"Petersburg"

The Petersburg borough is reporting a large COVID-19 outbreak among residents and staff at its assisted living facility.

Local governments are allowed to opt out, but Petersburg’s assembly hasn’t made that decision.

Public health officials say the tests offer another layer of protection for those worried about spreading COVID-19 to vulnerable relatives around the holidays.

Petersburg’s total number of cases since the start of the pandemic is now at 570, with three deaths.

Tracy Welch grew up in Petersburg and has a background in commercial fishing, gillnetting and long-lining.

Health officials say the spread of the virus is not decreasing.

Wrangell’s assembly has unanimously called on Canadian regulators to immediately pause permitting, development and expansion of mines upstream from Southeast Alaska’s waterways. It’s also asking the provincial government of British Columbia to permanently ban the practice of storing liquid mine waste behind earthen dams. 

Subsistence, a practice which past generations participated in without question, has become a complex legal puzzle — “a very unsettled and unsettling [legal landscape] for Alaska Native people,” according to one lawyer who has spent decades working on subsistence cases.

The resolution asks for a pause on permitting for new mine projects until there’s an agreement between the U.S. and Canada on protecting rivers from mining pollution.

Nearly half this year’s haul, or 61 moose, came from Kupreanof Island.