Sitka Police Chief Mike Hall said the department received numerous calls reporting the accident shortly before 4p.m.

“[The] vehicle was traveling on Halibut Point Road towards the SeaMart and had swerved a few times,” said Hall. “Before they can call about the swerving, he ran off the road and lost control of his vehicle and went down in a ditch.”

Shortly after 4p.m. two police officers arrived at the scene. In an interview with KCAW, Firefighter EMT Paul Norwood said that the Sitka Fire Department sent an ambulance and fire engine to the scene, alongside 11 firefighter personnel.

Hall said the driver, a 75-year-old man, was found conscious, clutching his chest and complaining of chest pains. He was coherent, but sustained minor injuries in the crash. He was transported to the hospital, and a blood sample was collected. 

“At this point, we don’t suspect any intoxicants,” said Hall. “But anytime we have a wreck with injuries, it’s protocol for us to get a warrant for blood so that we can rule out that there’s any type of drugs or alcohol that influenced the event.”

Hall said the accident remains under police investigation. 

Two candidates for the city’s top job advanced to a second round of interviews last week. In two public interviews, the Sitka Assembly dug deeper into the backgrounds of municipal administrator candidates Steven Dahl and Jenny Alber to consider how they would fit in with the city government team.

Dahl, who has worked as a city administrator in Oregon, said he has conducted more research on Sitka since his first interview. He said, if he gets the job, he would want to collaborate with Sitkans to develop a solution to balance tourism and the needs of locals, but he’d have to learn more first.

“What exactly [is it] that people who don’t want tourism [in Sitka], what they really don’t like about it? Is it more people invading their town? They don’t feel like they can go shopping on a Saturday, or they feel limited about that, or they feel like their hometown is being invaded?,” says Dahl. “I need to understand that part of it before I can come up with a good solution for that.”

Collaboration was also a recurring theme in Alber’s interview. Alber, who currently works as the deputy director for the City of New Orleans department of safety and permits, said harnessing local institutional knowledge is essential to best plan for emergencies like natural disasters. 

“Probably being as isolated as Sitka is, I’m sure FEMA can’t just show up tomorrow with trailers. So I think it is very much all hands on deck. Here’s the community. Who’s essential?,” says Alber. “I think those are all things that you really have to take the time and prepare for, and have the hard conversations, and get the right people in the room, and then go to your community and say, ‘Okay, do you have a plan?'” 

Over the course of each two-hour interview, assembly members took turns asking the candidates questions from how they would approach the job’s responsibilities, to solutions for issues like housing, education, and navigating city budgets. 

The assembly convened behind closed doors in executive sessions after both interviews to discuss each candidate. After the final interview on Friday (4-24-26), Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said the assembly will take more time to consider Dahl and Alber, before getting back to both of the candidates in due order.

Neish Ken Hoyt guides over 200 attendees in blessing the newly-completed medical center on Japonski Island. Elders and speakers are seated in rolling chairs stationed in front of the building’s entrance — the rest of the attendees are packed like sardines behind them in the cool shade. A white ribbon with green and blue designs blocks the glass entrance, alongside the podium where Neish speaks from. 

For Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium CEO, Charles Clement, the completed hospital is deeply meaningful. 

“My board knows that I was reflecting this morning… and I actually got a little teary eyed,” says Clement. “This is a pretty emotional thing for me. This has been a 10 year endeavor.”

What’s most exciting for many of the speakers and attendees about the new hospital is the ability for Sitkans and residents of surrounding villages to access necessary medical care closer to home. Amidst concerns over limited transportation between villages, Sitka Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz addresses how the city plans to work with the hospital to resolve that. 

“We know that the ferry service is diminishing. We all see the effects on that,” says Eisenbeisz. “But on the plus side, the community of Sitka is investing heavily in their airport. So those citizens that need to get to health care from the larger planes can. And we’re investing in a float plane base as well. So those from the smaller towns that don’t have large plane access, they can fly in basically at the doorstep [of the hospital].”

SEARHC took over the World War II-era Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in 1986, and has been the only hospital in Sitka since it purchased Sitka Community Hospital in 2019. The new facility was built with support from the Indian Health Service, a federal agency within the department of health that supports Native American and Alaska Native patients. The organization’s deputy director, Ben Smith, says he’s thrilled with the finished product. 

“The Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center stands as a powerful example of self determination and action, where partnership empowers local leadership to design and deliver care that is responsive, culturally grounded and centered on patient families,” says Smith.

After the ribbon is cut, the wide-eyed attendees enter the new building for the first time, following the Sheet’ka Kwaan Dance Group and Gajaa Heen dancers, documenting every moment while they perform an entrance song.

Bill Spivey is the administrator for the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center. He stands proudly as he looks up at the hospital’s tall ceiling as visitors wander around the facility and photograph Mt. Edgecumbe volcano seen through the glass walls. He says there are already set plans to bring in patients and medical staff. 

“It’s very [exciting] that we’re going to be bringing two pieces of the medical center here,” says Spivey. “We’re going to bring our behavioral health team and our physical rehab team here to start on May 4, so that will for us be the first patient day.”

Spivey says that the rest of the facility will open on June 27th.

The Sitka Legacy Foundation has awarded local organizations with a one-time grant to support food security projects in Sitka and Port Alexander. 

Chris Kowalczewski is the Chair of the Grants Committee for the local nonprofit. She says the Alaska Community Foundation, which helped fund the grant, gave them a lot of freedom in determining which projects would be eligible. 

“They gave us leeway in defining what food security meant,” says Kowalczewski. “So there was a discussion in the committee about that, and we came up with these two categories of either increasing food production locally and hopefully sustainably, and distributing food more in the community.”

Five Sitka organizations, including the Sitka Food Coalition and Sitka Homeless Coalition, were awarded grants ranging from $1500 to $3000. The funds will support projects ranging from a food pantry to providing free community dinners. The City of Port Alexander was also awarded $1500 to support community garden plots. 

These projects are incredibly exciting to Robin Sherman, who is the chair of the Legacy Foundation’s advisory board. 

“One of the things that I think is great is that we funded a number of different solutions to the problem of access to healthy food in our communities,” says Sherman. “And that’s always good.” 

In an email exchange with KCAW, foundation Program Manager Jennifer Mac Donald says that the grant distribution checks have already been mailed to grantees. She says that each recipient has a year to complete their project and report outcomes to the organization. 

Kowalczewski says they were unable to sponsor three proposed projects due to lack of funds. But she says organizations shouldn’t lose all hope. 

“Based on the fact that we got quite a few applications, there is a need out there for this kind of support,” says Kowalczewski. “So it’s very possible that we would set that as a priority for funding in the future.”

The Sitka Legacy Foundation’s regular grant cycle will be starting in late August. Kowalzewski anticipates there will be a larger pot of funds to issue grants from due to additional City of Sitka funding. 

Amidst a sea of 11 other Republican gubernatorial candidates, Shelley Hughes argues that she stands out as not “Anchorage-centric.” At a campaign event in Sitka last week [4-8-26], she said she’s lived in several communities across the state, including Hoonah, Bethel, and her current home in Palmer.

“Part of my heart is in every region where I’ve lived, and I’ve heard from people in southeast and the different communities I visited [say] ‘We get forgotten by the governor. The governor gets in, they come down here and campaign, and then they forget about us.’ I will not forget about you,” says Hughes. “I’ve got family in this area, and you’re important. Every region of the state has something to contribute, and is important, and I’m ready to step up and offer my skill set to Alaskans.” 

Hughes has served four years as a state representative and over eight years as a State Senator for the southern Matanuska-Susitna Borough. She says that her decade-plus of experience in bipartisan collaboration makes her a suitable leader to collaborate with a president as “pro-Alaska” as Trump. 

Hughes is currently vetting Lieutenant Governor candidates, hoping to have them take on more responsibility in helping lead her initiatives in a way that she says “hasn’t happened since territorial days.”

One of her top priorities as governor would be to diversify Alaska’s economy away from oil, and lean into alternative energy sources like geothermal and hydroelectric power. 

She also says changes are needed for the Alaska Marine Highway System, which has uncertain funding and declining ridership. Hughes says local partnerships could help.

“I think if we did a private partnership, and maybe had restaurants or bands or things like that on the ferries, people might choose it as an alternative. I think we could get some more independent travelers,” says Hughes. “And I think there’s a revenue stream there. And under the state DOT they don’t have the flexibility to do that kind of thing… but I would also look at where does it make sense, as far as shortening routes by putting in some roads where we can, so we can have a good system that meets the needs.”

On the topic of education, Hughes believes that there should not only be better funding to support teachers, but also vocational training programs. She says schools should also help students prepare for the wide variety of high-paying jobs the state offers that don’t require a college degree. Hughes says this is important given that one in three Alaskans is on public assistance and Medicaid.

“I’ve heard from employers who’ve offered them raises because they’re good workers, and they turn it down because they’re going to lose their Medicaid, for example, and they need their insurance for their families, and that’s a broken system,” says Hughes. “So we need to go in there and fix that system and make sure those people have opportunity for the kind of jobs where they can make the kind of money that you can live [in] and afford a home [and] afford your groceries.”

Regarding environmental regulation, Hughes hopes to hire a Fish and Game Commissioner who shares her perspective on balancing environmental and development concerns. Hughes says she plans to increase trawling restrictions and increase game so that rural Alaska Native residents can participate in subsistence hunting regardless of where in the state they choose to live. Hughes says she wants to partner with federal agencies to develop preventative measures for natural disasters brought on by global warming. On the flip side, she’s also optimistic about the agricultural development opportunities that a warmer climate could bring.

“Scandinavia is on the same latitude on the globe that we are. Now they have a warm ocean current, so it’s a little warmer, but their export for [agricultural] products and food is $10 billion a year,” says Hughes. “We’re going the other direction, we’re importing $3 billion. And so I see a lot of potential there, and when, with a little bit of warming, we can take advantage of that.

Hughes says that more agricultural work opportunities could also attract a wide variety of working-age people to Alaska. 

Hughes also talked about transferring government-owned land to private owners, infrastructure development, optimizing the state budget, and public safety reform during her two-day long stay in Sitka.

Crouched down in the engine room of the 50-foot vessel, Ben Matthys is showcasing the completed hybrid engine to Senator Lisa Murkowski, answering any follow-up questions she has. He’s the lead technician who joined the project four years ago. The project was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of a pilot program to make commercial engines cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

Sitka fisherman Jeff Turner owns the boat. After hearing about the grant, Turner was quick to volunteer his boat for the project. Yet on the two trips Turner took prior to Murkowski’s visit, a third-benefit was revealed, one that both Turner and Murkowski agree is “transformational”: 

“The noise pollution is something I really notice,” says Turner. “A quiet boat is fatigue free. I mean, you’re talking in a normal voice. You don’t have to yell across the deck.”

The team behind the hybrid engine plans to continue collecting data from the Mirage throughout the summer fishing season, logging the data in a publicly available document. That way, fishermen can decide whether they would like to install a hybrid engine as well. Another boat from Juneau is already lined up to be the second boat to have the hybrid engine installed. Turner says he’s excited to be a part of the development process to make the engine the best it can be for fishermen now and in the future. 

“I want to take advantage of the system. I want to see what it can do,” says Turner. “And I want the next person, and the next person, to learn from it. They’re collecting data on every single piece of equipment there, and what’s it gonna be in five years, ten years.”

Additionally, with concerns over outmigration and fewer young people staying in Alaska, the hybrid engine offers professional opportunities that could help retain and attract working-age people in the state. Chandler Kemp, the project’s enginee, believes that their partnership with locals in developing the engine is a promising example for future developers. 

“And so it’s not a case where we’ve hired a contractor to come in and build the project and then leave,” says Kemp. “Instead, we’ve invested locally to support people that want to do this type of work, and now have the expertise to do it more independently.”

But the promise for professional development is not without its obstacles, as highlighted by Linda Behnken, the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association.

“There isn’t anybody in this country yet making these systems,” says Behnken. “There is a electric outboard maker that we want to use on a mariculture boat. But there isn’t anybody certifying marine certified batteries in this country yet, or building these systems.”

Batteries for electric vehicles are already proving a problem to transport. Alaska Marine Lines no longer ships electric vehicles to the state, and the ferry system highly restricts them. 

Murkowski says it needs to be addressed for the technology to move forward.

“The whole discussion about how you move an electric vehicle to Alaska, we can’t put them on these container ships anymore because of the danger of the fire,” says Murkowski. “So we’re going to have to figure this one out pretty darn quick.”

Murkowski strongly urges Alaskans to make their voices heard on the new Tongass plan that’s being created for the next 15 years. The public comment period ends on May 6th. Many environmentalists and organizations have critiqued the proposed land management plan. They say it gives minimal attention to commercial fishing and cultural subsistence practices, while placing heavy emphasis on logging and large-scale tourism development.

“You have an administration in play right now who is very, very aggressive, leaning into resource development, including on the timber harvest and management side,” says Murkowski. “We get that, but we also recognize that the Tongass is a multiple use forest. Always has been, always will be. And so we need to hear from not only those that are speaking on the cultural and the subsistence side, but on the tourism side, all the other activities that go on within the Tongass.”

Additionally, the planned relocation of the U.S. Forest Service’s national office to Salt Lake City has also raised environmental concerns and how it could potentially result in the relocation of an already minimized workforce in Alaska. Murkowski says that she anticipates Alaska to be “untouched” by the change. However, she says she is continuing to closely monitor the situation, as there are still some areas of uncertainty. They don’t know which positions would be relocated, and what that would mean for the science office in Juneau.

“I think it’s really important that we retain this office and the people so this effort to try to get more forest service folks out of Washington, DC, into the West [continues],” says Murkowski. “I think we’re asking the right questions. I think the jury is still out in terms of whether or not we’re getting the answers that we need in order to do the work.” 

Another regional hot topic is funding for the Alaska Marine Highway System. Murkowski helped steer over $700 million to Alaska’s ferry system through the bipartisan Infrastructure Act under the Biden administration. In her annual address to the state legislature, Murkowski said that she was “very disappointed” with the Alaska government’s management of the federal funding. While she says she is moving forward with various initiatives to secure more funding, Murkowski says nothing’s guaranteed. 

“I’m trying to be confident with all things…But it’s a $78 million hole. That’s substantial,” says Murkowski. “I want to make sure that what we have is a marine highway system that is standing on its own. That the state of Alaska has made a commitment towards… It is the Alaska Marine Highway System. It is not the Federal Marine Highway System.”

Additionally, the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI initiatives have drawn scrutiny over the qualifications for the Section 8(a) program, which impacts small businesses and Alaska Native Corporations. However, Murkowski says there is bipartisan support for the program, which she says has been hugely beneficial for Alaska. 

“The delegation has been very united on recognizing that when this program was created many decades ago, it was to not only provide economic empowerment, it was really designed to help fulfill one of the promises under [the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act] in terms of self determination,” says Murkowski. “And so I think part of this is just a failure to fully understand what that means and why it was established in the first place.”

Outmigration is an increasing concern in Southeast Alaska, with roughly 24% of all Alaskan workers living outside the state. Murkowski says that retaining Alaskan residents is of the upmost importance to her as a senator and a mother, with one of her sons living outside of Alaska due to the perceived lack of opportunity. However, Murkowski says she is highly optimistic about the growing unique professional opportunities and lifestyle benefits that Alaska has to offer. 

“There is a lot of cool stuff that is going on that should be exciting for young people, but excitement doesn’t pay your mortgage. Excitement doesn’t get you into a house or help you afford the cost of groceries,” says Murkowski. “But we have a bonus here in this area, and that is not only a natural beauty of our surroundings, but a generosity of heart with people that make it really special, even during some tough times.”

The Senate is currently in recess until April 16th.

Dave Turcott is a commercial fisherman who has been trolling in southeast Alaska since the 1960s. Yet it was only two years ago that Turcott began transcribing his experiences from the sea onto paper, earning him the title of a “fisherpoet.” Standing behind a podium at the Sitka Public Library with the ocean at his back, Turcott reads to a room of over 30 attentive librarians an anecdote chronicling one of his earliest memories in Southeast, which involves him and his fellow fishermen improvising a solution to fixing a hole in their gas tank while on the road to catch a ferry in Haines. 

“Somebody freshened the chewing gum. We added a little gas, and eased on to the next roadhouse. Someone was always chewing a fresh plug in case the old one fell off,” says Turcott, much to the amusement of the crowd.

And Turcott is not the only fisherpoet sharing his work. Mariah Warren has worked as a fisherman across a wide variety of vessels for 20 years, half of them as a captain. One of the short readings she shared with the audience was a poem titled “Please Don’t Die at Sea.”

“Please don’t die at sea, my dears. Tell the story someday instead over burgers and beers, about the time the storm called your name and you chickened out. The kids are listening. Those are the times that they need to hear about,” says Warren. “Remember your heroes, those storm gray, bright-eyed women and Poseidon-bearded men. I know we all do. Please survive so someday you can be a grouchy, salt encrusted, wise and inspiring old timer too.”

Sitting in chairs propped up beside the podium, Turcott leans back into his chair with tear-filled eyes and pursed lips. Next to him, Paul Rioux says for a long time, he struggled to understand how his routine life at sea would interest readers. He shares an essay where he realizes the life of a fisherman offers a unique literary connection between self-reliance and fate.

“Rare days of pure winning are made sweeter by all the days of struggling, fighting weather, and during poor fishing and/or depressing crisis. All of this occurs in an awe-inspiring setting seen by an infinitesimally small percentage of the population, thereby a very exclusive club,” says Rioux. “You cannot fake your way in. You have to get salty to be salty.”

One of the visiting librarians in the audience is Sandy Lukes, the Outreach Librarian for the Anchorage Public Library. It’s Lukes’ first ever Alaska Library Association conference, and she says listening to the storytellers gave her a greater appreciation for how crucial fishing is for communities like Sitka. 

“Me being from Seattle, I know there’s a lot of fishing that goes around there, but I wasn’t as close to or familiar with it,” says Lukes. “So it’s really interesting seeing how how much that is part of the livelihood here, and what that looks like for people.”

Tele Aadsen is the 4th and final fisherpoet and moderator for the event. She shares a humorous and heart-warming story of a fisherman who inspired her to embrace her queerness in their line of work. She hopes the librarians are inspired to highlight the unexpected storytellers in their own communities, fishermen or otherwise.

“Sharing with librarians is awesome. Who better to share with than people who are professional story shares you know and appreciate that thought that goes into it,” says Aadsen. “I think the takeaway is, who are the people in your community who maybe people don’t know their writing, or have their own stories to bring forward, because we all have those folks everywhere.” 

As the event draws to a close, the fisherpoets and librarians mingle, with some snacking on the fish treats caught and prepared by the fishermen themselves. With shelves chock-full of books on one end, and a large glass window framing Sitka Sound on the other, the patrons are surrounded by stories.

It is the week before spring break at Pacific High School in Sitka, and a handful of students are scattered across different tables in a classroom, hunkered down in their final projects. While students often find themselves polishing up their final essays or posters, these teens are working on a different assignment: original comic books.

Sophomore Sydney Lindstrom is making her way through a stack of completed comic spreads.

“I’m working on folding my comic because it’s in a zine format,” she says. She layers the printed pages on top of a tablet illuminating pure light to help her straighten out her lines while she folds each paper into a pocket-sized magazine. Her comic summarizes creation stories from various cultures and compares and contrasts them to Western scientific theories she learned about in her physical science class.

Until now, Lindstrom only dabbled in illustration, usually characters from her favorite tv shows. But branching out to a whole comic in a new style was a fun challenge.

“It’s like a style that I don’t really ever draw in. It’s not my style really at all. But it was interesting to try out the new style,” says Lindstrom.

It is this very exploration of ideas and stepping out of one’s comfort zone that English teacher Tristan Guevin hopes to instill in his students during the course. 

“Oftentimes, graphic novels and comics aren’t necessarily seen as literature, but if you read them, you analyze them in the same way you would analyze a novel or, you know, a non fiction book. There’s so much richness there,” says Guevin. “Just a great medium for students to explore ideas, to learn about other people, other cultures, times, events, and so I think they’re just really, really accessible and just enjoyable.”

While this is Guevin’s second year teaching the comics course, it is the first time a guest artist helped lead the class, thanks to an Artist in Schools grant from the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, Sitka Public School District, and Alaska State Council of the Arts. The artist in question is Medar de la Cruz, a Pulitzer Prize winning illustrator and comic artist who taught art in Sitka before through the Fine Arts Camp. Chatting over Zoom from his home in Brooklyn, de la Cruz fondly recalls the first day at Pacific High, when he revealed the wide variety of art supplies he gifted to the school, including Lindstrom’s light-up tablet. 

“It was really cool to just watch everybody sort of flock through the materials and start using them. It’s a really exciting thing, and it reminds me of my first time,” says de la Cruz. “Every time I come home from the art store… It’s almost like Christmas, and you just really can’t wait to to play with the tool and see what it does.”

As he got to know the students throughout the residency, de la Cruz grew increasingly impressed with how knowledgeable they were about nature and global politics, with the students studying the autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis, which recounts author Marjane Satrapi’s life in pre-and post-revolutionary Iran. 

“I don’t know if the average kid would would have these sort of insights on the book. And I really appreciated that,” says de la Cruz. “I noticed that they are very well connected to current events, probably because of Tristan’s guidance, who chose a book, for example, in this situation, about Iran during a war in Iran, or during conflict in Iran.”

Still, de la Cruz said it took a bit of work to bring students out of their shells. He recalls leading them in an activity where they passed illustrations around the room at random, and each artist added something new such as dialogue or another panel. It’s typically a quiet exercise, but making it more conversational allowed students to open up. 

“And there was a much more organic approach in this sense. And there was a lot also a lot more laughing and a lot more fun being had than any other time that I’ve ever done this workshop,” says de la Cruz. “So it really gave me an opportunity to reconsider how I go about this in the future.”

Today, those comics are proudly displayed on the glass walls of the classroom, with different drawing materials and art styles coming together to tell a wide variety of chaotically imaginative adventures, like the origin story of a swan and goose hybrid known as the “swoose”, which became a running classroom gag. 

Guevin says the collaborative comic writing encapsulated the spirit of de la Cruz’s residency. 

“It was such a great experience. For me, and a collaborative one where students were able to be creative and express themselves through both art and narrative,” says Guevin. “And so I think that’s something that I take from this class, and I hope to build on, is just that kind of spirit of collaboration and creativity.” 

Guevin and de la Cruz are planning a second iteration of his residency for the course next year. More than anything, de la Cruz hopes the course will help students gain greater comic and graphic novel literacy. 

“Regardless of if they actually walk away with a desire to make comics, I really want them to walk away with a desire to read them more. And I think that’s the biggest distinction between the two right there,” says de la Cruz.

As Lindstrom folds the last of her comics, she says de la Cruz inspired her to elevate her artistry. 

“He was really good at free-handing his comics, which was surprising, but I want to try and do that more,” says Lindstrom. “I’m more interested in just getting into comics, because this was my first time making like a legit comic, and it was really enjoyable, and I want to try it again.”

Lindstrom has already given some of her comics to her teachers, but soon plans to distribute her latest completed ones to her family. She says she’ll keep at least one for herself too, and in the future, who knows how many more stories will stand beside it.

A helicopter crew from Air Station Sitka medevaced a Tenakee Springs man on Monday after he sustained serious injuries falling off a ladder.

In an interview with KCAW, Air Station Sitka representative Herald Pereira said that the man was found in his cabin on Monday (3-16-26) after he fell off of a six foot ladder. Alaska State Troopers responded to the call. Pereira said the troopers reported the man was “dazed and confused” and it was unclear what had caused the fall. Troopers called for Coast Guard assistance around 1 p.m.  

After assessing weather conditions and gathering other necessary information, Air Station Sitka sent out a four-person helicopter crew to retrieve the man about an hour later.

In a follow-up interview with KCAW, Air Station Sitka Assistant Public Affairs Officer Chantz Black said that the man was discovered by a concerned neighbor, who guessed that he had been lying injured on the ground for roughly a day and a half. Black said that the helicopter crew arrived back at Sitka around 4:30pm Monday, and transferred the man to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center for further treatment. 

WEB ONLY: Editor’s Note: This story was updated on 3-20-26 to include new information about the rescue, and clarify that a neighbor initially found the individual, rather than a trooper, according to more recent Coast Guard accounts.