Ketchikan: Volunteers tackle 50 years worth of trash on Gravina Island By M.C. KAUFFMAN - Dedicated volunteers who weren't put off by a little rain collected a large quantity of material during the first weekend of the Gravina Island clean-up said Ketchikan Borough Code Enforcement Officer Jerry Cegelske.

The Clean-up is the first work to be done by volunteers to satisfy the requirements of a $125,000 grant received by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough in July of this year from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Marine Debris Program. "The grant requires matching funds in the form of volunteer labor and in kind donations in order to be successfully completed," said Cegelske. - More...
Wednesday - September 06, 2006

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Ketchikan: A Look Back At Alaska's Worst Unsolved Mass Murder By DAVE KIFFER - A morning fog blanketed Craig on Sept. 7, 1982.

The nearly 75 boats in the District 4 seine fleet had left port for a next-day opening in the waters west of Craig near Noyes Island. A few boats were still at the dock awaiting the inevitable repairs that are needed during the hectic, brief summer openings.

But one boat was anchored in a deep cove just off adjacent Fish Egg Island across the harbor from Craig. As the fog lifted several people noticed the unusual sight.

Mark Coulthurst's brand new, $850,000 seine boat, the Investor, was not the type of boat to blend in anyway. The state-of-the-art vessel had cut a spectacular profile along the docks in several southeast towns that summer. It was the type of boat that the other captains just looked at and whistled.

At 28, the Blaine, Washington based fisherman was at the top of the fleet. In 12 years, Coulthurst had risen from fishing out of a skiff in his hometown to captaining a top-line seiner with a crew of eight, including his wife and two young children.

Besides Coulthurst, the other members of the crew were his wife Irene, 28; his cousin Mike Stewart, 19; Dean Moon, 19; Jerome Keown, 19; Chris Heyman, 18; and Coulthurst's children, Kimberley, 5, and John, 4.

It struck several people on the Craig waterfront as odd that the ship would be laid up while the rest of the fleet was taking part in the last opening of the season in the lucrative District 4 seine area.

But at least one person in Craig was not surprised that the Investor was not with the rest of the fleet. As the fog lifted, however, he was shocked to see it still afloat.

Some 30 hours before, Coulthurst, his family and his crew had been murdered. The bodies were stacked in bunks on the boat. The boat had been anchored away from the town and its seacocks had been opened so it would sink in the relatively deep water off Fish Egg Island. But the boat was still afloat.

With the seine boat bobbing away with its grisly cargo, a young man was seen purchasing 2 1/2 gallons of gasoline in Craig. He retrieved the Investor's seine skiff from near the Craig Cold Storage dock and returned to the vessel.

Investigators say he doused the inside of the cabin and the forward sleeping area, paying particular attention to the forward crew area where several of the bodies were. The fire in that part of the boat was so intense that it was impossible to determine how many bodies were eventually found there. - More...
Wednesday - September 06, 2006

Fish Factor Special: Fish blog buzz By LAINE WELCH - Just about anyone who follows fish news on the Internet now turns daily to the Alaska Report, a web site by techno whiz Dennis Zaki of Juneau. The former Hotel Captain Cook chef, who now makes his living with a booming web design business, ventured into the fish news front about six months ago.

"When I took over the website it had ten hits a day. It topped one million page views for last month. The site visits have gone up 21 consecutive weeks now and I don't see it stopping," he said in a phone interview.

The Alaska Report site features all the latest in web tech outreach ­ RSS, pod casts, CNN news tickers, high quality flash videos, and instant headlines via XML. Zaki said 1,000 people have signed on for XML in less than a month, meaning they get the report's headlines when they open their emails each day. "That's really taking off," he said. - More...
Wednesday - September 06, 2006

Alaska: Snowy owls thrive as Alaskan lemming population booms By ALEX DEMARBAN - Snowy owls that wing over the tundra and perch on telephone poles like giant white eggs are having their most productive summer in at least 15 years, researchers say.

They're everywhere you look in this coastal village, spreading long wings as they soar among weather-stripped homes or dotting sandy banks to avoid blistering Arctic winds.

Why are there so many? Mainly because the lemmings they love to eat are booming.

Barrow and the surrounding North Slope - the nation's northernmost community - is the only place in the United States where snowy owls gather to breed. If the food is good enough, some stick around for the frigid winters. - More...
Wednesday - September 06, 2006

Science: Some birds keep parenting young even after they've left nest By LEE BOWMAN - Tough-love human parents like to use the analogy of birds pushing offspring out of the nest as soon as they're ready to fly, but a new study suggests that at least some feathered moms and dads keep parenting their fledglings even after they leave the nest.

It's well-known that adult birds feed their young directly while they're in the nest, and some youngsters even come back to the nest for brief visits around feeding time once they're able to fly on their own.

A team led by Andrew Radford of the University of Cambridge in England documented that certain species go a step further, using special calls to summon their adolescents to spots that offer the best foraging.

Studying young birds outside the nest is normally tough because they tend to take flight whenever an observer gets close. - More...
Wednesday - September 06, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Those were the days my friend... By Sam Osborne - Wednesday Divisions By Anita Hales - Wednesday Gravina Island Clean-Up By Dave Lieben - Tuesday All bowled out? What a shame. By Brian Gray - Tuesday We enjoyed our visit By Vita Rokaw - Tuesday Courtesy? By Craig Moen - Tuesday Pit Bulls By Michael Moyer - Tuesday Who does Kofi Annan represent? By Mark Neckameyer - Tuesday SALES TAX SHOULD BUILD A NEW WHITE CLIFF FACILITY By Pete Ellis - Monday Gravina bridge response to editorial By Michael Spence - Monday SALES TAX FOR WHITE CLIFF CENTER - SOMETHING ON WHICH WE SHOULD ALL BE ABLE TO AGREE By Robert McClory - Saturday Theft of Our Lands in Ketchikan - The Dark Days By Don Hoff Jr. - Saturday Gravina Island Clean-up Begins By Jerry Cegelske - Saturday It's a wash... By Chris Elliott - Thursday Farewell By Tyrell Rettke - Thursday Protecting our Rights on the Stikine River By Renee Claggett - Thursday White Cliff Center project By Karen Eakes - Thursday Thanks for your support! By Gregory Vickrey - Thursday James's Last Trip to Alaska By Doug Barry - Thursday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Arts This Week Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map Classifieds & Announcements September 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S 27 28 29 30 31 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: It's A Small World - Okay everyone, after me!

"It's a world of laughter, a world or tears
it's a world of hopes, it's a world of fear
there's so much that we share
that it's time we're aware
it's a small world after all."

Yeah., yeah, I hate that song too. One of the highlights of the family trip to Disneyland last January was the fact that the Small World ride was closed. Of course, the song was still playing on the loudspeakers, but you take what comfort you can get in the "Happiest Place on Earth."

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Charlotte, Liam, Grandpa Vern and I were enjoying the Saturday Market in downtown Portland when a librarian friend of my wife's popped up. He is from Dutch Harbor. The odds of someone from Ketchikan running into someone they know from Dutch Harbor in downtown Portland have to be pretty slim. - More...
Tuesday - September 05, 2006

Preston MacDougall: Chemical Eye on Jacking-up Testosterone - Gretchen Wilson's country music smash hit, "All Jacked Up", wasn't exactly the most ladylike song to take-off from Nashville's Music Row last year. This isn't surprising considering that previously she became famous for confessing to be a "Redneck Woman."

But there may even be a chemical explanation for Ms. Wilson's affinity for mud, trucks and guns, if Floyd Landis's explanation for his failed urine test holds water, so to speak.

His urine sample was routinely taken after the 17th stage of the Tour de France this year, where Mr. Landis mounted an impressive come-from-behind effort in the Alps. After two days of high, but declining performance, he narrowly gave up the lead. More importantly, however, he retook the yellow jersey (which represents best standing overall) and wore it all the way to the Arc de Triumph where a champion's reception awaited - along with a team of analytical chemists. - More...
Tuesday - September 05, 2006

Rob Holston: Sugar Frosted Flakes, You're OOOOOUT! - enjoyed several games from the Little League World Series recently. One of the corporate sponsors of this entertaining series on TV was Kellogg's Frosted Flakes with Tony the Tiger himself. Along with Tony, always a kid's favorite, the ads features Major League player, Derrek Lee. It had been a while since I had eaten a bowl of Kellogg's "SUGAR" Frosted Flakes, so I purchased a box. Is it just my imagination or was this product at one time called SUGAR Frosted Flakes. I suspect "sugar", the word was removed to increase sales and "sugar", the additive was kept, to increase addiction.

Inside my new box of Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes I found a toy. Oh Great! Just what I needed! A skull with a little red light that flashes on and off as if it was a warning. How inappropriate that the skull and red warning light were not attached to the outside of the box to warn parents and children of the impending danger of actually ingesting this product on a regular basis. - More...
Tuesday - September 05, 2006

Bob Ciminel: Another Nail in the Coffin - Would The Last Corporation Leaving California Please Turn Out the Lights? No. Wait. They're Already Off.

The Left Coast is at it again. Having terminated the state's nuclear industry - California will not let its investor-owned utility companies, or any other entity for that matter, build another nuclear power plant until the Federal government opens a spent fuel repository somewhere other than in California. Rest assured, if the Feds ever do open the Yucca Mountain repository, which probably will not occur in my lifetime, California's short-sighted politicians and environmentalist will find another reason to keep its citizens in the dark.

Already suffering from a lack of generating capacity, the state recently passed sweeping legislation to limit the release of greenhouse gases to levels that existed in 1990, thereby hamstringing the companies operating fossil-fueled power plants, as well as its petrochemical industry, most of whose output provides reformulated gasoline sold in California to meet the state's already tight emission standards. - More...
Tuesday - September 05, 2006