Tuesday
April 05, 2005
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Found - Ancient Tools
Photo courtesy USFS
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 SE Alaska: Found
- Ancient Tools; April is Alaska Archaeology Month - Last
summer Petersburg Ranger District timber sale administrator Ted
Sandhofer and forester Bryan Rice responded to a fire caused
by a neglectful camper. As Sandhofer was grubbing up the duff
and humus he noticed rocks rattling about his feet. He soon realized
the rocks were actually stone tools that were resting on a flat-topped
boulder. Apparently the three tools were left on the boulder
centuries ago and hidden beneath a thick layer of duff.
Sandhofer contacted Petersburg
District archeologist Jane Smith when he made the discovery and
she visited the site with GIS specialist Gene Primaky to salvage
information regarding the tools. According to the US Forest Service,
Sandhofer's actions - leaving the artifacts in place and contacting
an archeologist - are exactly how you can help them preserve
the past if you make such a discovery. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005
Ketchikan: Legislation
Promoting Shellfish Farming Moving Forward - House Bill 198,
a bill related to aquatic farming, unanimously passed the House
Floor Monday. "HB 198 will finally produce a viable shellfish
farming industry in Southeast Alaska," said Representative
Jim Elkins (R-Ketchikan). "This bill is a compromise between
the state and the industry and will help open the doors for geoduck
farming in the Ketchikan area." - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005
Alaska: Legislative
Council Calls for Contract to Study PERS Issue - Chairman
of Legislative Council, Representative Pete Kott (R-Eagle River)
held a press conference earlier Monday to announce a contract
to study the Alaska Public Employees Retirement System (PERS).
- More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005
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Ketchikan: Metlakatla
Home Fire Takes Life Of Young Man - The Alaska State Fire
Marshal's office was notified on Friday, April 1, 2005, of a
fire that had occurred at 3:19 am in Metlakatla at the home of
John Scudero Jr, age 47.
According to the State Fire
Marshal's office, John Scudero III, age 21, died at the scene.
Scudero, Jr, his father, entered his son's room during the fire
and was critically injured. Scudero, Jr. has been transported
to Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle.
Friday afternoon at approximately
3:00 pm, a deputy fire marshall responded to the scene for an
investigation. According to the investigation, the fire started
in the deceased's bedroom, which is upstairs in the two story
home. The fire spread to an adjoining family room, before it
was contained. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005
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A sea otter in Glacier
Bay, one of the few places in Alaska with a growing sea otter
population.
Photo by Jim Bodkin
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Alaska: Glacier
Bay hot real estate for sea otters by Ned Rozell -
Sea otters have had a rough time
since Vitus Bering's journey to Alaska: They were hunted almost
to extinction in the 1700s and 1800s, made a comeback in the
1900s, then declined again in the last few decades. Though sea
otter numbers are dropping in the Aleutians and elsewhere in
Alaska, the animals are increasing in Glacier Bay.
About five sea otters lived
in Glacier Bay in 1995, but today more than 1,800 live there.
Jim Bodkin and his colleagues at the USGS Alaska Science Center
in Alaska have studied the sea otter's recent emergence in Glacier
Bay. A biologist, Bodkin started the study in 1993, two years
before otters showed up in the bay. He and other researchers
knew otters were nearby at the time and would probably soon move
in. Glacier Bay National Park, located in Southeast Alaska, has
been in existence for about 250 years, when huge glaciers at
the mouth of the bay began retreating. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005
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University of Alaska
Fairbanks scientist Stacia Backensto says Alaska's Prudhoe Bay
oil fields offer ravens a near-perfect human-made habitat.
Photo Courtesy UAF
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 Alaska: Alaska's
Oil Field Ravens by Doug Schneider - Alaska's Arctic coast
is a treeless, marshy plain in summer and a bitterly cold, windswept
wilderness in winter-not exactly the best place for birds that
like to nest high above the ground. But toss in a few oil pump
stations, communication towers and other structures, and you
create a near-perfect artificial habitat for ravens.
Ravens, those large, raucous,
black birds seen perched atop streetlights or foraging in the
back of pickup trucks, were never common on Alaska's treeless
northern coast. But towers, buildings, and landfills in the state's
sprawling Prudhoe Bay oil fields are giving ravens a reason to
stay.
Stacia Backensto is a Ph.D.
student with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Regional Resilience
and Adaptation Program.
She says about 17 breeding
pair of ravens have established nests atop communication towers,
drilling platforms, pump stations, and other structures within
the oil fields. - More...
Tuesday - April 05, 2005
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The June Allen Column
is made possible in part by these sponsors. Cick on each name
to visit each web site.
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June Allen Column
Ketchikan: A
Personal Tribute to Tom Coyne on St. Patrick's Day - St.
Patrick's Day makes me think of Ketchikan's city councilman Tom
Coyne and of famous author Frank McCourt. They even look a lot
alike -- faces like maps of Ireland! Of course I've never met
Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, but his book lays bare
the bittersweet memories of his childhood. And I've interviewed
Tom Coyne on several occasions and I see some of the similarities
in their impoverished early years. And they both, like
everyone in the Irish land of their bloodlines, are poets at
heart. - Read
the rest of this story by June Allen....
Thursday - March 17, 2005
 It's
Iditarod Race Year 33! a ghost story of the southern route
Ketchikan's
'Rotary Wheel' Still Turning; Hardworking club celebrates a century
Sitka's
Pioneer Home Statue; Whose face is cast in bronze?
L.
Ron Hubbard's Alaska Adventure; His long winter in Ketchikan
ACS
Bids for KPU Telecom: ACS a longtime presence
Betty
King the Dog Lady; Ketchikan's one-woman humane society
Ketchikan,
Alaska - Let There Be Light! -- Citizens Light & Power and
then KPU
The
State Capitol and Its Marble and keeping the capital in Juneau
A
Legendary Mountain of Jade; Just one of Alaska's Arctic Wonders
John
Koel, Baker to Banker; An eccentric philanthropist
Harold
Gillam: A Tragic Final Flight; Ketchikan remembers the search
Ketchikan's
'Fish House Tessie'; She was proud of the nickname
Fairbanks:
Golden Heart City; A story of its founding
Remembering
'Swede' Risland (1915-1991);The town's most memorable logger
Read more feature stories by June Allen...
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