Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent (Courtesy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada)

Canada’s Coast Guard is suffering from crossed wires at their only manned field station in the Arctic.

The CBC reports that some radio transmissions aren't making it through to the Coast Guard office in the northeastern province of Nunavut because of a lag in their new software system.

The Healy broke through Arctic ice to reach the S/V Altan Girl near Barrow on Saturday. /Credit: USCGC Healy

The Coast Guard cutter Healy made a detour from its science mission in the Arctic last Saturday to rescue a sailboat trapped in ice near Barrow.

The Altan Girl is a 36-foot steel boat, trying to sail the Northwest Passage from Vancouver to eastern Canada.

It got stuck in sea ice Saturday, 40 miles northeast of Barrow.

Weather conditions meant search and rescue couldn’t fly in from the North Slope -- so the Coast Guard diverted the Healy to help out.

About a half-dozen North Pacific Fuel employees picketed on Friday. (Lauren Rosenthal/KUCB)

Laborers from North Pacific Fuel walked off the job in Unalaska on Friday to protest the firing of a co-worker.

The incident follows a rising tide of interest in unionizing among local fuelers.

Rasoul Charkhandaz is one of them. He was a truck driver for North Pacific Fuel until this week. On Friday, he stood outside the company's office with a picket sign, asking for his job back.

An Alaskan with industry ties to Unalaska will help represent the United States at the Arctic Economic Council’s first meeting.

The Alaska Arctic Policy Commission and the Alaska Chamber of Commerce have chosen three business leaders to join the new group. It'll focus on how to develop businesses in the Arctic while preserving the environment and treating residents of the region responsibly. 

A Sand Point man is facing up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of two minors.

James Griffith is 26. He had been accused of molesting a seven-year-old boy during a babysitting job in 2011. The case moved slowly, and Griffith was granted a conditional release -- as long as he stayed away from children.

But Sand Point police arrested Griffith in December 2013 for exchanging electronic messages with a 15-year-old boy.

City council took care of some union business at their meeting Tuesday night -- including working on new contracts for city employees to account for recommended pay raises.

In an executive session, council went over a new collective bargaining agreement for ports and harbors employees represented by the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific.

City council moved forward with new rules for construction camps at their meeting last night, after debate about the role of the temporary housing in town.

The construction camp changes and other revisions to Title 8 have been in the works since January. This is the second time they’ve made it to council.

The new guidelines dictate where construction camps can go in town and how they should be set up. Camps would be able to go in certain industrial areas without special permission. And they’d be allowed as a conditional use in commercial zones.

Unalaska city council is back with a full agenda tonight, after several weeks’ hiatus.

They'll be finalizing a number of changes to city code, including merging the Planning Commission with the Historic Preservation Commission.

The commission lapsed around 2008, after a number of members stepped down or moved away. Vacancies were never filled -- city clerk Cat Hazen says there wasn’t enough public interest to keep the board going.

A crew member aboard a commercial fishing vessel died after being swept overboard near King Cove last weekend.

State troopers say 53-year-old Rudy Paul Dushkin, Jr., a King Cove resident, was aboard the F/V Matt-Michelle Sunday morning, gillnetting for salmon. Dushkin was hauling in the anchor when a large swell hit the side of the boat and knocked him into the water.

Skipper Bert Bendixen was the only other person on board at the time. He put out a distress call, and was able to tow Dushkin closer to shore using a longline. He then put on a survival suit to pull Dushkin out of the water. But Dushkin couldn’t be revived.