It might not be the end of The Dutch Harbor Fisherman after all.

Last week, the Calista Corporation put out a statement that they were liquidating Alaska Newspapers, Inc. a publisher of a handful of rural weeklies across the state. But since making that announcement, the Native corporation has started to receive offers for ANI assets.

“The fact that we have some sole proprietors who are interested in picking up perhaps individual papers or sets of papers  now coming forward is very exciting to us,” says Margaret Nelson, ANI’s president and publisher.

Nelson is tight-lipped on the number of offers the company has received, and which assets have attracted the most interest. It’s also unclear whether the company will find a buyer for any of the newspapers before they shut down their printing operations. ANI decide today that their final publications as a company will come out in mid-August, but that they will continue to employ staff through the end of the month.

That’s a tight timeline, but Nelson hopes negotiations will be speedy.

“We’re hoping to get those done and have announcements before ANI in its current form has those final publications,” says Nelson.

She adds that the Calista Corporation did look for buyers before deciding to close up ANI, but that nothing viable came together. She says that the company also made a few last-minute management decisions in an effort to save the papers -- like deciding to use on-site reporters – but it was difficult to come up with an effective strategy for a rural newspaper chain in the current media climate.

The Dutch Harbor Fisherman has a circulation of roughly 1,100 and it is the only print newspaper in the Aleutian region.