Juneau Independent

In the first week of June, three men flew into Haines to meet with borough manager Alekka Fullerton. They were executives she hadn’t met from a company she hadn’t heard of. As she learned at the meeting, they manage much of the operations at the borough’s cruise ship dock.

A lunch break on a gravel bar on the Klehini River wound to a close as Russ Lyman and Joe Ordóñez studied a massive log jam. The duo have guided raft trips in the Chilkat Valley for nearly 40 years.

The Anan Wildlife Observatory bear cameras are online for a third summer, bringing the lives of Tongass bears like Scuba Sue and Tatonka to viewers around the world. It’s thanks to the hard work of students participating in the Teaching Through Technology program.

A second company has expressed interest in operating Haines’ cruise ship dock but says it has not yet received a response from the borough.

Officials are searching for a large boulder and will need to fundraise to create a patriotic monument for Wrangell, a move that would bring the nation’s “Freedom Rock” tour to Alaska as a way of commemorating the 250th birthday of the United States.

Two high school exchange students, from Moldova and Germany, are confirmed to arrive in Sitka for the 2026-27 school year through the organization AFS Intercultural Programs, despite rollbacks of federal funding for some AFS programs.

Two of three Ketchikan-based U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutters were recently deployed to the U.S./Mexico border, a USCG official stated in an email on Thursday.

The state’s utility regulators struck down a 69.92% electricity rate increase proposed by the Upper Lynn Canal’s electric utility.

Last week’s assembly meeting delivered a certain poetic justice for those who want plastic shopping bags in town.

The Wrangell Museum is launching a new website that will feature access to an online catalog listing thousands of items in the collection. The new feature at nolancenter.com is under construction and will be rolled out in the next month or so, Nolan Center Director Jeanie Arnold said.

1,009 patrons – attended Saturday’s Beerfest. Of these, 180 were Haines residents. According to Jeremy Reed, president of the Southeast Alaska State Fair, 172 guests attended Friday’s Gourmet Brewers’ Dinner.

One of the most widely used campgrounds in the Chilkat Valley is closed.

The U.S. Forest Service has stepped up to help look for invasive European green crabs at Anan Creek and elsewhere in the Wrangell area.

Passengers weigh in on tourist attractions, possible change in port management.

Author of new essay collection to visit The Bookstore this week.

Growing up in the Chilkat Valley, there was always talk about energy challenges, Chandler Kemp said. Talk of fuel prices going up, debate about Haines and Skagway’s joint hydropower system, disagreement over a proposed hydropower plant at Connelly Lake.

Sitka Medical Center at 700 Katlian Street closed its doors Thursday afternoon after receiving a patient who exhibited symptoms associated with measles, a SEARHC official said today.

Brian Kurtzman, 53, abused child he met as a raptor handler at Haines’ American Bald Eagle Foundation Raptor Center in 2013 and 2014.

Agreement outlines plan for learning that reflects Indigenous knowledge, values and approaches to wellness through the Integrative Behavioral Health program.

Author of new essay collection to visit The Bookstore in Haines this week.

A little over a year and a half after it burned down, the Quick Shop is back: bigger, and better — many at the grand opening said on Friday.

The Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Cabo Verde, Casablanca, and now, maybe, Haines? The world’s largest cruise port operator wants to lease Haines’ Port Chilkoot dock and add it to a portfolio of global holdings.

The state ferry Columbia, the largest vessel in the fleet, has been delayed a second time coming back to work on the busy summer route between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska.

Just before 9 p.m. Tuesday the Hames family and many of their friends gathered around a Sea Mart checkout aisle as store owners Roger and Mary Hames filled their cart to the brim with groceries, and paid with a charge slip, one last time.

Shortly before takeoff, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers put a man on the wrong plane.

Sunlight bounced off the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center’s tinted glass exterior Thursday as hundreds of onlookers gathered outside the main entrance for the 1 p.m. ribbon cutting that opened the roughly $300 million hospital building.

An injured snowmachiner caught in an avalanche near the border was picked up by a Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventure helicopter Wednesday evening and brought into Haines for medical treatment.

Per-passenger fee once used for Ocean Ranger program designated for electrical hookups in Juneau and Ketchikan in proposals by governor, Legislature

Haines’ king salmon sport fishery is once more open to anglers, even as state fish forecasters project a smaller run of Chilkat kings this year.

A trio of Juneau friends — who also are business partners — is looking to locate much of their work in Wrangell, putting together a new kind of system that utilities and industries use to remotely monitor and control their operations.

For years, a popular part of many cruises in Southeast Alaska has been sailing up Tracy Arm, a long, narrow fjord marked by steep mountains, glittering waterfalls and calving glaciers. But this season, major cruise lines are skipping it.

A decade of work on a hybrid electric boat propulsion project culminated Thursday as U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski shattered a bottle of champagne on the bow of the F/V Mirage, and saw it move under electric power along the dock at Sitka's Gary Paxton Industrial Park.

A petition to pause the 2026 seasonal sales tax increase gathered hundreds of signatures over the week that it was out at five local stores.

Tickets to ride the Alaska Marine Highway System will go up a little more than 2% effective May 1, the first fare increase since 2019.

Owner of Alpenglow Woodfired Pizza points to costs, landlord cites unpaid rent; alcohol license effort halted.

State says efforts to retrieve them will resume, likely in April.

State wildlife officials are raising the alarm in Juneau, which has seen three dead mountain goats and at least five reports of animals showing the disease since the beginning of winter.

The Wrangell borough assembly is moving to repeal a 60-year-old ordinance governing traveling merchants and door-to-door solicitors.

A group of skiers triggered a wind-slab avalanche Sunday just northwest of Mount McDonell in the Haines Pass, killing one person and injuring another, according to a preliminary report released by Avalanche Canada.

Atlin Royal Canadian Mounted Police received a Garmin SOS alert from a remote location near the Klehini River and Pleasant Camp, according to a news release. When they got the call, one person was reported unconscious and receiving CPR. Atlin Search and Rescue responded with a helicopter and flew out four people who were uninjured, and a fifth who had died.

At least one Canadian brewery, Yukon Brewing, is skipping this year’s Great Alaska Craft Beer and Home Brew Festival.

Two Haines assembly members say their use of Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence engine could be a model for future local government use; others have raised questions about errors in the document.

A group of Princeton University students visited Southeast Alaska last week to learn about the Tlingit clans and federally-recognized tribal governments working to repatriate precious cultural objects that have been taken from this region.

Beginning Friday, Alaska Seaplanes and Island Air Express will add a 6% surcharge to customer fares, the company announced Monday in a media release. That surcharge will not apply to freight customers.

Judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Alaska Forest Association, Alcan Timber and Viking Lumber to mandate more timber sales.

U.S. Forest Service leadership is in flux as the agency takes sweeping actions in managing the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest, and making regulatory and administrative changes at all levels, Alaska-based officials reported this week.

Tlingit clan leaders L’eiwtú Éesh Herman Davis and Aanyáanáx Ray Wilson will receive honorary doctorates of laws from the University of Alaska Southeast during the May 3 spring commencement ceremony at UAS in Juneau.

After three years as a finalist, the Haines Borough Public Library has won the 2026 National Medal for Museum and Library Services, the nation’s highest honor for libraries.

Aaron Jacobs, senior hydrologist for the National Weather Service, makes a presentation Tuesday morning during the Southeast Alaska Landslide Information and Preparedness Partnership Conference at Harrigan Centennial Hall. (James Poulson / Daily Sitka Sentinel) By Andrea Burtzel Daily Sitka Sentinel Community members, scientists, tribal representatives and government officials from across Southeast Alaska met in Sitka Tuesday and Wednesday for an event focused on landslide pl

Regulations and policies governing hunting and fishing on federal lands will be on the table at the Southeast Alaska Subsistence Regional Advisory Council meeting in Juneau next week.