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Alaska: Alaska's Hospitals; Employment has grown steadily to serve a bigger, older population By MALI ABRAHAMSON - As with health care overall, employment in Alaska’s hospitals has grown steadily over the past 15 years. Two new hospitals opened - one in Nome and one in Wrangell - and a number of others expanded or moved into new facilities to serve a growing population.

St. John’s Hospital in Ketchikan was part of St. John’s Episcopal Church, on its right. This photo was taken in 1904 by John Nathan Cobb.

The state has fewer hospital jobs per capita than the national average, and Alaska’s size and the remoteness of many populated areas complicates access. However, stronger- than-average growth over the past decade has brought the state’s hospital jobs up to about 4 percent of total wage and salary employment, close to the nation’s 4.4 percent.

How Alaska’s early hospitals were established

Alaska’s hospitals were established in the same pattern as early Euro-American exploration and settlement. The first American hospital in Alaska opened in Sitka in 1867 at the site of a former Russian hospital that had been operating since around 1820.

Although that first hospital was an army post, many of the hospitals that followed were founded by missionaries as they arrived and settled throughout the early 1900s. Religious organizations have long been providers of traditional health care, and they were instru mental in establishing facilities in the frontier towns as they grew. Catholic nuns founded the first hospital in Juneau, and Episcopalians opened a log cabin hospital in Skagway. The health care legacy of churches remains strong, with two of the larger hospitals in Alaska, Providence in Anchorage and Peace-Health in Ketchikan, owned by religious organizations.

The U.S. Bureau of Education was the other major force behind establishing Alaska’s hospitals alongside the assorted social services it delivered in the territorial days. The agency built hospitals in Juneau, Unalaska, Akiak, Noorvik, and Tanana. That role shifted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1931, which continues to provide care at federally owned hospitals and through transfers and joint ventures with Alaska Native organizations. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016

Southeast Alaska: Prince of Wales: Public Meetings Scheduled for Landscape Level Analysis Project – The Thorne Bay and Craig Ranger Districts are looking for broad input from the public on how National Forest lands on Prince of Wales and outer islands will be managed over the next 10 to15 years. Three open house style public meetings will be held in Prince of Wales Island communities in mid-December.

The Forest Service will incorporate public input into the design of the Prince of Wales Landscape Level Analysis (POW LLA) Project proposal. The purpose of the POW LLA Project is to improve forest ecosystem health on Craig and Thorne Bay Ranger Districts, help support community resiliency, and provide economic development through an integrated approach to meet multiple resource objectives.

The Thorne Bay public meeting is Monday, Dec. 12 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Thorne Bay Ranger District Conference Room located at 1312 Federal Way.

The Naukati public meeting is Tuesday, Dec. 13 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.at the Naukati School library located at 100 Heather St.

The Craig public meeting is Thursday, Dec. 15 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.at the Craig Tribal Association Building located at 1330 Craig Klawock Hwy. - More...
Thursday PM - December 1, 2016

Alaska: Alaska Division of Elections Certifies 2016 General Election - The bi-partisan Alaska State Review Board has completed a thorough review of the 2016 General Election. With the review complete, Division of Elections Director, Josie Bahnke, announced today that the 2016 General Election has now been certified.

There were 321,271 ballots cast in the 2016 General Election for a final turnout of 60.77%. “This election generated a record number of voters who voted early, absentee or questioned ballots; over 123,000, compared to about 90,000 in 2014,” said Bahnke. Approximately 32% of Alaskans voted via an alternative method this year, and the division expects that voting trend to continue to increase in future elections.”

Although the Division received a record number of these ballots for the 2016 election, the statutorily mandated time to process the ballots was still the same. Under state law, the Division’s Regional Offices must have ballots processed and counted within 15 days following the election. It takes an immense effort for the Regional Office staff and bi-partisan review boards to complete the review and counting of early, absentee and questioned ballots. “I want to thank Division of Election employees who processed approximately 100,000 early and absentee ballots counted on election night and during the seven, ten and fifteen day counts,” said Lt. Governor Byron Mallott. - More...
Thursday PM - December 1, 2016

Update - Pacific Northwest: Navy says, mystery object discovered off B.C. coast is not lost nuke - A mysterious object spotted underwater off the B.C. coast is not a lost bomb believed to have crashed in the area in 1950, Canadian naval officials confirm.

According to CTV News Vancouver Island, Lt. Greg Menzies of Maritime Forces Pacific said divers have completed a probe of the object and while it may be industrial, it is not military in nature.

Menzies confirmed there is no threat to the public. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016

Alaska Science: Bowhead whales might be the longest-lived mammals on the planet By NED ROZELL- As biologist Craig George was helping Native whale hunter Billy Adams cut sections of blubber from a bowhead whale, he pressed his knife into an old scar in the whale's skin. The knife made a crunching noise; George cut deeper, then pulled out a sharp piece of slate. He held in his hands a harpoon point the whale had been carrying for perhaps a century.

Alaska Native hunters have found six ancient harpoon points in bowhead whales since 1981, two made of slate, two of other stone, a metal blade and an ivory harpoon head tipped with metal.
Photo courtesy Craig George, Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission

Ten years earlier, whaling captain Fred Ahmaogak from Wainwright had found an ivory harpoon tipped with a metal blade. Hunters have recovered six of these old harpoon points from bowhead whales. Along with chemical evidence from the whales' eyes, the harpoon tips suggest that the bowhead may be the longest-living mammal on earth.

George, who works for the North Slope Borough in Barrow, has studied bowheads for more than 30 years. The whales grow to 60 feet, weigh one ton at birth and can weigh more than 120,000 pounds as adults. Insulated by blubber more than a foot thick and sporting heavy bones in their skulls with which to break holes in sea ice, they spend their entire lives in northern waters.

Northern Inupiaq and Yupik hunters have killed bowheads for more than a thousand years. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission manages hunts in which village crews from 10 villages take about 40 bowheads each year. George found the old harpoon point after a May hunt, and whaler Ben Ahmaogak Sr. from Wainwright found two stone points inside a large whale a year later.

"Archaeologists and anthropologists say that stone weapons were pretty much out of use by the turn of the century," George said from his office in Barrow.

Scientists had thought that bowheads had a lifespan similar to other whales, but the old harpoon points hinted that some of the whales alive today were swimming in the cold waters of the circumpolar seas more than 100 years ago. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016

Southeast Alaska: Genetic research may help trace chum salmon to home rivers By LAUREN FRISCH - Fisheries and Ocean Sciences researchers have uncovered genetic markers that can help trace chum salmon to the rivers in which they hatched, according to a new paper published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Mapping out chum salmon pathways could help improve management of the pecies in Western Alaska, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences postdoctoral fellow Michael Garvin.

“In some years, chum salmon are frequently the bycatch of pollock fishermen” in the Bering Sea, Garvin explained. “Genetically, chum salmon that originate in Western Alaska tend to look very similar. This makes it difficult for stakeholders because management and conservation efforts to address this bycatch can differ among these regions, but the ability to identify them with genetics is not possible.”

Garvin, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences professors Megan McPhee and Tony Gharrett, and colleagues used small variations in the DNA of a cell’s mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell that is involved in energy production, to learn about a salmon’s history. Mitochondria are incredibly important to our bodies. Without our bones, Garvin said, mitochondria make up about one third of our weight. And mitochondria have their own DNA. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016

Archaeology: Researchers talk turkey: Native Americans raised classic holiday bird - Hundreds of years before the first Thanksgiving, Native Americans were raising and feasting on America's classic holiday meal.

Florida State University Associate Professor of Anthropology Tanya Peres and graduate student Kelly Ledford write in a paper published today in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports that Native Americans as early as 1200 - 1400 A.D. were managing and raising turkeys.

This is the first time scientists have suggested that turkeys were potentially domesticated by early Native Americans in the southeastern United States.

"In the Americas, we have just a few domesticated animals," Peres said. "Researchers haven't really talked about the possibility of Native Americans domesticating or raising turkeys."

Researchers knew that turkeys had been a part of Native American life long before the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Their feathers were used on arrows, in headdresses and clothing. The meat was used for food. Their bones were used for tools including scratchers used in ritual ceremonies. There are even representations of turkeys in artifacts from the time. An intricately engraved marine shell pendant found at a site in central Tennessee shows two turkeys facing each other. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016

Columns - Commentary

If his earliest actions are any guide, America's incoming chief executive isn't so much draining Washington's swamp as he is refilling it with higher quality sludge.

As The Washington Post reports, three of President-elect Donald J. Trump's cabinet picks have personal net worths running to the billions of dollars. One possible pick for energy secretary, Harold Hamm, is worth $15 billion alone.

That's $15 billion - with a "B." Crack open your wallet - do you even have $15 in cash in it right now?

And if you're thinking about heading to Washington for the inaugural festivities, you'd better take out that second mortgage now. Trump and his team are looking to raise an eye-watering and record-breaking $65 million to $75 million to finance inaugural events across the Capital. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016

MICHAEL REAGAN: A Week of Trumpisms -The death of the dictator of Cuba took over our headlines for a few days and made some world leaders look pretty stupid.

Canada's leader Justin Trudeau reacted as if Fidel Castro was a saint to be mourned, not a thug whose death should be celebrated.

Our own cool president was careful to not say a negative word about the Left's evil superhero.

Our next president may or may not make America great again with his liberal-conservative mix of ideas and goals, but he sure got St. Fidel right.

Donald Trump's statement called Castro a "brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades" and left a legacy of "firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights."

Fidel's death briefly overshadowed the dumb tweets Trump sent out in reaction to Jill Stein and the Green Party asking for a recount of votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. - More...
Thursday PM - December 01, 2016