Unalaska is now halfway through a month-long repaving project that’s caused plenty of traffic delays. Here, in their own words, residents describe how they’re making the most of their time stuck in gridlock.

Unalaskans aren’t used to spending their Labor Day weekend stuck in gridlock. But that’s exactly what happened on Monday, when traffic backed up across the bridge connecting Unalaska and Amaknak islands.

Granite Construction has been repaving Unalaska’s roads for about two weeks. According the contract they signed with the city, Granite is supposed to keep traffic delays to a minimum. To be exact, a flagger can’t keep you stopped for more than 20 minutes.

Nancy Peterson, the director of public works, says that rule has been broken -- many times.

"You know, it’s not going as well as we’d hoped," Peterson says. "Fortunately, we’re coming to a point where the traffic control, in and of itself, will improve."

That’s because Granite is about to finish repaving near the bridge.

The Carl E. Moses small boat harbor has been open for business since December, and it’s already gone through two public dedications.

But when the community gathered this weekend for the third dedication, they weren’t celebrating the harbor, so much as its namesake.

Former representative Carl E. Moses flew in from Sand Point just for the ceremony on Saturday. It was the first time he’d had been back to Unalaska since he lost his re-election in 2006.

Alaska primary voters have rejected a controversial plan that would have reinstated a coastal zone management plan. But if Unalaska voters had their way, the measure would have passed.

In Unalaska, 68% of voters approved the coastal zone management program. 57% of Unalaska voters backed Measure 1, which offered property tax breaks. That measure failed by a slim margin at the state level. 

If you go to vote in today’s primaries, you’ll see signs that say “Bumoto Dito” plastered on the doors of city hall. That’s not the name of a candidate running for elected office. It means “Vote Here” in Tagalog.

For the first time, the city has an official Tagalog interpreter on hand with the rest of the volunteer election crew. City Clerk Elizabeth Masoni says that the interpreter is there to help the Unalaska’s large Filipino population.

A 39-year-old man died last Thursday of natural causes on a Coast Guard medevac bound for Unalaska. Riche J. Tonato, from the Philippines, was the head cook on the cargo ship Matsura. That vessel had recently left Canada, and was on its way to Nagasaki, Japan.

Tonato had severe asthma and hypertension. He started complaining of shortness of breath on the morning of August 16th. Tonato barely had a pulse when the Coast Guard picked him up, and they tried to resuscitate him for almost an hour during his medevac. Unalaska EMTs also tried to perform CPR when the plane landed, but they were unsuccessful.

As promised, one of Shell Oil’s drill rigs left Unalaska Monday and is now bound for the Arctic.  

The Kulluk drill ship departed Unalaska early in the afternoon, along with two of Shell’s tugboats, the Guardsman and the Warrior. Alaska marine pilot Richard Entenmann navigated the Kulluk, and he says their crew seemed happy to be heading north.  

"They were eager," he says. "We were eager to get them out of here. It was good on all fronts.”

A multi-million dollar grant is bringing broadband internet and videoconferencing equipment to public libraries across Alaska this year. Unalaska’s public library is using its new equipment to host workshops and reading sessions.

On an usually sunny afternoon in Unalaska, a handful of kids are clustered around a television screen in the conference room at the public library. A woman introduces herself.

“Well, my name is Ann Dixon. And I’m a writer and librarian. And behind me are some of the books that I have written.”

Dixon is a popular Alaskan children’s author, best known for her book Blueberry Shoes. She lives in Homer, so visiting Unalaska for storytime would normally be out of the question, but with the help of the library’s new videoconferencing equipment, it wasn’t a problem.

“What do you think you need when you start writing a book?" Dixon asks. The kids reply in unison: "Paper!”

Video chat isn’t exactly new technology, but it does require fast internet. And fast internet is expensive in Unalaska. $66,000 a year, to be precise. Librarian Dan Masoni says paying for that out of the library’s budget would require cutting other services. That’s where the $8.2 million dollar Online with Libraries or OWL grant comes in.

“The grant will bring high-speed broadband access into every public library in Alaska, videoconferencing into every public library in Alaska," Masoni says.

He thinks access to broadband internet creates new possibilities for residents -- possibilities that would other be unavailable.

“We are the, underlined, exclamation point, internet source for most of this community.”

Last year the library counted 150,000 people through the door - and most of them were there to use the internet. Masoni is optimistic that the faster speeds will encourage innovation - like storytime - although he hopes that in the long run, children aren’t the only beneficiaries of the new technology. He thinks the video conferencing equipment could be used by businesses for job interviews and meetings or by the public for lectures and research.

It’s clear there are still a few kinks to work out though. Halfway through a story, Dixon's voice turns into a nails-on-the-chalkboard screech. The kids look to the adults to fix the problem and the adults look around for someone in charge. Eventually it resolves itself.

Technical difficulties aren’t the only problem. Money is also an issue.  The OWL funding is scheduled to run out next fall - and it’s unclear what will happen to the broadband connection at that point. Masoni says the state is working on funding packages, but so far, there’s nothing concrete.

“If the funding isn’t available from the outside, we’re going to massage our budget to keep good connectivity going here.”

It would be hard to go back to the slower speeds, for everyone.

“The fast internet, it can really spoil you," Masoni says. "I go home and I have a private circuit I pay for and I sit there and when it takes three to four minutes for Google to paint versus here when I just click it on, it’s there. Unfortunately, where we live put us at the short end of the stick for transmission speeds and that’s sad. But it will get better.”

Even though it may look like one, The World is emphatically not a cruise ship.

“They call it a residence at sea,” says crew member Michael Moore. “Yeah. That’s the lingo.”

Moore is what’s called an expedition member, a person who comes aboard and helps facilitate some of the The World’s more extreme excursions. He and the rest of the gang aboard The World were in Unalaska for two days for a quick stop.