Alaska News

Cruise ship season has officially kicked off in Kodiak. The Crystal Symphony called on Alaska’s emerald isle early yesterday morning, and brought with it 480 passengers and 550 crew members. Despite the rain, hundreds of tourists were able to explore the downtown area. KMXT’s Brianna Gibbs caught up with some of them and filed this report.

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Alexis Will, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, calls herself a “Ninja of the Night,” but it has nothing to do with martial arts.

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The Spanish oil company, Repsol is reporting it has found oil on state leases in the Colville Delta at three of its wells on the North Slope. In a short press release the company calls the prospects “promising” and says changes in the state’s oil tax will improve development prospects. The wells are near the existing Kuparuk field. Repsol has leases both onshore and offshore in the area. It had two spills during its exploratory drilling, which is restricted to the winter season.

The city of Hoonah has responded to a lawsuit by the widow of one of the two police officers slain by John Marvin by saying Marvin was the responsible party and the other officer’s conduct was not negligent. Haley Tokuoka, widow of Officer Matthew Tokuoka, is contending that the city should have trained Sergeant Anthony Wallace better on how to handle Marvin. Wallace was also slain. Marvin was sentenced to two consecutive 99-year prison terms for the 2010 killings, which seemed to be related to a grudge he had.

Shell Oil had to postpone its Arctic drilling for a full year after one of its oil rigs ran aground off the Alaska coast this winter. But Shell’s efforts to open a new frontier of oil exploration in the Arctic Ocean continues with work conducted in Puget Sound.

The oil giant passed a key test with federal regulators last month in the waters off Anacortes, Washington.

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(Thomas Flenstad/Flickr)

While things like oil taxes and education funding may get the most news coverage, every year the legislature passes plenty of bills that amount to housekeeping. Mostly, they do unexciting things, like cleaning up administrative code. And then sometimes, they lead to parking ticket holidays in cities across the state. APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports.

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This is a story of unintended consequences.

When the legislature took up a bill standardizing police-officer paperwork three years back, there wasn’t really talk of language requiring law enforcement to personally serve citations. Less explicit versions of that provision had been on the books since the 1980s, and the idea behind it is you want officers to get the right guys when they issue tickets for things like speeding or underage drinking.

“The Department of Law, the Department of Public Safety, the legislature were thinking about rules that apply across the state for when a police officer wrote you a citation face to face, and making sure that everybody got treated equally and fairly,” says Jesse Kiehl, a member of the Juneau Assembly. “They were not thinking about parking tickets.”

Juneau is just one of many cities across the state that lets the courts handle parking ticket appeals. But as of this month, the court system won’t bother with any case where an officer stuck a ticket under someone’s windshield wiper. They offered their interpretation of the statute in a rules order that went into effect April 15.

Kiehl says that a number of cities have been caught by surprise. That list includes Kenai, Sitka, Seward, and Valdez, to name a few.

“The concern that a whole lot of communities are going to have is that if a police officer or a parking officer — a meter reader — has to write a parking ticket, either they need to wait around for the vehicle owner to come back, or cities are going to have to scramble pretty fast here to change their laws and the way parking violations are treated.”

For a city to keep leaving parking tickets on cars, they’re going to have to work out appeals through a municipal parking authority or city administrator instead of directing any contested ticket to the court. Anchorage and Ketchikan already have systems like that in place, and Fairbanks issues civil fines instead of citations in most — but not all — cases.

To complicate matters, there isn’t any way to get an emergency exception to the personal service statute. The court order clarifying the matter went into effect just a day after the legislature gaveled out; lawmakers aren’t scheduled to come back until next January.

“It’s of those bureaucratic nightmare sort of things,” says Robin Koutchak, the city attorney for Sitka.

So if this bill passed three years ago, how did this issue fall through the cracks?

Rep. Mike Hawker carried the measure on behalf of the Department of Public Safety. He says his office wasn’t that involved in the drafting of the legislation, and that it didn’t spark any controversy when it went through committee. Nobody suggested it would require cities to rewrite their parking ordinances.

“Yeah, I don’t recall any anticipated problem there,” says Hawker. “You know, bills like that get heard. We’ve got a lot of good people in the legislature that look at them. But it appears that there was an unintended consequence of the language that was inside that bill.”

Hawker wonders why cities didn’t registered their concern over the law earlier. The court system had a long review period before making their rules official. Nancy Meade, who serves as their general counsel, says that notice of the rules change was sent on three separate occasions to police chiefs and city officials, along with every attorney in the state.

“It depends on how closely they read the e-mails, and I just don’t know, but apparently some missed it,” says Meade.

The Alaska Municipal League, which lobbies on behalf of the state’s cities, was also notified of how the rule would specifically affect parking tickets a month before the legislative session wrapped up.

With no easy fixes, many communities are in limbo until they change their laws to treat parking tickets as a civil fine, if they even want to do that. Kenai, for one, is worried that they’re going to have to dedicate more staff time to handling appeals.

“We’re in a spot where we may have to raise parking ticket fees to deal with that,” says Scott Bloom, Kenai’s city attorney. He adds that the city will probably have to start towing and booting more cars if there isn’t a fix before the summer season.

As far as Juneau goes, the city’s already drafting an ordinance that would make parking tickets a civil fine, but they’re limited in the ways they can enforce parking rules until that passes.

Kiehl says that’s not ideal, but he’s not expecting mass chaos.

“The republic will not fall,” Kiehl laughs. “People by and large will park and play nice and watch their two hours or whatever the rules are. Might some scofflaw take advantage? The possibility is always there, but I think we’ll deal with this as fast as we can, and I’m sure other cities will, too.”

The state reported the first case of rabies in Alaska’s interior today. A trapper killed a wolf in the Chandalar Lakes area south of the Brooks Range in late March.

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The state of Alaska officially calls the continent’s highest peak by the native name Denali. Mount McKinley – which is what the federal government calls the mountain – sits inside Denali National Park.

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So you can be forgiven if you mix up the names.

Peggy O’Dell, deputy director for operations at the National Park Service, said if Congress wants to rename the mountain, it can go right ahead.

“We don’t object. We’re happy to institute whatever decision they choose to make,” she said after the meeting.

Passing through Congress won’t be easy. This very exercise happened last year, as it has for decades, unsuccessfully.

The business meeting of the National Parks subcommittee passed with few sparks.

Colorado Democrat Mark Udall chairs the subcommittee. As he was concluding the meeting, he recounted his climb of Denali; and he’s okay with officially recognizing it as just that.

“Senator Portman hails from Ohio. I think President McKinley was Ohioan. I think we’ll have to work with Senator Portman to assure President McKinley gets the respect and attention he deserves. But I think this is a suitable step to take,” he said with the gavel in his hand.

As Udall said that, the lone Ohioan on the subcommittee entered the room. Senator Rob Portman hadn’t been seen yet, and he almost missed his chance to speak.

So the ever courteous Portman took the microphone and said he wanted to talk about just two of the 14 bills before the committee.

“A memorial to commemorate the mission of the Peace Corps, here in Washington, D.C. on federal land,” he began.

Many assumed he’d continue with the bill renaming McKinley, native son of Ohio, 25th president of the United States.

“We’re also reintroducing a bill to allow a plaque on the World War II memorial inscribed with the words of that President Roosevelt he prayed with the nation on D-Day,” he concluded.

And that was it.  No mention of Denali.

For years, the Ohio delegation has successfully defended the Mount McKinley name.  And the Alaska delegation has routinely failed in swaying them to give up that fight.

This first step might look like a step in the Denali direction, but because of the numerous fails in the past, it’s no sign things will be different this Congress.

If the bill manages to pass the subcommittee, whole committee and full Senate – it goes to the House, which is lead by Speaker John Boehner, who hails from the Great State of Ohio.

Frank Matumeak was born in Barrow in 1948. His mother was required to move there to attend the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Though his family had to conform somewhat to the American education system, he said his childhood was still ruled by the seasons. As part of our series looking at culture in Alaska, APRN’s Anne Hillman spoke with Matumeak about what life was like when he was growing up.

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Courtesy of Nancy Heise

As the Alaska Marine Highway System approaches its 50th anniversary, the ferry is struggling with its identity. Under intense pressure to cut costs, the ferry’s managers are trying to get back to basics — transporting Alaskans and their freight.

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That’s why the state is trying to phase out wildlife naturalists, on all ferry routes. It’s not clear what that means for riders.

It takes the Tustumena three and a half days to sail from Homer to Unalaska. Along the way, passengers will see kittiwakes and puffins, orcas and foxes.

The route has been named a national scenic byway, but the volcanic terrain can be foreign to both for lifelong Alaskans, and visitors passing through from the Lower 48.

That’s why naturalists, like Doug Stuart, travel on the ferry. Stuart says he’s there to provide context for the scenery.

Stuart: “Of course, we give a lot of informational programs, and cover everything that goes on in the Aleutians — from World War II to the seabirds and marine mammals, and cultural issues with the Native Unangan people that have populated the Aleutians for 9,000 years.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service has employed Stuart as the Tustumena’s naturalist for more than a decade. But he won’t be on the ferry this summer.

The ferry system has given a lot of different reasons for wanting to eliminate the program. One is federal budget cuts.

Federal money covers the naturalists’ salaries. Poppy Benson, who administers the program for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge in Homer, says money was tight for the program this year, but she managed to scrape it together by asking other refuges to chip in.

Benson: “So between Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Cold Bay and Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, and Alaska Maritime, I came up with enough money to fund a season.”

Woodrow: “We were surprised to even see that they had the funding for an interpreter.”

That’s Jeremy Woodrow, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Transportation. According to Woodrow, the state wasn’t expecting the refuges to come up with the money with the federal sequester in place.

Benson says the wildlife refuges thought it was just a misunderstanding — but it isn’t. As Woodrow puts it, the State of Alaska has decided that the space the naturalists take up should be sold to residents instead.

Woodrow: “It all comes down to cost. And does it help meet our core mission, which is to help move people between points A and B.”

On the Tustumena, naturalists get free room and board from the ferry system. For an entire summer, that’s about $5,000 worth of support.

But Woodrow says it’s not just about the price tag. The state isn’t convinced that the naturalists bring any business to the ferry system.

Woodrow: “From a marketing standpoint, the Marine Highway System doesn’t see an actual –- I don’t want to say a benefit, but doesn’t see that having an interpreter on board will help fill seats more, especially with the Tustumena where it’s sold out anyways.”

<p:=>Staterooms on the Tustumena are already selling out for the summer run. But according to Stuart, the Tustumena naturalist, it’s not just residents buying those rooms.

Stuart: “Quite a few people ride that ship as tourists! I would say by the time we’re out of Kodiak, we’re probably roughly 50/50 tourists and then the other 50% a mix of commercial fishermen and residents. So it’s a pretty big ridership.”

It’s gotten bigger, in recent years. Frommer’s, the famed guidebook, listed the state ferry as one of the top 100 attractions in America for families with kids. One of the big draws? The naturalists.

Stuart says he was always a big hit with tourists. But the naturalists weren’t all about serving visitors. As the ferry progressed on its trip, Stuart says naturalists made an effort to keep all of the passengers in the loop — even if they were locals.

Stuart: “It’s a very interesting area, but without having anybody explaining it to the people on board, frankly, they don’t have a clue what’s going on out there — particularly if the weather gets bad. Onboard programming, and having that information flow from me to the passengers, is important.”

To replace that, the Department of Transportation is considering adding interpretive displays, or interactive exhibits. They aren’t sure exactly what it will look like, and it likely won’t be in place in time for the ferry’s 50th anniversary this summer.

The Alaska Marine Highway System is planning a celebration, with community festivals throughout southeast and southcentral Alaska.

Stuart was planning events for southwest Alaska on the Tustumena, before he found out the naturalist program was canceled. With no one on board to help the Tustumena celebrate, the anniversary sailings in through southwest Alaska might look a lot like the ferry’s future, in all state waters.

An ANSEP instructor helps girls with building their own computers. Photo by Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

Building a computer is child’s play, or at least it ought to be.  That’s the premise behind an innovative concept in science and engineering education.  As KSKA’s Ellen Lockyer reports, the Matanuska Susitna Borough School District has partnered with UAA’s Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, or ANSEP, to help middle schoolers achieve future university success.

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“You should not need a screwdriver “…

An instructor calls out directions to a room full of kids who are working to fit tiny components together inside an otherwise empty computer case.  Jackson Peters is a Wasilla sixth grader. He seems undaunted by the task at hand.  I ask him to describe what he’s looking at.

“..so the bottom blue is the mother board, and then we have the RAMS, and then we have the heater like thing that cools it down, ” Yeah, the fan. ” yeah we have the fan and then we have the fan wires….”

 Jackson is one of 54 sixth and seventh graders gathered in the ANSEP common room at UAA. He is reading instructions printed on a glossy sheet of paper, while ANSEP instructor calls out encouragement over the room’s scratchy wireless sound system.

 The Mat Su School District middle schoolers are here to take part in the science and engineering camp ANSEP hosts every year. Dr. HerbSchroeder founded ANSEP about a dozen years ago

 ”It’s all about raising the bar and showing kids that they can do things that they might not necessarily consider, “  he says.

 The camp is actually a 12 day activity — computer building is only part of it. The students will do some hands on engineering projects, and some hydrology work with the Forest Service to get a broad feeling for what it is like to be a scientist and engineer.  The students will even dissect squid.

 The program is an attempt to boost the flagging numbers of Alaska Native students who are ready for college level studies.  Schroeder is outspoken about how the established education system is letting Alaska Native students down.

 ”Forty percent of our Alaska Native kids never graduate from high school on time. We’re spending money in ways that are not changing that number. We need to stop this. I call it paying for failure, “  he says.

 The students have have taken a short break for snacks and a bit of horsing around, but now it’s time to get back to work. Two girls bend their heads over their projects.

Erin Sherman and Alissa MacLaine are sixth graders. They say after the computers are done, they will be able to use them. “Hopefully, ” Erin says, or “my ego will be damaged forever” They both laugh. Asked if the project is difficult,  Alissa says that it’s not too difficult. “For you” the girls say in unison, and laugh some more. Alissa says she just looks at the pictures on the instructions mostly.

This is the first time the ANSEP Middle School academy is happening before summer vacation and it’s important, because it is also the first time that an entire school district is taking part. Schroeder says in the past, students were selected one or two at a time from a number of rural school districts.Mat Su School District superintendent Dr. Deena Paramo says two hundred students applied for the program from her district this year.

 ”And our goal really is to open up doors for these kids and have them challenge us. They are building a computer and they get to keep that computer. Their skin in the game is that these kids are to take algebra by eighth grade, and just challenging themselves academically to move forward in high school as well as be ready for college, “  she says.

Schroeder says ANSEP wants to extend its model of introducing math and science challenges to elementary and middle school students to twelve school districts around the state by 2018.

 ”And the most significant thing about the middle school academy is that, in the nation, 26 percent of eighth graders graduate with algebra one sucessfully completed. ANSEP students graduate eighth grade with algebra one completed at a rate of 83 percent, so we are more than three times better than the national average, “  he says.

 Paramo says the school district’s part in the program was helped along by state STEM and Knik Tribe funds.

“It’s just an opportunity that we wanted to offer our kids and being innovative in new programs, and hopefully creating a pipeline for these kids to be engineers if they’d like, and opening those doors.”  she adds.

 Schroeder says he wants 3000 Alaska Native students in that pipeline by 2020 .. students from sixth grade to PhD candidates.

Sitka firefighter Parker White was one of 18 firefighters to respond to Saturday’s fire in the 400 block of Hemlock Street. (Photo by Roberta White/Sitka Fire Department)

A Sitka woman is feeling lucky today, after escaping a fire at her apartment over the weekend. No one was injured in the blaze, which happened around 10 a.m. Saturday in the 400 block of Hemlock Street.

Elena Gustafson had been housesitting on Friday night, at a home with two small dogs.

“They didn’t like letting me sleep in late, which is fine, they’re great dogs. But I came back to my place to take a nap,” she said. “I was woken up by a pounding on my door, and my neighbors shouting ‘Wake up, your house is on fire!’”

One of the neighbors was returning home and noticed crackling sounds. The other was walking to the mailbox and happened to smell smoke.

“It’s pretty surreal to wake up to the actual sentence, ‘Wake up, your house is on fire,” she said.

Gustafson grabbed a jacket, some shoes, her wallet, and her computer, which happened to be nearby, left the house, and waited for the fire department to show up.

Eighteen firefighters responded and took two-and-a-half hours to put out the flames. Gustafson knew most of them — she’s a volunteer EMT for the fire department.

“I know I might be a little biased because I volunteer for them, but watching them respond to a fire was pretty amazing,” she said. “Terrifying at the same time, because it was my house. I kept bouncing between being completely freaked out and crying hysterically to watching this response in awe, kind of.”

Gustafson joined the fire department in 2012. As an EMT, she’s taken plenty of calls, but never to the scene of a major fire.

“They haven’t had a big one recently,” she said. “At least I gave them some practice, or the house gave them some practice.”

The fire at 410 Hemlock Street was the first time the city’s new ladder truck was used to put out a blaze. Assistant Fire Chief Al Stevens called the fire “stubborn,” and says the cause was “the careless extinguishment of a cigarette” on the back deck of the apartment below Gustafson’s.

After the fire department responded to the actual fire, they turned their attention to Gustafson — one of their own. Firefighters solicited donations and help for her. So did the neighbors.

“I don’t have family here — direct relatives — but this experience has made me realize just what a family-like community Sitka is,” Gustafson said. “I feel so taken care of by so many people. It’s been overwhelming in a lot of ways, just how much support I’ve gotten. It’s been amazing.”

Gustafson lost a lot of her stuff in the fire, and had more damaged. Her passport, for example, has curly pages from hose water, and still reeks of smoke. But she says there’s a silver lining, too: At the time of the fire she’d just signed a lease for a new apartment. She’s scheduled to move in by the end of the month.

The house itself is owned by Bonnie Harris, who is reportedly traveling back to Sitka.

Just two years after reopening, the seafood processing plant in Adak is shutting down. Icicle Seafoods didn’t return calls for comment, but in a press release, CEO Amy Humphreys cites regulatory uncertainty as the deciding factor.

Fishing in the western Aleutians has been restricted in recent years to protect an endangered stock of Steller sea lions, and an anticipated division of the Pacific cod harvest between the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands could also impact shore-based processors.

The news is a blow to the City of Adak, which relies on the processing plant for 30-40 percent of its tax revenues. City manager Layton Lockett was already bracing for a difficult year after Icicle announced in February that it would be shutting down for the summer, but the total closure came as a surprise.

“Just more shocked than anything that the plug was being pulled really quickly,” Lockett says.

Icicle purchased the plant in 2011, and it had its first full year of operations last year. Lockett says it’s disappointing that Icicle gave up so quickly, but he says the situation isn’t as dire as it might appear.

“We think there’s enough potential to still do major processing out here, and unlike the last time the fish plant closed, everybody’s paid, and we’re not looking at [a two year closure]. So, we think we’re very much ahead of the game this go-around.”

In 2009, the company that previously owned the plant went belly-up, leaving the community scrambling for revenues. Lockett says the city learned from that experience.

“We’ve been saving and putting a reserve together so that if something like this were to happen again, we would have some time. And we’re very confident that we have time.”

It’s not clear exactly what is going to happen with the plant, which is owned by the Aleut Corporation and was being leased by Icicle. Lockett says the city will work hard to attract a new processor, but until then, it’s welcoming independent fisheries ventures.

Last month, a Seattle-based company sent a shipment of live crab from Adak to Dubai, and there are plans to fly halibut off the island this summer. But the only seafood processor in the Western Aleutians is now Atka Pride Seafoods, 90 miles to the east.

Alaska travelers haven’t experienced delays Lower 48 travelers are enduring because of air traffic controller furloughs. Sunday marked the first day of the furloughs which are part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s plan to cut 5 percent from their budget as a result of sequestration.

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The air traffic controller furloughs are arriving at a relatively fortunate time for Alaska.

“All the tourists aren’t here yet, the float planes aren’t flying, there’s not a lot going on out in the bush that’s related to summertime activities,” Steve Munroe, the regional vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said. “So I think we’ve got a couple of weeks before it really starts to impact us quite a bit.”

When the number of flights begins to increase as summer draws closer, Munroe anticipates staffing numbers to remain roughly the same as they are for the winter flight schedules – and that could create problems.

Pilots in rural areas may experience occasional delays due to some staffing cuts at flight service stations – which work provide information on weather advisories, equipment and whatever else the pilots need – but Monroe expects the majority of the issues to pertain to flights in and around Anchorage.

“I don’t think you’ll see delays once you’re outside the Bowl area,” Munroe said. “Most of the delays are gonna come in the controlled air space where the Anchorage Tower has to talk to you.”

Until sequestration ends, air traffic controllers will have to take one furlough day every two weeks. Munroe says they are trying to spread those days out as much as possible to minimize impacts on air travel.

If you watched the season premiere of “Deadliest Catch” last week, you might have noticed a line in the credits acknowledging the Alaska Film Office’s contribution to the show.

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It wasn’t just a reference to the fact that the show is filmed in Alaska — the note was included because the state actually subsidizes the popular reality television series through its film tax credit program. But if some state legislators have their way, that won’t be the case for much longer.

The Alaska Film Production Incentive was created by the state legislature in 2008 to do exactly what its name suggests — encourage film production in Alaska. Dave Worrell runs the program for the state.

“Really, British Columbia was one of the first to effectively utilize an incentive program, and that’s one of the reasons they’ve essentially become ‘Hollywood North,’” Worrell says. “So many productions took advantage of their incentive that they were really able to build that industry from basically nothing. So, a lot of other jurisdictions, US states looked and that and thought ‘boy, we want our part too.’”

The way Alaska’s program works, production companies keep track of how much they spend on payroll, food, lodging and transportation while in the state, and then submit the totals to the Film Office. Worrell then uses those figures to calculate and issue tax credits, which the production companies can convert into cash by selling them to Alaskan companies with corporate tax liability.

“And typically they will sell that tax credit at some sort of a discount,” Worrell says. “That can range between 70 and 90 cents on the dollar.”

Original Productions declined to comment on the tax credits, and the figures for this season of “Deadliest Catch” aren’t publicly available, but for Season 8, the company received $700,000 from the state, or 96 percent of their production costs, excluding non-resident wages. Of that, $7,000, or roughly 1 percent, went to wages for Alaskan residents.

Critics point to those kind of numbers as cause for concern. Representative Bill Stoltze, a Republican from Chugiak introduced a bill in the state legislature this year asking for an end to the program. In testimony to the House Commerce and Labor Committee he said it simply doesn’t pencil out.

“If we’re paying for something, I like to make sure it’s working, functioning, and really does have the benefits at a good cost-benefit ratio.”

Before renewing the program’s funding last year, the state legislature requested an audit to answer the cost-benefit question.The audit found that for every dollar spent on the subsidy, it generated two dollars in economic benefits. But Stoltze said in his testimony that the state is in worse financial shape than it was last year, and suggested the money would be better spent elsewhere — or not at all.

“I would be happy with stopping the bleeding while we still have a good blood flow,” Stoltze said.

Stoltze’s bill to repeal the tax credit was still in committee when the legislature gaveled out on Sunday, but it will be back on the agenda during next year’s session.

Whatever the outcome of House Bill 112, “Deadliest Catch” fans shouldn’t worry. While Original Productions has accepted the proffered subsidy, the show was filming in Alaska long before the tax credit program came into existence, and if the 3.4 million people who tuned in to the season premiere this week are any indication, that isn’t about to change.

Two bodies were found on separate fishing vessels in two Kodiak harbors on Friday. Police Chief T.C. Kamai says there were no signs of trauma on either body, leading some to speculate they may be drug related, but Kamai said that can’t be confirmed until a toxicology screening is complete.

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The men who died are 44-year-old David Babarovich, and Thaddeus Zdobylak, Jr., 41.

Kamai says both bodies have been sent to the state medical examiner’s office for a full autopsy. He says preliminary causes of death could be released within a few days.

Kamai says nothing leads him to believe the deaths were related, and at this time the police department is approaching them as two separate investigations.

Alaska State Troopers report a Pitkas Point man died over the weekend in a snowmachine accident.

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Darrell Hunt was travelling along the Adreafsky River on a 2013 Ski Doo snowmachine when he was fatally injured.

“They came to a right hand curve on the river and instead of going on the trail and turning on the curve, he went straight off the trail. He went for about 200 yards and then he hit about a four-foot-tall cut bank,” Trooper Spokesperson Beth Ipsen said.

Hunt was leading two others on a single snowmachine on a caribou-hunting trip. The accident happened about 52 miles up the north fork of the Andreafsky.

“When the two others on the other snowmachine came upon him he wasn’t talking, wasn’t breathing. So they performed CPR on him for about 15 to 20 minutes. When that wasn’t successful, they wrapped him in a tarp and put him on a sled that (Hunt) had been towing and then rode back to Saint Mary’s.”

Saint Mary’s is approximately five miles Northeast of Pitka’s Point. Hunt was pronounced dead upon arrival.

He was reportedly traveling upwards of 45 miles-per-hour at the time of the crash.

Ipsen said Hunt’s snowmachine was not badly damaged.

“There was a bent bar in the back. And just some general scrapes on the snowmachine. The brakes worked the steering was fine. The lack of damage is just puzzling, too, because he hit the bank and that was it.”

Troopers are still unclear as to why Hunt drove straight into the cut-bank.

The two men with Hunt did say that they had previously stopped and consumed alcohol.

Troopers will not know if hunt was intoxicated at the time of his death until a toxicology report is filed.

His body was sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for an autopsy.

Photo by Angela Denning-Barnes, KYUK – Bethel

A group of about 40 people held a rally in Bethel this morning for subsistence rights. They gathered in the parking lot of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game office. Most of them were Yup’ik, from Bethel and nearby villages.

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According to the Pilot Station Traditional Council, in 2011, community members spent more than $764,000 on Bingo, pull-tabs and raffle tickets. After paying out prizes and buy supplies, the tribe has $57,000 left for the community support fund.

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They use that money to help families pay for medical bills, unexpected expenses and funeral costs. Mayor and tribal council member Abraham Kelly says that death brings the community together.

“We comfort a family for 40 days as a community. We bring food to the family. The whole community brings food and support and we help each other out with food, a lot of food,” Kelly said.

But they also support each other’s decisions, even if they are unconventional.

“Did you say hi?,” Palassa Beans says, sitting with her granddaughter at the kitchen table.

“She’s really quiet.” “She doesn’t talk much?” “She talks a lot. She’s just trying to be shy.”

Beans was shy too, when she first saw her future husband at a dance 30 years ago.

“Well I couldn’t believe he existed because I dreamt about him when I was ten. When I lived in Aniak,” Beans said.

She was 14 when she met him in Pilot Station.

 “When did you finally get the courage to talk to him?”

“When I was 16.”

“What did you say?”

“I think I’ll keep that private.” (laughter)

They were married for nearly 25 years when he died in 2010.

“He was going up to his fish camp to light the smoke house, probably something under the water, he got thrown out of the boat and drowned,” Beans said.

Her husband was alone the day he died and no one saw exactly what happened. When he didn’t return home after about 36 hours, his son and nephew went out to look for him. They found his empty boat. Searchers dragged the river the next day and pulled up his body.

Typically, if a person dies unexpectedly and without witnesses, the body must be sent to the medical examiner’s office in Anchorage. State Medical Examiner Katherine Raven explains that her role is to make sure the family and the state know the exact cause of death.

“You have to have someone with medical background who’s qualified to determine does this look like a poising, is this a gunshot wound? We’ve had several cases come in that looked like drownings that were homicides. Several cases that looked naturals that were homicides. Several cases looked like homicides that were naturals,” Raven said.

She says that families are more likely to request an examination than to refuse it.  Having bodies examined can also reduce public health risks. If a person dies of a contagious disease, the examiner will catch it and make sure everyone in contact with that person is treated.

“There is a reason there’s a corner-medical examiner system in place. It’s a huge reason. And without that and not having cases come in and be looked at and have the cause of death proven, we’d really be going back to medieval times,” Raven said.

Raven says it’s just not possible to have medical examiners at all of the regional hubs. When the examiner’s office requests a body be sent to Anchorage, they will pay for the transportation costs to and from the place of death.

That didn’t matter to Polassa Beans: she refused to let her husband be removed from the village.

“Just think of the pain of how you have lost your loved one and to put on top of that, if they had to take them away. That’s another extra burden of pain,” Beans said.

Though community members were told not to wash his body or move it back to Beans’ home, they decided to support her decision. And when the medical examiner could not issue a death certificate without seeing the body, the tribal council decided to design and issue its own.

“We agreed that it didn’t have to look exactly like a state death certificate but we would have witnesses sign that saw his body and say he was gone,” Beans said.

Pilot Station is the first tribe to create its own death certificate. It is not recognized as a legal document by any state or federal agencies.

A statement issued by Alaska’s legal department says that they cannot recognize tribally issued death certificates because a body needs to be examined by a medical professional.

Officials in the Sitka School District decide tonight what stays and what goes in the year ahead. The school board is trying to close a nearly $400,000 deficit, and it could make big cuts to get there.

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Atop the list of potential cuts is the activities director at Sitka High School. That job is responsible for scheduling sports and student activities, coordinating travel, finding housing for visiting teams, and more.

“The assistant principal, the principal and the activities director at Sitka High work in very close concert in order to pull off all the activities that we have going on,” Sitka High principal PJ Ford Slack said. “It’s nonstop. It’s not just a position that gets to go away because it’s just a clerical position. It isn’t that anymore. It’s literally the glue that keeps all of this running for the kids at Sitka High.”

Ford Slack says she’s worried about where the job’s duties will fall if the position is eliminated. She says the plan right now is for the director of Community Schools to assume the responsibilities.

“My concern is, I just explained a very tight team — we communicate all the time. If that person already has a full-time job with Community Schools, I can see them being pulled in two different directions,” Ford Slack said. “That’s a very hard thing to do to someone.”

State lawmakers did not raise the per-student allocation for school districts, though they did include extra money for schools to address security concerns. The other possible source of additional money is the federal government.

LINK: See the school district’s budget numbers as they stand now.

The district gets money under a bill called the “Secure Rural Schools and Communities Act.” But school board President Lon Garrison said the law’s future — and the money that comes with it — is far from certain.

“That’s the big one that we just don’t know,” he said. “And given how flaky Congress seems to be these days, who knows what’s going to happen with that.”

Still, the measure does have some hope of passage. Its elimination would have a severe effect on communities much larger than Sitka throughout the western United States.

“The idea that nothing will comes through for Secure Rural Schools, given the impact it will have on Washington, Oregon and California, that will decimate entire counties,” Garrison said. “So the likelihood we might get something there might be better.”

The school board meets at 7 p.m. today inside the District Office, which is attached to the back of Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School. It is expected to take public testimony before making decisions.