Juneau Independent

Legislature schedules hearings with state education leaders Wednesday about Sitka boarding school that has lost 25% of its students this year

About a hundred people crowded into the cramped Arrivals area of the Sitka airport terminal Saturday evening to welcome home three Kaagwaantaan clan hats held for more than 100 years in a Pennsylvania museum.

Four-ship company that offered weeklong voyages for 40 to 80 passengers halting voyages so parent company Allen Marine can focus on other operations.

Proposed changes to Haines State Forest management could roll back restrictions on logging across wide swaths of the Chilkat Valley. But some say economics — not just government regulation — is preventing large-scale logging returning to the area. 

Coven Petticrew believes dance can help a community heal after a death in the family, so he is organizing a new Native dance group in Wrangell.

Sitka organizations are celebrating local young-growth timber production while giving rise to an outdoor education shelter at Pacific High School that’s being built with Southeast second-growth timber.

The Alaska Board of Education is supporting a recommendation by the state education commissioner to form an ad-hoc committee to address student well-being at Mt. Edgecumbe High School.

Earlier this month, the city of Juneau issued official warnings advising hundreds of residents to evacuate their homes due to avalanche risk following heavy snowfall. 

Braves’ boys, Lady Braves’ girls run past Huskies, Lady Huskies.

Some residents say it may undermine subsistence harvest rights in the state; public comment period open until Feb. 13.

The Alaska Board of Game's 2026 Southeast Alaska regulatory meeting opened in Wrangell today with a proposal that could raise the bag limit for non-Alaska resident hunters in the Sitka-area Game Management Unit 4 among issues to be decided.

A recent stretch of cold weather, plus high heating oil prices, has been a recipe for budget crunch, residents say. Borough decision makers, however, disagree on what should be done. 

The borough has officially partnered with a growing cruise line to bring a new dock to the community. The borough assembly voted unanimously on Jan. 7 to approve a 40-year tidelands lease for American Cruise Lines (ACL), which will build the dock. 

JDHS earns state playoff berth with two wins over conference foe.

The Wild Fish Conservancy’s use of the Equal Access to Justice Act is alarming the small-boat fishermen who fought the conservancy’s lawsuit that sought to close the Southeast Alaska chinook troll fishery to preserve migratory chinook as prey for the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that feed in waters near Puget Sound.

Dybdahl, Huemann, Larson, Tompkins ball out at 19th annual adult basketball tournament.

Widespread fuel-gelling in the Chilkat Valley’s supply of diesel halted trucks, plows and a highway-project crew in December.  

A Superior Court judge issued an order Wednesday dismissing two felony assault charges and maintaining a felony robbery charge against Pietr K. Dabaluz, a 19-year-old Juneau man involved in a fight during an Aug. 30, 2025, protest rally at the Sitka roundabout.

A woman was rescued from her flooded car in a ditch along Sawmill Road early Wednesday morning.  Emergency responders headed to the road’s intersection with the Haines Highway just after 8 a.m. where they found the Subaru stuck in water up to its bumper. 

The town’s economic development board, which advises the assembly, has raised several questions about a possible borough land lease for a California-based company to build and operate a small-scale data center.

Record rainfall and warm temperatures coincided with a Friday afternoon avalanche that left rock, wood and other debris across a stretch of Green Lake Road, about a half-mile past the Medvejie hatchery.

Ben Matthys and Jeff Turner work on converting the Mirage this fall. (Photo provided) By Anna Laffrey Daily Sitka Sentinel Tradesmen are working around the clock at Sitka’s community boatyard to install a hybrid electric propulsion system on the F/V Mirage, and breathe life into research toward clean energy solutions and cost savings for Alaska's small boat fisheries. The conversion represents the first phase of an Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association initiative to fit thr

Crimson Bears lose to 3A state runner-up on the road Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé junior Logan Carriker (24) defends over a Monroe screen as senior Elias Dybdahl (20) reacts during the Capital City Classic on Dec. 30, 2025. Carriker and Dybdahl were noted for their defensive play in JDHS' game at Sitka on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (Klas Stolpe / Juneau Independent) By Klas Stolpe Juneau Independent The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears boys ba

State Department of Transportation has closed portions of the highway, and is not plowing Lutak Road or Mud Bay road due to deteriorating weather conditions on Friday.

The Raven’s Hook, after five years in business, closed its doors on Dec. 31.

The Wrangell Police and local U.S. Forestry Officer assist Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs with the execution of a search warrant in Panhandle Trailer Park on Dec. 29, 2025. (Photo by Wrangell Police Department) By Jonathon Dawe Wrangell Sentinel Police arrested a Wrangell man Dec. 29 after seizing what the chief called the town’s largest drug shipment in recent history. Officers took 66-year-old Steven Marshall into custody around 4 p.m. at Panhandle Trailer Park. The

Comments on proposed AMHS summer schedule being accepted through Jan. 13.

In 2025, Sitka saw growth and progress — but also questioned it.

As the Chilkat Valley closes in on the end of 2025, here’s a look at some of the most widely read of the 904 stories the Chilkat Valley News published in print and online this year.

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.