Dave Martinson in the doorway of his new office at City Hall. Administrative Coordinator Marjie Veeder's reflection can be seen in the framed picture. KUCB/Greta Mart.
David Martinson is Unalaska's new city manager; Oct. 26 was his first day on the job. Martinson had a week to learn the ropes from outgoing interim city manager Donald Moore before seeing his colleague off at the airport on Saturday.
Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Martinson spent his first 27 years there. He attended the University of Arizona at Tucson, and when he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, he was assigned to Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
After a two-and-a-half week closure, Unalaska’s Museum of the Aleutians reopened to the public today.
On Wednesday, the museum’s board of directors voted to reinstate executive director Zoya Johnson from paid administrative leave. Johnson also sits on the Unalaska City Council.
The board put Johnson on leave and closed the museum after a 19th-century Russian Orthodox bible and two other items from the museum’s collection were found in her house in September. The items had apparently been there since 2009.
Students and mentors look for sea lions at sunrise on St. Paul Island, Alaska. Justine Kibbe photo.
City and tribal-government employees on Alaska's St. Paul Island get Oct. 28 off each year for a holiday you might not have heard of: St. Paul Aleut Independence Day.
It marks the day in 1983 when Saint Paul islanders gained their freedom from the federal government. Various U.S. agencies had been running the island's fur seal harvest and economy for decades, leaving the locals as little more than wards of the state.
City Clerk Cat Hazen said tonight’s agenda includes several routine business matters since the Council has not met for several weeks due a lack of quorum.
At the top of the meeting, the Council is slated to certify the Oct. 6 election and administer oaths of office to incoming council members Frank Kelty and Alejandro “Bong” Tungul.
Fisheries observer Keith Davis on board a transshipment vessel in 2012. Video courtesy Hiep Tran.
With crab season under way in the Bering Sea, some 70 crab boats are bobbing around Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Aleutian Islands. About a dozen of those boats have a fisheries observer on board. The observers keep tabs on what the boats haul up from the deep.
Keith Davis was supposed to be one of those observers, but he went missing in September while working on a boat off the coast of South America. KUCB's John Ryan reports.
Emergency crews responding to an ammonia leak on the Clipper Epic. Photo by Zac Schasteen.
Emergency crews were mopping up an ammonia leak from a boat at the OSI dock on Unalaska's Captains Bay Road midday Friday. They blocked off the road at the Crowley dock Friday morning, about a half mile closer to town, as they responded to the leak. At 11 a.m., Unalaska police officers moved the road block closer to OSI, stopping traffic just before the main entrance to the facility.
Screenshot of US Coast Guard video of Tor Viking rescuing French sailor.
A Shell Oil icebreaker gained two passengers in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. French sailor Manu Wattecamps-Etienne dove onto the icebreaker in 20-foot seas Tuesday, about 12 hours after sending out a distress signal. He made the desperate jump--with his cat--about 350 miles southeast of Alaska's Dutch Harbor.
Coast Guard video of the rescue shows the 30-foot sailboat bobbing like a cork next to the 270-foot Tor Viking II. The Frenchman clings like a koala to the rigging at the bow of his boat as it whips him around in nearly 50 mile-per-hour winds.
William Wells releases a weather balloon on Alaska's St. Paul Island. KUCB/John Ryan photo.
William Wells lives and works at what may be the nation's most remote weather station. It's 300 miles off the west coast of Alaska (and 500 miles off the east coast of Siberia) in the Bering Sea. Even by St. Paul Island standards, his station is remote: it's off by itself, a few miles away from the village of 400 people who call St. Paul home.
Each afternoon, he walks from his office into a two-story-tall garage to fill up a six-foot-wide balloon with hydrogen gas.
Museum of the Aleutians' Oct. 12 board meeting. Board members (at table, L-R) Melissa Good, Sharon Svarney-Livingston, Eilleen Scott and executive director Zoya Johnson. KUCB/Greta Mart photo.
The Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska remains closed after the discovery of museum materials--including a Russian Orthodox Bible from 1801--at the executive director's house disrupted normal operations last week.
The museum's board of directors voted Oct. 12 to close the museum and place executive director Zoya Johnson on paid administrative leave.
In a statement issued on Friday, the museum’s board said it completed an investigation and found that "no criminal intent was exercised" by Johnson. The Unalaska City Council member has served as the museum's executive director for the past 11 years.
