Author: Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Recently a rogue bear was wreaking havoc in Port Alexander, and it’s not uncommon for bears to hang around in the fall and cause all kinds of mayhem. But just around the corner from PA, at the Port Armstrong hatchery, bears can often outnumber the residents almost three to one during the months of August and September.

One way to determine the approximate age of a bowhead whale is by looking at intrinsic changes to the eye lens nucleus. Sitka high school students recently had a chance to play scientist and do their own eyeball dissections as part of the Sitka Whalefest science in the schools program.

The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium hopes the coming change in the nation’s administration will improve the funding picture for tribal health care. SEARHC CEO Roald Helgesen outlined the consortium’s mission, successes, and challenges in a presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday (11-19-08).

Grace Katasse Larsen supported her husband for many years as he struggled with insulin-dependent diabetes (Type I). Larsen and Maybelle Filler, grant coordinator for the SEARHC diabetes program, discussed the challenges of diabetes management on KCAW's morning interview.

On rough years when salmon don’t return in large numbers, things can get pretty tight for non-regional non-profit hatcheries. KCAW’s Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock traveled to Port Armstrong recently, to the Armstrong-Keta hatchery, to see how that operation keeps its staff employed—in times like this—when the pinks just didn’t show up.

A Sitka couple has been arrested on a combination of drug and extortion charges. Forty-eight year old Jimmie D. Richardson and his wife, Wendy Jo Richardson were apprehended in Sitka last week on a report that they had hired a contract-killer from the lower forty-eight to murder a relative.

A bear that's looking for some last minute snacks before winter hibernation isn't making a lot of friends in PA.

Sitka is entering the winter with two full reservoirs above its hydro-electric plants, but that was also the case last year. Low rainfall in the end of November and in December 2007 caused Blue and Green lakes to run low earlier than expected. Outgoing utility director Charlie Walls believes that over the next ten years Sitka could easily repeat the experience of this year, when the electric department was forced to run backup diesel generators to conserve water in the lakes. In fact, he believes it’s inevitable if oil prices remain high. In the second part of a two-part interview, Walls talks with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey about creating the policy and the political will to keep the town living within its electrical means until more hydro power is available in 2018.

The last of our candidate profiles features Sharon McIndoo, running for one of four Tribal Council seats and 16 year incumbent, Woody Widmark, running for Tribal Chair. Sitka Tribe of Alaska's elections are tomorrow, November 11th.

Despite slowly falling prices for fuel oil, Sitka’s electrical system is still feeling the pinch of increased demand. In fact, fuel oil would have to fall well below $3-dollars a gallon to be competitive again with electrical rates in Sitka, where consumers pay just over $.09 cents per kilowatt hour to heat their homes with electricity. Until the expansion of the Blue Lake hydro project comes online in 2018, Sitka’s electrical department may be forced to meet increasing demand by running the backup diesel generators on Jarvis Street, and burning huge quantities of diesel fuel to do so. In a worksession with the Sitka assembly last month, outgoing electrical director Charlie Walls tried to prepare local lawmakers for a future where electric rates in Sitka could be – at least for a few years – fifty-percent more expensive. In part 1 of a 2-part interview, Walls spoke with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey about his interest in creating electrical policy in Sitka to fend off higher rates.