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Ketchikan: The Alaska Redistricting Board will be holding Public Testimony in Ketchikan: Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 Time: 4:30pm-6:30pm Location: Ted Ferry Civic Center, 888 Venetia Way Online Public Notice Written Testimony can be sent to testimony@akredistrict.org KETCHIKAN Covid-19 Positive Details By Day KETCHIKAN COMMUNITY ALERT LEVEL HIGH (RED) AS OF 08/05/21 KETCHIKAN COVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION - NEW CASES, VACCINATIONS, HOSPITALIZATIONS Alaska's Covid-19 Alert Levels at Borough Levels Alaska COVID-19 Data Dashboard Update Ketchikan Bill Pay Data (Does not include food cost) Ketchikan: Public Meetings Ketchikan: Upcoming Events Ketchikan: Announcements Ketchikan: Classifieds CLASSIFIEDS Publish Your Ad Click Here Historical Ketchikan June Allen Dave Kiffer Louise B. Harrington Ketchikan Weather Ketchikan's Forecast Ketchikan August Weather Ketchikan July Data 2021 Ketchikan June Data 2021 Ketchikan May Data 2001 Ketchikan April Data 2021 Ketchikan March 2021 Data Ketchikan Feb. 2021 Data Ketchikan Jan. 2021 Data Nat Weather Service KTN Ketchikan Tides & Currents Tideschart Sunrise - Sunset Ketchikan Search the News Ketchikan Alaska U.S. Congress 2020-2021: Bills passed one chamber U.S. Congress 2020-2021: Bills that have passed the House & Senate and become Law U.S. Congress 2020-2021: Bills Introduced

Fish Factor: Bulk of earnings from Alaska’s fisheries won't be circulating through Alaska's economy By LAINE WELCH - The preliminary value to fishermen of the nearly 41 million salmon caught this summer at Alaska’s largest fishery at Bristol Bay is nearly $248 million, 64% above the 20-year average. That figure will be much higher when bonuses and other price adjustments are paid out.

But as with the fish bucks tallied from Alaska’s cod, pollock, flounders and other groundfish (a .78 share), the bulk of the Bay’s salmon money won’t be circulating through Alaska’s economy because most of the fishing participants live out of the state.

In 2017, for example, 62% of gross earnings from the Bristol Bay driftnet fishery and 40% from the setnet fishery left Alaska as nonresident earnings.

That’s due to the region experiencing an overall 50% decline in local permit holdings since Alaska began limiting entry into commercial salmon fisheries in 1975. Combined, residents of the Bristol Bay region now hold less than one-quarter of the region’s salmon permits.

The fishing communities of Pilot Point, Levelock, Egegik, Ekwok, Pedro Bay and Nondalton, respectively, lost more than 75% of their local permits.

The numbers come from a new report titled “Righting the Ship: Restoring Local Fishing Access and Opportunity in Bristol Bay Salmon Fisheries,” which examines how Alaska fisheries policy dating back nearly 50 years has gradually disenfranchised local residents from economic opportunities.

“In Bristol Bay communities, there’s been a sharp and costly decline in the number of people who are able to take part in the world’s most valuable salmon fishery. For the State of Alaska, this has led to a staggering loss of livelihood opportunity and personal income in a region often celebrated for its fishery abundance and wealth. The fact that much of this loss has occurred among Alaska Native fishing families and villages is especially concerning,” said Rachel Donkersloot who authored the 40-page report for The Nature Conservancy in Alaska. 

A 2021 analysis of change in permit holdings among the more than 10,000 local and nonlocal  shareholders of the Bristol Bay Native Corporation shows a 38% decline in setnet and drift permit holdings between 1980-2018 (1147 to 716 permits). Holdings for local shareholders suffered a greater loss of 47% (1001 to 531 permits).

Local participation has primarily declined as a result of permit transfers and migration of permit holders, the report says, adding “Since implementing Alaska’s Limited Entry Program, legislators, researchers, and rural and Alaska Native community leaders and fishermen have grappled with the consequences of creating a freely transferable permit system (i.e., permits that can be gifted, inherited, and/or bought and sold on the open market).

While it focuses on Bristol Bay, the report also describes the ways in which the limited entry system disproportionately disadvantages rural and Alaska Native fishing families and communities across the state.           

It points out that statewide rural, local permit holdings have experienced a net loss of -2,459 permits since 1975, while urban and nonresident permit holdings have experienced net gains. 

Between 1976-2016, for example, the villages of Angoon, Kake, Metlakatla and Hydaburg each suffered a loss of more than 60% of local permit holdings in the Southeast region. On Kodiak Island, the Native village of Ouzinkie lost 71% of its local permits and 61% at Old Harbor.

A key objective of the Limited Entry Act was to keep fishing rights in the hands of Alaskans dependent on fisheries, especially rural residents with limited economic opportunities.  However, the opposite has happened. 

“These shifts in who has access to Alaska’s commercial fisheries represent a yet-to-be fixed policy failure of the State,” the report states.

It documents how Limited Entry continues to negatively impact rural and Native fishing communities including “limited access to financing for permit purchases; a lack of earnings, credit, and credit history; higher borrowing costs; lower personal wealth; limited experience with debt, credit, and financial management; and limited access to and knowledge of capital markets and financing options.”

“A key problem with the application process was that it was modeled after a ‘non-rural fisherman’ in that it assumed that all fishermen were highly efficient, full-time fishermen, fully entrenched in the market economy, who “maintain written records of income, [with] sufficient education to comprehend a complex application process,” the report says, adding “These shortcomings were exacerbated by language and cultural barriers, poor outreach, and misinformation.”

The report outlines the programs and regulations that have been implemented to promote entry opportunities and support rural fisheries access in Alaska. It also describes the constitutional and statutory constraints that limit the design of these programs and, for example, points to solutions based on residency requirements that have been ruled unconstitutional.

“Rural fisheries access cannot be sufficiently preserved with the suite of tools available under current law. Legal interpretations have constrained efforts to ensure that the State’s natural resources benefit its citizens leaving open the question of whether the State constitution allows for the kinds of solutions that are actually going to work,” it states, adding that “new solutions are clearly needed to restore and sustain viable rural and small-scale fishing ways of life that underpin healthy rural communities.”

The report also presents a suite of policy options for sustaining rural fishery participation that have been used in other state and countries, and “plots a general course forward to support the Bristol Bay region and the State in advancing carefully tailored solutions to one of Alaska’s longest standing resource problems.”   

“Such provisions could be piloted in Bristol Bay before expanding into other regions,” it adds. “Forty-five years after the first limited entry permits were issued, the State of Alaska has the benefit of hindsight, and the playbook of lessons learned and gains made in other fishing regions that are ahead of Alaska on this front. It’s time to catch up.” - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

Ketchikan Historical: Husband and Wife Team Served Ketchikan for Half a Century By DAVE KIFFER - George Dickinson, who practiced for 50 years in the First City, may not have been Ketchikan's first doctor, but he was Ketchikan's "first Medicine Man" according to those that knew him.

In 1980, Dr. Arthur Wilson, Sr. was interviewed by James Lindstrom, a young medical student. Wilson had come to Ketchikan in 1931 and knew Dickinson who practiced for more than half a century in the First City.

"George Dickinson was one of the last traveling medicine men," Wilson told Lindstrom in 1980. He said that Dickinson had traveled in the interior of Alaska for many years before coming to Ketchikan with Dr. Henry Story in 1899. Wilson said that Dickinson practiced - at least in his early days - without a license, which was in stark contrast to his wife Beatrice who was a graduate of the Northwestern University Medical School and one of the first female doctors in the Chicago area.

George Dickinson was particularly known for salves and potions and other products that were very popular with fishermen and miners in the early days. In his first years in Ketchikan, he also concentrated on operating the community's first drug store, where he could sell his potions, but later on he worked more as a doctor.

Lindstrom wrote that Beatrice Dickinson "kept George from overstepping his limitations" as a doctor, a characterization that Dr. Art Wilson Jr. recently agreed with.

Beatrice Pearce Dickinson was the daughter and sister of doctors in Lake County, Illinois and was supported by her family in her desire to be a doctor - eventually becoming the first female doctor in Lake County, according to a 2013 article on the Lake County Historical Society website. She had graduated from medical school in 1887 and started her own practice, specializing in women's and children's health in Waukegan, Illinois. She was also a prominent suffragette and served as treasurer of a regional woman's suffrage organization.

According to the historic society website, in 1908 she was attending a medical convention in Chicago when she met Dickinson. They married later that year. He was 38 and she was 42. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

Dr. Schkrohowsky joins PeaceHealth Ketchikan from Lake Chelan Community Hospitals and Clinics in Chelan, WA. Dr. Schkrohowsky trained at Johns Hopkins University and completed his residency at the University of Pittsburgh with an emphasis on sports medicine. He has familiarity with Ketchikan having served as a relief surgeon with PeaceHealth Ketchikan over the last year and has been licensed in Alaska since 2014. His areas of expertise include knee replacement and realignments, ACL and cartilage repairs and reconstruction and carpal tunnel and trigger finger release repairs.

Dr. Schkrohowsky offers a conservative treatment of joint-related problems associated with injury or arthritis. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, he works with a patient to reduce symptoms and restore function. When surgery is necessary, he uses the latest, minimally invasive procedures. “I believe in a multimodal, multidisciplinary approach to treating musculoskeletal injuries and pain - starting with the simplest and least invasive treatment first. My goal is to treat every patient as if they were family,” shared Dr. Schkrohowsky. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

Alaska: October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month - Each year Alaska recognizes October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, the Alaska Department of Public Safety, and the Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault are committed to ending the high rates of domestic violence that inflict harm on Alaskan families. 

Governor Dunleavy has issued an Alaska-specific proclamation for October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Alaska . The Governor encourages all Alaskans to stand together against domestic violence in our state and to support the healing of survivors. 

"Public safety has been job number one for my administration since I took office, said Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy. “Addressing the high rate of domestic violence that occurs in our state is a top priority. As a father of three wonderful daughters, I have a vested interest in making our state a safe place for Alaska's women and children. I won't rest until all Alaskans can live free of violence and crime."

In October, the Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (CDVSA), within the Department of Public Safety, is sponsoring a social media campaign to increase awareness of domestic violence in Alaska, educate Alaskans about the continuum of healthy, unhealthy, violent relations, and connect Alaskans to available resources. The resources provide information for victims, families, and those wishing to become engaged in the work to end violence.

"The Alaska Department of Public Safety and Alaska's law enforcement community is committed to doing our part to hold accountable those who victimize Alaskans and commit acts of domestic violence in our state," said Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell. "Once law enforcement responds to a domestic violence call, it is already too late, another Alaskan has already become a victim, and the crime has been committed. I call on Alaska's men to end this cycle of abuse with our generation and leave a better state for our kids and grandkids." - More...
Sunday PM - October 03,2021

Alaska: October 2021 is Fire Prevention Month - In Alaska, fire is a serious public safety concern with our cold and dark winters. As such, Governor Mike Dunleavy issued a proclamation to recognize October 2021 as Fire Prevention Month. National Fire Prevention Week is October 3 through 9. 

The goal of this year’s campaign, “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety.” Is to educate everyone about simple but important actions they can take to keep themselves and those around them safe.

The Alaska Department of Public Safety encourages all residents to embrace the 2021 Fire Prevention Week theme.

In 2020 there were a total of 16 fire deaths in Alaska. To date in 2021, there have been 10 fire deaths.

 “It’s important to learn the different sounds of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. When an alarm makes noise - a beeping sound or a chirping sound - you must take action!” said Virginia McMichael, Public Education Coordinator. “Make sure everyone in the home understands the sounds of the alarms and knows how to respond.”

The Alaska Division of Fire and Life Safety shares safety tips to help you “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety”. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

Life of a sockeye
By BJORN DIHLE
Brown bear fishing for salmon on Chichagof Island.
Photo by Bjorn Dihle ©

Alaska: Life of a sockeye By BJORN DIHLE - On July 22nd, news broke that Bristol Bay was having its biggest sockeye salmon return since recordkeeping began in 1893. More than 63 million sockeye had returned to the bay’s different watersheds and fish were still running. By the time the run was complete, almost 66 million sockeye had returned.

A few days later, I left town to guide a natural history brown bear film shoot in Southeast Alaska. One of the sequences we were trying to get was of a bear chasing salmon underwater. We had a camera in underwater housing submerged near the base of a raging waterfall. It could be operated from 100 yards away with an iPad. On its screen, I watched dozens of pink salmon and small, darting, feasting Dolly Varden. In the middle of the frenzy was a salmon with a crimson body and green head—a male sockeye salmon. It was swimming in place beneath the falls, waiting for the right moment to attempt climbing them so it could spawn in the small lake above. Bristol Bay has the largest sockeye run, not to mention the biggest wild salmon fishery, in the world. But in Southeast Alaska, especially where I was guiding on Chichagof Island, sockeye are far and few between.

I’ve guided a handful of other bear film projects on salmon streams. Some, like this one, had me in the field for a month. The main camera operator on this shoot paid homage to a spawned-out salmon by gently stroking its slimy flesh as it twitched in its final moments. A short while later, a young bear tore it apart and feasted on it. Rain fell heavy and often. I spent many hours alone operating the underwater camera. Bears walked by, sometimes a few yards away. Most would investigate the camera once and, seeing it was not a fish, leave it alone. A few would move the camera around. Once, when the camera was malfunctioning, a bear shook it and it began to work again. A day passed since I first saw the lone sockeye. Then another. The crimson salmon remained in almost the exact same place below the falls.

I spent a lot of time being still, surrounded by salmon in various phases of spawning, death and decomposition. The lifecycle of the sockeye salmon I spent hours watching was very similar to that of sockeye in Bristol Bay. It was born in the lake above the waterfall four or five years before. Of the five species of Pacific salmon—pink, chum, sockeye, coho and king—sockeye are most dependent upon lakes for spawning habitat. This makes the incredible river, lake and tundra habitat of Bristol Bay a paradise for sockeye. On the other hand, Southeast Alaska’s topography is generally steep, with short creek systems that are more ideal for pink and chum salmon. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

An early fall trip to Hasselborg Lake
By MARY CATHARINE MARTIN
Bjorn Dihle and Shiras Dihle, two years old, with a cutthroat trout.
Photo by MARY CATHARINE MARTIN ©

Southeast Alaska: An early fall trip to Hasselborg Lake By MARY CATHARINE MARTIN - Four years ago this August, my partner Bjorn and I flew into Admiralty Island’s Hasselborg Lake. We fought through thick blueberry bushes and swarms of flies, angled our way up a steep, trail-less slope, and emerged into the alpine of a nearby mountain. A bear roared at us and crashed away.

We were in search of my first deer; with Bjorn’s expert coaching I shot two. We butchered them and stashed the meat in a shaded snowbank that had survived the summer, then camped on the ridge and carried the meat down the next day. We spent the rest of the visit fishing for cutthroat and guarding the meat from a marten that climbed down the rope we’d hung our full game bags from.

When our good friends Sam and Autumn suggested our two families and four boys fly to Hasselborg Lake this summer, we were happy to return. We planned to stay in two cabins just a hundred yards or so apart, and generally forget about cell phones, COVID and the stress of the last year and a half. The last year and a half, however, hadn’t forgotten about us. Some last-minute illness, a bad weather forecast, and unavoidable scheduling conflicts meant that Bjorn, our boys and I initially cancelled. 

We ended up being able to fly in a day after Sam and Autumn. As we flew, our two-year-old son Shiras, sat on his dad’s lap in the front seat and concentrated, his brow furrowed, on the estuaries, streams, lakes, mountains and old-growth landscapes unfurling below us. Our seven-month-old, Theron, bounced on my lap. By the time Hasselborg Lake opened up below us, we were already happier, ready to skip our phones across the water like stones.

Hasselborg Lake is named for Allen Hasselborg, a reclusive man who homesteaded in nearby Mole Harbor for decades — and one of the two cabins we were staying in was originally built as a base for a scientific expedition he guided in the early 1900s. That cabin, Big Shaheen, is situated on the southern-facing shore of a point that looks out over the south part of the lake. Little Shaheen looks west, over the lake to Thayer Mountain, named for a timber surveyor who was the first — and, up until a few years ago, the only — person recorded as killed by brown bears on Admiralty during the last century.

That first evening, Sam rowed the kids around as Bjorn cooked. Shiras and Silas, the two oldest kids, raced to see who could help reel their parents’ catches in first. As Autumn and I woke throughout the night to feed the babies, a pair of loons called to each other across the lake. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

CARL GOLDEN: JOE BIDEN VERSUS THE PRESS - The White House press corps is in a snit again because President Biden, who many reporters openly cheered on in last year’s election, has stiffed them repeatedly, refusing to answer their questions and – most recently – and tossing them unceremoniously out of the Oval Office.

Indignant, the White House Correspondents Association filed a protest with the administration’s communications office, where it will be routinely acknowledged and routinely ignored.

Given Biden’s successful campaigning from the basement of his home in Wilmington, Del., last year while the nation was in the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, his strategists concluded the same approach could be applied with equally favorable results in the White House.

It appears the president’s senior staff reached a judgment that minimizing interactions between the president and reporters is in his best interest. The likelihood of change in the face of media complaints no matter how well founded is nonexistent. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

RICH MANIERI: THE LIE ABOUT BORDER PATROL AGENTS IS STILL A LIE - Simply saying something over and over doesn’t make it so. I know because I’ve tried it. No matter how many times I say, “I’m a good golfer, I’m a good golfer,” the reality is I still stink, as anyone who has seen me on the course will verify.

Yet, the George Costanza it’s-not-a-lie-if-you-believe-it strategy is alive and thriving in the highest levels of government and media.

For Exhibit A – and there are others but we’ll just stick with this one – let’s examine the “Border patrol agents on horses seen whipping migrants” story. The problem with this story is it never actually happened but the president of the United States, his administration, and too many media outlets pretended it did.

At a press conference on Friday, President Biden threatened border patrol agents.

“It’s outrageous. I promise you those people will pay.” Pay how and for what, we’re not sure.

“It was horrible to see what you saw, to see people treated like they did — horses nearly running them over, people being strapped,” Biden said. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

FINANCIAL FOCUS: Prepare yourself financially for illness … just in case Provided By BEN EDWARDS, AAMS® - All of us hope to live long, healthy lives, so we do what we can to take care of ourselves through proper diet, exercise and avoiding unhealthy activities. However, none of us can predict our future, so it pays to be prepared for anything – including a serious physical illness or the onset of some type of mental incapacity, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Of course, you may never face these infirmities, but you should be aware that they could upset your long-term financial strategy and place considerable stress on your loved ones. What steps can you take to head off these threats?

First, make sure you know what your health insurance covers and how much you might have to pay out of pocket for treatment of illnesses such as cancer or kidney ailments. If you’re on Medicare (supplemented with Medigap) or Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C), you’ll want to know all about deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. However, if Alzheimer’s or another type of dementia is involved, Medicare may not cover the costs that could be incurred in an assisted living facility, so you may want to consult with a financial advisor, who can suggest ways of protecting yourself from long-term care costs, which can be quite high. - More...
Sunday PM - October 03, 2021

Political Cartoon: Extinction of civility
by John Darkow©2021, Columbia Missourian
Distributed to subscribers by CagleCartoons.com

Political Cartoon:  Biden Control and Power
by Dick Wright©2021, PoliticalCartoons.com
Distributed to subscribers by CagleCartoons.com

Political Cartoon: Democrats Infighting
by Daryl Cagle ©2021, CagleCartoons.com
Distributed to subscribers by CagleCartoons.com

Political Cartoon: Build Back Better
by Bruce Plante©2021, PoliticalCartoons.com
Distributed to subscribers by CagleCartoons.com

Political Cartoon: USPS DeJoy slower mail
by Dave Granlund©2021, PoliticalCartoons.com
Distributed to subscribers by CagleCartoons.com