have sat unchanged for thousands of years. - More....
Wednesday PM - May 25, 2016