Author: kfskadmin

A four-day local history project in Petersburg this week is focusing on the formation of a women’s auxiliary network a century ago. It’s part of a larger research effort being conducted by Michelle Dent, who teaches under-graduate writing at New York University. Dent is retracing the 1908 journey of a woman named Mary Hart, commissioned by the Department of the Interior to form a network of women's auxiliaries in Southeast and South-Central Alaska. Hart made her trip in conjunction with the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition in Seattle. Dent this summer is stopping in six of the eighteen communities that Hart visited, and holding workshops in each. Joe Viechnicki spoke with Dent about Mary Hart’s work and the history project.

07expo 4:56 “it was right about final product.”
early out with :56 left….in the workshop.”

Outro:
dent also plans to hold workshops in juneau, haines, cordova and valdez. The sessions are tonight and tomorrow in petersburg from 6-9 p.m.….as well as friday and saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the petersburg lutheran church. People can sign up by calling the library at 772-3349.

Senator Lisa Murkowski says she wants to keep trying to reach agreement on the controversial Sealaska lands legislation. Murkowski visited Petersburg and several other Southeast communities during a holiday recess from work in the nation’s capitol.

Petersburg’s new fire hall and emergency medical services building should be complete by the fall of 2011. Tom Reinarts, the city’s project coordinator, updated the city council on the construction time line Tuesday night.

Gillnet fishermen and processing tenders in Southeast are going further afield to chase early summer hatchery chum salmon. High prices and strong returns of chums, at least in the northern part of the region, have some boats running hundreds of miles for their catch.

There’s some good news on the fishing grounds in Southeast Alaska in the first weeks of the summer salmon season. Processors are paying some of the highest prices fishermen have seen in the last decade. It could be a silver lining in a year with low returns expected. To find out more, Melati Kaye hitched a ride aboard a fishing tender as it loaded up on the early season catch and files this report.