An Unalaska student has been selected to take part in the Surgeon General’s anti-tobacco campaign.
Rachel Gulanes, a rising senior at Unalaska City School, appears alongside Surgeon General Regina Benjamin today in Seattle at a panel focused on youth and smoking. She’s just one of two Alaskans invited to speak at the town-hall event.
Gulanes started getting involved with anti-tobacco work when she was 14, but her advocacy began at home when she was much younger.
A Washington man was fatally injured while replacing a tire on Tuesday afternoon.
Anton Sullivan, 44, was working on the wheel of a truck when the split rim tire burst. Sullivan was struck in the head by the exploding unit and suffered severe trauma.
According to the Unalaska Department of Public Safety, the accident occurred along Ballyhoo Road and multiple responders were called to the scene. Sullivan was transported to the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic for treatment, but died of his injuries approximately three hours after the accident.
The end of the opilio season is in sight at last. As of this morning, fishermen have less than a million pounds of snow crab left to catch.
Heather Fitch is a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and she says only a handful of boats are still fishing. Most crews have packed up and left town. She says that after a long winter, a battle with record sea ice, and one season extension that everyone involved with the fishery is pretty excited to reach this point.
Unemployment in Unalaska more than doubled in April, coinciding with the wind-down of a major fishing season.
The Alaska Department of Labor estimates that the unemployment rate was at 10.3 percent in April, up from 4.9 percent in March. The jump occurs regularly in April, as boats take their pollock allocations and as seafood processing plants send seasonal workers home. While the springtime uptick in unemployment is not unusual, the April rate is still slightly higher than it was last year. In 2011, only 8.0 percent of people in Unalaska were without work.
Fishermen aren't the only ones gearing up for summer trawling. A group of 18 scientists launch their Bering Sea fish surveys from Unalaska this week.
The stock assessments provide critical information about the health of Alaska’s commercial fisheries. Fisheries regulators use these reports to determine how much of a given species fishermen can safely catch -- and thus how much fish ends up in grocery stores and restaurants across the globe. Pollock, Pacific cod, red king crab, and snow crab are all among the species being surveyed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The researchers will also pay attention to things like sponges and other invertebrates that aren't commercially valued but are important to the health of the ocean ecosystem nonetheless.
The Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands is a chapter of history that's often overlooked. But the impact World War II had on Unalaska's demography, infrastructure, and economy can still be felt today.
Local teacher and historian Jeff Dickrell has studied the bombing extensively, and his book Center of the Storm features a number of first-person accounts of the battle. On this episode of TheExchange, he lays out what every Unalaskan should know about the attack. Dickrell also talks about how the evacaution of the Native Unangan people affected the region, and he identifies some interesting local sites for a historical driving tour of the community.
Major General Thomas Katkus speaks at the Museum of the Aleutians about Unalaska's role in World War II. (KUCB/Alexandra Gutierrez)
This week marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Dutch Harbor, one of just a few attacks on U.S. soil in modern history.
While there were no grand ceremonies to commemorate the bombing, a handful of National Guardsmen traveled out to Unalaska this weekend to pay their respects. KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports.
Commercial fishermen are on track to take the snow crab quota after all.
With ten days left to the opilio season, the fleet has a less than 8 million pounds of crab to catch. Boats are filling up their pots, and 31 of the 72 vessels registered to fish have checked out of the fishery according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
This is a dramatic improvement from last month. Going into Memorial Day weekend, it looked like it would be an impossible challenge for the fleet to take the full 89-million pound allocation. Fishermen had been hampered for months, with record-setting ice in the Bering Sea closing off fishing grounds and damaging gear. Conditions were so bad that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game even added an extra two weeks to the snow crab season to help the fleet get closer to its allocation.
Eight months after being seized, the fate of the stateless fishing vessel Bangun Perkasa has finally been decided. Despite earlier calls from Senator Mark Begich to scuttle the vessel, it will instead be sold for scrap metal, as the Associated Press first reported on Monday.
The Coast Guard seized the Bangun Perkasa on the high seas in October while it was driftnetting, a fishing practice banned worldwide because of its indiscriminate take of marine life.
