Unalaska, AK – The Unalaska Raiders boys' and girls' varsity basketball teams both started off the season with solid wins. The girls' team played two away games at Sand Point on Thursday and Friday. During their first game, they beat the home team 72 to 30. They scored 20 points more than their strongest game last year. Coming off their first win of the season, they kept playing strong on Friday and beat the Sand Point Eagles again, this time 73 to 22. It's an encouraging departure from last year's season, wherein the team lost all of their games.
Unalaska, AK – The local Russian Orthodox community celebrated Slavi, or Russian Christmas, this weekend and invited the community to a potluck and singing at the Senior Center.
A major component of Russian Christmas is starring - going house to house with a large, decorative star and singing traditional Orthodox Christmas songs in Russian, Aleut, and English. The songs talk of Jesus' birth and blessing the new year. At each house the star and the singers are met with food and good cheer. Oftentimes people call their relatives who are away from Unalaska to let them listen to the singing over the phone and share the spirit from afar. Starring starts on January 7, when Russian Christmas is celebrated, and lasts for three nights.
Unalaska, AK – The Unalaska Raiders boys and girls varsity basketball teams both started off the season with great triumphs. The girls' team played an away game at Sand Point on Thursday and beat the home team 72 to 30. They scored 20 points more than their strongest game last year. The girls will play again Friday and will host Sand Point and King Cove here next weekend.
The boys' varsity team played their first home game this afternoon against King Cove and beat the visitors 50 to 35. Team co-captain Eric Do said it's a positive way to start the new season and shows that they have great potential. "We have pretty good down low posts, and the guards are getting comfortable with handling the ball against pressure, so definitely getting better."
Unalaska, AK – Tuesday the Alaska Seafood Cooperative and other seafood organizations filed suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service to block the new rules aimed at protecting the far western stock of the endangered Steller sea lions. The rule, which went into effect on January 1, closes Area 543 in the western region of the Aleutians to fishing for Atka mackerel and Pacific cod.
Unalaska, AK – This year's participants 19th annual Christmas Bird Count in Unalaska identified 45 different species of birds and 8,436 individual birds in total. Included in the count was one new species - the canvasback. Count organizer Suzi Golodoff said the duck is frequently seen on the mainland, but Unalaska is in the very edges of its range. Another notable point in the count was the number of bald eagles - 840. Golodoff said it's the second highest number they've recorded during the yearly count.
Unalaska, AK – The Alaska State Library is moving ahead with a new plan to expand broadband access to rural communities, and Unalaska stands to benefit.
This month, the Alaska State Library debuted the OWL program, or "Online With Libraries." The project will cost $8.2 million over three years, and is expected to provide speedier Internet to 104 libraries across the state. To receive OWL support, library bandwidth must be slower than 1.5 megabytes per second. In addition to ensuring that libraries are able to achieve T1 speeds with their internet connection, OWL will also provide some communities with technical support and training, as well as videoconferencing and computer equipment.
Unalaska, AK – Last night, city council amended the budget for this fiscal year and discussed the comprehensive plan.
The meeting opened with an update on the powerhouse project. Currently, only one of the two new Wartsila generators is being used, because of warranty issues. The other one is expected to come online once demand for power increases. Council then received a fisheries update from resource analyst Frank Kelty. An extended discussion of the comprehensive plan had been scheduled for last night's meeting. However, the discussion was abbreviated because an ordinance that would move to adopt the plan was removed from consideration during the new business portion of the meeting and tabled until the next meeting.
Unalaska, AK – This weekend, three earthquakes hit the western Aleutian Islands, all of magnitude 5 or greater.
On Saturday at 11:45am, a 5.3 magnitude quake occurred approximately 50 miles from Adak, according to the U.S. geological survey. Thirty five minutes later, a 5.2 magnitude quake hit. A final 5.0 magnitude earthquake then struck at 8:32pm.
