Juneau Independent

Eskay Creek project is one of several prospective mines near the British Columbia-Alaska border, where the government and industry have promised new investments.

Borough and shipyard company will work together on 6-Mile development plan.

About 7,456 people walked into the Haines Visitor Center this year, down from more than 10,600 in 2024. Tourism director Rebecca Hylton attributes that drop, in part, to a road closure during Second Avenue reconstruction and the lack of evening cruise-ship dockings.

The search for two men last seen Saturday night setting out in a skiff from Sitka for Camp Coogan Bay has been suspended, the Coast Guard announced Wednesday afternoon.

In a more than four-hour meeting of the Mt. Edgecumbe High School Advisory Board last Thursday, several school community members said they felt Superintendent David Langford was misleading in his response to concerns they expressed at a Dec. 3 meeting of the Alaska Board of Education about low student body morale and the rate of student disenrollment since the start of the fall term.

One bad year for Chilkoot salmon or serial mismanagement? That’s the distance between state fisheries managers and area gillnetters, who spoke last week at an annual post-season meeting about a decades-long controversy, and the future of the Lynn Canal’s wild-run salmon stocks. 

Closing arguments were submitted this week in a rate case that could see residential electricity charges in the Upper Lynn Canal climb significantly next year.

The Alaska Marine Highway System has put the Columbia back to work through Dec. 17 to cover for the Kennicott, which is delayed leaving a Puget Sound shipyard.

An 81-foot tender, the F/V Pavlof, sank Thursday morning while moored in the Haines Harbor. 

10% of students have withdrawn during school year following staffing reductions and leadership changes, parents and staff tell state education board.

There could soon be two new faces in the Division of Forestry Haines office, with the division promoting longtime area forester Greg Palmieri to a regionwide management position, and hoping to hire a second forester position in Haines, spokesperson Lorraine Henry said last week.

Workers have started taking apart a 360-foot-long paddlewheel cruise ship at the scrap metal recycling operation at 6-Mile to possibly reuse the hull as a new downtown floating dock for cruise ships.

Tidal Network, a Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska program that’s building up cell towers and broadband connectivity in Southeast communities, is holding a public outreach session at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the ANB Founders Hall. 

Ship now expected to resume sailings on Dec. 17; possibility of extending Columbia on route under review.

A memo by the borough’s manager says the fire department’s actions do not require the agency’s leaders to be fired.

The U.S. Forest Service has awarded an unusual timber contract to supply Petersburg’s Alaska Timber and Truss with enough logs from Thomas Bay for several years of operation, while also improving moose and deer habitat.

Deer hunting in the greater Sitka-area Game Management Unit 4 is more efficient than anywhere in Alaska, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game data shows the Sitka area deer population is doing well.

Mayor Tom Morphet is proposing transferring the borough’s Tlingit Park property to the Chilkoot Indian Association. 

It was no surprise that everyone on the timber panel at this month’s Alaska Resource Development Council conference had the same message: The industry needs a larger supply of trees to cut.

State ferry officials on Monday were trying to work out a new early-December schedule after learning that the Kennicott will be delayed coming out of a yearlong layup at a Puget Sound shipyard for new generators and maintenance work.

Borough searching for sponsors to share additional costs of global big-terrain backcountry ski competition.

According to regulars, bingo around the valley has been mired in a bit of a downturn. In previous bingo heydays, an enthusiast could’ve gone to almost a game for each day of the week, or at least every other day of the week, said Larry Sweet, noted by fellow players as a bingo expert.

A citizen group working to increase childcare availability is finding some early success, but says a far more significant intervention is still needed.

After less than a year of owning the Palmer Project, American Pacific Mining announced Monday that it had sold the project to Vancouver-based Vizsla Copper. 

Roger and Mary Hames announced Tuesday that after carefully considering all options and offers, they will sell Sea Mart and all their other businesses to the national grocery store chain Albertson’s/Safeway.

In a 3-1 vote, the planning and zoning commission responded to concerns and opposition raised by residents and denied Tidal Network’s application for a conditional-use permit to erect a 230-foot-tall telecommunications tower near 13-Mile Zimovia Highway.

A Haines man with a gunshot wound was medevaced out of the Chilkat Valley for treatment Saturday afternoon. 

The trial of Pietr K. Dabaluz, a 19-year-old Juneau man involved in a fight during an Aug. 30 protest at the Sitka roundabout, has been rescheduled to January while a Juneau judge considers a motion to dismiss the three felony charges Dabaluz faces.

Juneau, other Southeast communities also dealing with issues related to how maps are used for policymaking, development

When Elizabeth Bagley received an email from a representative of Pope Leo XIV inviting her to a climate change conference near Rome, she was sure it was spam.

Metlakatla Indian Community, which has been at the forefront in the effort to control the invader, has trapped more than 40,000 of them this year.

The 29th Alaska Bald Eagle Festival will draw raptor enthusiasts to Haines in early November, though it’s not clear how many people will show up as organizers say event registrations are slow. 

Much like Alaska’s Permanent Fund, which voters approved in 1976 to ensure that some of the state’s oil revenues would be saved for future needs, Wrangell has its own permanent fund that holds a piece of one-time federal money from almost 30 years ago.

Seventh-grader Ayla Harris wasn’t enrolled in the filmmaking elective at Stikine Middle School last year, but that didn’t stop her from knocking on a door, pitching a project and teaching herself how to piece a film together. A month later, she had a documentary — and now an invitation to participate in the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Canada in November.

Mayor Tom Morphet will meet with Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson this week about a dispute that has the borough and tribe headed to a hearing in Alaska Small Claims Court. 

Blatchley Middle School has won a U.S. Department of Education award as a high-performing school based on its achievements in academics and other criteria. But the honor was somewhat bittersweet after the school learned the National Blue Ribbon School program – a part of the U.S. Department of Education for more than 40 years to recognize high achieving public and private schools, and schools that close the achievement gap – was discontinued by the Trump administration in

Community’s state legislators host office hours and two town halls while in the Chilkat Valley.

More than a dozen parents of Mt. Edgecumbe High School students shared concerns with the MEHS Advisory Board on Thursday regarding changes in staffing, academics, extracurriculars and residential life at the state-run boarding school.

“Taku for Two” duo focuses on the history of Juneau and Southeast Alaska.

Development at Cascade Point north of Juneau, road extension south of Haines among projects now advancing.

On a dreary evening late last week, dozens of people packed into the back of the Haines Public Library. Before long, two attendees broke...

Dungeness crab fishing is back on for a full fall season that began Wednesday and extends through Nov. 30, although Alaska Department of Fish and Game harvest projections show that Southeast Alaska fishermen might not achieve the harvest threshold for a full season.

Southeast Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) has submitted building plans to the borough for a proposed hospital and medical facility near Jones Point.

The Chilkat river king salmon run returned in high numbers to spawn this summer — the first season after the run was removed from the state-designated stock of concern list.

Voters will decide whether to adopt a seasonal sales tax and cash in on the tourists who visit Haines each summer. 

A juvenile bald eagle rescued near the Haines airport is recovering in Sitka and is expected to make a full recovery, though it’s not clear exactly how it got injured.  

Sitka was under a high wind warning this afternoon, with sustained winds of 35 mph gusting to 60 mph and seas of more than 30 feet in the National Weather Service's forecast, brought on by a hurricane force low pressure system.

In return, Tlingit and Haida asks that tribal-government-owned businesses be exempted in borough code from paying sales tax

A low-pressure system hit Elfin Cove like a tornado around 10:30 a.m. Monday morning, causing serious damage to at least five residences, and cutting off the small town’s boardwalk and trail system, electrical infrastructure and water lines, as well as its Raven Radio transmitter station.

Sitkans can submit photos through Friday of the most impressive potholes on city-maintained streets.