Three people were rescued from a boat that caught fire near Ketchikan this weekend. At around 7:30 a.m. Sunday, the Coast Guard Station Ketchikan received a report that a fishing vessel was adrift and engulfed in flames near South Pennock Island. The three occupants on the vessel were rescued by a charter fishing boat and were dropped off at Three Bears Harbor. 

The Coast Guard and the South Tongass Fire Department assisted in extinguishing the fire. When they arrived, all three passengers were aboard the charter fishing boat. They were all adults and no injuries were reported. 

The Ketchikan Harbormaster towed the boat to Bar Harbor where the Ketchikan Fire Department worked to put out the remaining flames. Fire Chief Rick Hines said six firemen were there for just over an hour and a half. 

Hines said it’s good the charter boat rescued the crew when they did.

“It’s the Ketchikan community, right? If there’s a boat in distress broadcast, a lot of times you have a lot of local boaters and people out fishing that are going to stop their plans and go to try to help save that person,” Hines said. “Once again, that paid off for these individuals.”

Hines recommends boaters have extinguishers on board and always be prepared to get in the water, just in case of emergency. The fire was reported to have started in the vessel’s engine room.

Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment Ketchikan is investigating the incident.

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The Ketchikan Gateway Borough has a new playground. Borough officials welcomed the new facility at Alder Park, on Bryant Street, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday. 

The small playground is designed for toddlers aged 2-5 and comes with three pieces of equipment, including a slide and climbing dome. It’s the first playground the borough has constructed since the borough assembly approved a parks and playground master plan in 2023. The last playground constructed by the borough was in 2018. 

Morgan Barry is the borough’s public works director. He says a playground at Alder Park is expected to do well. 

“It was determined that, exclusive of school district properties, there were no playgrounds in the vicinity of Alder Park,” Barry said. “So, if you had children that were not old enough to go to school, then there wasn’t a playground available.” 

It’s the first playground of about half a dozen managed by the borough to use rubber tiles. Barry said it’s easier to clean than other ground materials and also provides better fall protection. 

Also constructed at the new playground was a retaining wall and staircase leading to the park. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and through the borough’s half-cent sales tax for capital improvement projects. 

The Alder Park playground is one of several parks and rec projects in the works. The borough is also in the design phase for playground upgrades at the Lund Street Park and on Rotary Beach.

The new playground at Alder Park officially opened in May. 

Hunter Morrison is a Report for America corps member for KRBD. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution.

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The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority is inviting public comment on a proposed timber sale on Prince of Wales Island. It’s surrounding a culturally significant, historic site on the eastern side of the island. Tribes in the region are speaking out in opposition, asking that the project be reconsidered and the surrounding area be preserved.

The land proposed for the timber harvest is one mile north of Hollis. The proposal includes clear cutting primarily old growth Western Hemlock, Red and Yellow Cedar, and Sitka Spruce, and is anticipated to generate around 20 million board feet in total. It is directly surrounding the seven-acre Wolf Creek Boatworks Historic District. 

The boat maintenance and repairs facility is over 80 years old. In the Best Interest Decision statement, the Land Trust Authority states that although they legally could, they will not harvest commercial timber within the historic district.

The site has a complicated history. The land was federally owned until 2017, when Congress passed legislation mandating a roughly 20,000 acre land swap between the Tongass National Forest and the Alaska Mental Health Trust. The Trust officially acquired it in 2021, putting the land at greater risk of logging. The site was put on the National Register of Historic Places last year. It is co-owned by the Organized Village of Kasaan.

Mike Jones, president of the organized village of Kasaan, opposes the logging project. The facility has historic ties in Kasaan and with his own family. The proposed sale is also on a hill with a sacred waterfall that he thinks will be at risk if the logging project goes through. He wants that to be considered and for the Trust Land Office to initiate tribal consultations. Ultimately, because the Alaska Mental Health Trust is not a federal organization, they’re not required to consult with tribal governments. 

Richard Peterson is the president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. He wrote a letter opposing the timber sale. The letter outlines concerns of timber revenue being prioritized over cultural resources and lack of consideration for the broader cultural landscape. Peterson said the tribe is concerned that the Mental Health Trust Authority has not complied with federal preservation laws because it was acquired from a federal land exchange. The historic site will be protected, but the clear cut will still be visible from the site. He recommends the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority engage with tribal governments and reconsider the decision. 

Allison Biastock is a spokesperson for the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. She said that because the public comment period is underway, they aren’t yet able to address the concerns. The Trust Land Office manages Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority lands to generate revenue — often through timber or other resources — for Alaskans with developmental and intellectual disabilities, substance use disorders, and traumatic brain injuries. In an email to KRBD, Biastock said all revenues generated on Trust lands support the annual grantmaking program and systems change efforts to improve the lives of Trust beneficiaries.

The Best Interest Decision was published early last month and public comment closes Monday, July 13 at 4:30 p.m. Comments can be submitted in person or emailed to mhtlo@alaska.gov.

Those comments will be reviewed before a final best interest decision is announced. 

The post Public comment open for proposed timber sale surrounding historic site on Prince of Wales Island appeared first on KRBD.

On a recent weeknight at the Ted Ferry Civic Center, about a dozen actors fell into place on a small stage. Some were holding props, like a bucket and a bag of ice. A man dressed similarly to Beetlejuice stood center stage.

The props were turned to weapons against the stripe-patterned man. A cane was jabbed into his ribs. The bust of a mermaid was smacked against his face. He was then roped into a net, like a fish. 

It was just one scene in the notoriously silly short play “Fish Pirate’s Daughter.” The production is an exaggerated take on the city’s history – with drunks and ladies of the night who worked in Ketchikan’s infamous red light district on Creek Street.

Director Elizabeth Nelson, who has been involved with “Fish Pirate’s Daughter” for about 40 years, said the show was made by Ketchikanites, for Ketchikanites. She said it probably wouldn’t work well outside of Alaska. 

“It’s our opportunity to laugh with ourselves, not at ourselves, to see our friends and neighbors in something that is silly and fun,” Nelson said. “I think it just is – it’s just to become a part of who we are as a community.” 

“Fish Pirate’s Daughter” was written in the 1960s by Ketchikan-born Robert Kinerk to fund the newly formed theatre group First City Players. That organization still puts on the play. It’s been performed around Southeast, from bars in Ketchikan, to Wrangell, to ferries on the Alaska Marine Highway. 

And as its name might suggest, the play is about fish pirates – or commercial fishermen who stole salmon in the days of fish traps. The devices, which captured salmon before they could go upstream to spawn, wiped out salmon populations, but were protected by the law. The play is a farcical look at the seriousness of fish piracy. 

“Part of the brilliance of this show is that the script is a framework of which you can take 300 different roads,” said Phillip Smith, who plays the role of Tony, one of the drunks. He’s acted in the show for about five years but has grown up watching it. His mom is the director.

Smith said the interactive play changes year to year. That’s in part because the actors make the characters their own. 

“New people have come through and added their own twist on it, and suddenly, it changed an entire scene,” Smith said. “It doesn’t change the message at the end, but it still can change moments, it can make life of new things and bring different light to these characters.” 

This year’s show is chock full of “Fish Pirate” veterans and first-timers. And it’s pretty low stakes for new actors or those who want to get back into acting. The show is less than an hour long. 

And while Ketchikan has changed a lot since the days of fish piracy, some actors argue it’s the same in a lot of ways. It’s still a quirky fishing town. 

Nelson said that helps make the play’s story timeless. 

“I just am kind of amazed that it has survived this long, and that it still feels fresh, and it still feels fun,” she said.  

Since its debut in 1966, the show has seen a complete overhaul of its music scoring. It’s also added new characters, like laddies of the line, or men of the night. 

The 60th annual “Fish Pirate’s Daughter” will run this and next Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. inside the Ted Ferry Civic Center. You can purchase tickets online at firstcityplayers.org or in person at the theatre company’s office on Main Street in downtown Ketchikan.

Editor’s Note: KRBD Program Director and Morning Edition Host Maria Dudzak is a cast member in this year’s production of “Fish Pirate’s Daughter.”

Hunter Morrison is a Report for America corps member for KRBD. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution.

The post ‘Fish Pirate’s Daughter’ turns 60 appeared first on KRBD.

Getting off the cruise ships downtown, the first thing many visitors see is the iconic “Welcome to Ketchikan” sign on Mission Street. Some locals say if you look closely at the sign, there’s a bit more to it.

Decades ago, there’s rumored to have been such a bad storm in Ketchikan that it warped and transformed the sign into a menacing, frowning face that indicates bad luck. Joe Kovac, a local attorney who moonlights as a paranormal tour guide, explained the history of the sign during one of the first tours of the season. He wore a top hat, suit jacket, and white contacts.

“People kind of keep an eye on the sign to make sure it’s happy,” Kovac said. “It sure looks happy today, but if you see it contort into some kind of frown, maybe best run.”

With a microphone and a reference book, he led a small group in a loop downtown.

Kovac pointed out local restaurants and businesses like Tongass Outfitters, which he said has long had reports of spiritual activity, and the Gilmore Hotel, where furniture has supposedly talked to guests. But a big part of the tour is about true pieces of Ketchikan history. The paranormal parts are, in a lot of the stories, how that history is rumored to survive today. American Ghost Walks, a Milwaukee-based tour company that recently expanded to Southeast Alaska, combines the town’s history with the paranormal.

As the tour group walked down Creek Street, Kovac shared stories of the famous Red Light District. He pointed to the former house of Beatrice Greene, a woman who ran a prostitution business on Creek Street even after it was outlawed in the 1950s. He said the people who live in the house now think there’s still a piece of her there. 

“They’ve dealt with her playful spirit for over 20 years,” Kovac said. “They say she just does small things like hiding objects, moving objects, turning lights and televisions on and off and such, so just playful stuff. They enjoy having her.”

This is Kovac’s first season as a tour guide for American Ghost Walks. He has lived in Ketchikan for over a decade. He has an interest in the supernatural, but said it’s not much more than that. 

“I don’t really believe in it,” Kovac said. “I’m a skeptic. However, I’ve had some instances in my life that really make me wonder.”

Allison Jornlin is the company’s tour developer — or, as she says, a professional weirdo. She thinks it doesn’t really matter if you believe in ghosts or not.

“These are sacred stories that need to be continued,” Jornlin said. “Yes, it’s a fun tour. It’s haunted history. You get the history, but then you also get all the local stories that we can find.”

American Ghost Walks has a tour in Juneau, which started last year. There are tours across the country and even in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Jornlin says learning the stories of these towns is a lot of work — she spent most of last summer researching and writing for Ketchikan’s tour. She looked around online, went through old issues of the Ketchikan Daily News, talked with locals, and spent a lot of time at the library.

Jornlin said there are many towns that have rich histories and their own paranormal stories — some are just more famous than others. She wants visitors to see that.

“I want to keep these stories alive for other places that have incredible untold stories that could bring a little bit more understanding to people who generally just come here and get a very surface view of the destination,” Jornlin said.

Like many tourism companies that operate locally, American Ghost Walks has partnerships with cruise lines to increase traffic. But Jornlin thinks locals will enjoy it, too.

Tickets are available online and start at around $30.

The post Walking tour highlights Ketchikan’s paranormal history appeared first on KRBD.

To submit a local photo, send it to photo@krbd.org. You can vote for your favorite Photo of the Day submission by going to our Facebook page and hitting “like!” We announce a new winner each week, and the winner gets a bag of Raven’s Brew coffee (prize must be picked up at the station).

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