Craig, Alaska (KRBD staff photo).

Authorities say a Hydaburg man died in custody last month during a court appearance after experiencing what Alaska State Troopers describe as an “unknown medical issue.” Gideon Duncan Jr., 68, was in the Craig Jail during a Feb. 25 court hearing. Troopers released the information on Tuesday.

Duncan had reportedly been arrested during a traffic stop the day before on felony charges, including sexual assault. Troopers say the charges were related to an incident that allegedly occurred in Hydaburg on Feb. 6.

Troopers say Duncan was “responsive” during an in-custody arraignment on the charges before suffering a health emergency.

Alaska State Troopers spokesperson Tim DeSpain said in an email Wednesday that medics rushed Duncan to the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s Alicia Roberts Medical Center in Klawock, the only emergency room on Prince of Wales Island. Troopers say he was pronounced dead shortly after 11 a.m.

His body was transported to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage. The state trooper spokesperson says the cause of Duncan’s death has yet to be determined. His sister, Frances Natkong, says she believes Duncan suffered a seizure in jail.

Family members and friends offered remembrances on social media.

The Craig Jail is run by the City of Craig and staffed by city employees under a contract with the state. Craig Police Chief R.J. Ely told KRBD that to his knowledge, there have not been any other deaths of people in the Craig Jail’s custody.

He referred further questions to Alaska State Troopers.

Troopers said in a dispatch that foul play is not suspected.

The post Alaska State Troopers say a man died in custody at the Craig Jail during a court hearing appeared first on KRBD.

A metal rendition of the City of Craig’s seal designed by Samantha Wilson and cut out by Craig High School welding students. The metal seals will decorate city buildings in Craig. (Courtesy of Victoria Merritt)

The Prince of Wales Island community of Craig is celebrating its 100th birthday tonight. And it’s not a birthday without a birthday party.

The festivities for Craig’s centennial got underway this past weekend. At a local bar on Sunday, City Administrator Brian Templin says he listened as community elders told stories about the history of the community of about 1,200 on Prince of Wales Island’s western shore.

“The word that I kept hearing was change — and not necessarily in a bad way. In the last 100 years, folks who grew up here have seen the community change, and I think mostly they’ve seen it grow and improve,” he said.

It’s growth not just in terms of size or population, “but growing up,” Templin said.

“So, changing from when Craig started as being very isolated, very small, narrow economic focus, and over the last 100 years, Craig has not only grown in size and population, but has become more linked with the rest of the world,” he said.

There are a series of events laid out all week to celebrate a century of Craig history stretching back all the way to its founding on March 1, 1922.

“We’re having a large — a big birthday party, we’re calling it, at the Craig City Gym. We’ve got some locals who have prepared some food for the meal. We’re going to have photographs from every decade all the way back to the ’20s and ’30s, back to when Craig started. We’re going to have photographs out and folks sharing stories,” Templin said.

There’s a short film with longtime Craig residents recalling their memories of the early days, and a reading of state legislative proclamations honoring the community.

One of those honors a very special Craig resident — one older than Craig itself.

“Fred Hamilton Sr. —  Fred just turned 101 years old, a lifelong Craig resident and the oldest living Haida in the world, actually,” Templin said. “He’s been a big part of the growth of Craig, and we’re happy to celebrate him as well as Craig’s 100th anniversary.”

Plus: trivia, local dignitaries, and for the basketball fans, a hoops contest. Templin says there’ll be a livestream of the event on the City of Craig Centennial Celebration Facebook page. The event gets going at 6 p.m. A schedule for the event is here.

“We’ve decided that we’re going to count however many three free throws a person could throw in 100 seconds,” Templin said. “One for each year that we’ve been a city.”

The festivities continue through Saturday with one last storytelling event at T.K. ‘s Cafe at the Craig Inn at 7 p.m. There’s even a short fireworks show scheduled for Friday night.

“Fireworks are not just for the Fourth of July anymore,” Templin said.

This year, they’re for the first of March (on the fourth of March).

The post Craig celebrates its centennial with a birthday bash featuring stories, photos and a free-throw contest appeared first on KRBD.

Monday is the last day that Ketchikan’s web-based COVID-19 dashboard will be updated. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any online information about COVID-19 in Ketchikan — it’s still out there, just in a different place. KRBD spoke with a local public health nurse for a lesson on how to use the state’s website to drill down on what’s going on in Ketchikan.

Most of the familiar pandemic statistics — new cases, hospitalizations and deaths — are available on the state Department of Health and Social Services’ Alaska COVID-19 website, says Ketchikan-based state public health nurse Jen Bergen.

“It’s already being shared there, and it has been for quite some time,” Bergen said in a virtual interview last week.

There are a few ways to get there — but maybe the quickest is by typing data.coronavirus.alaska.gov into your browser’s address bar. That presents a few options: pages for information on vaccinations, regional hospital capacity, and cases. Another option is covid19.alaska.gov.

“Most of this information that’s being posted here is going to be under this ‘cases’ dashboard,” she said.

On that case dashboard are several tabs — a statewide summary, pandemic alert levels by borough, demographic info, and one labeled “cases, deaths and hospitalizations.”

“Most of the information that’s on that local dashboard is under the ‘cases, deaths and hospitalizations’ tab,” Bergen said.

That gets you to a page that shows the total number of — guess what — cases, deaths and hospitalizations across the state. With a few clicks on the left-hand side, that can be narrowed to a particular part of the state — say, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough or the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census area. It can also be narrowed by date, so you can look at, for instance, how many cases have been reported in the past week, two weeks, 30 days, and so on. You can also select whether to include residents, nonresidents or both.

“The other thing is cases by onset date versus report date. So the dashboard locally is (based on the) report date, and that means the date that they were actually told to us,” Bergen said.

The “cases, deaths and hospitalizations” tab can be customized to show data for Ketchikan, the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, or any other borough or census area. (Screenshot by KRBD)

That’ll adjust a chart in the center of the page. Mousing over each day’s bar brings up the number of cases reported on that particular day.

So: for a quick-and-dirty substitute for the local COVID-19 dashboard, go to the cases dashboard, select “report date” the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, click “all” under residence, and then narrow it to whatever timeframe you’re looking for.

Or, you can go to the “alert levels by borough/census area” tab and click on Ketchikan, which brings up a quick summary.

A quick summary of Ketchikan’s COVID-19 situation is available on the “alert level by borough/census area” tab — just click on the Ketchikan area. (Screenshot by KRBD)

There are also charts for hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitalizations are shown cumulatively by week — as of Monday, a total of 40 Ketchikan residents have been sick enough to require hospital care. Deaths are broken out by month.

Bergen says the hospitalization figure is not meant to indicate local hospitals’ patient load — for that, there’s a page on PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center’s website.

“So that is going to continue, and that is definitely where you get the most up to date information is that PeaceHealth Medical Center (site),” she said.

Now, there are some limitations: First, the state cases dashboard does not work especially well on mobile devices. The page crashed repeatedly on two iPhones tested for this story.

It’s also missing some key pieces of information about the number of people actively infected with COVID-19 and where they’re believed to have caught it. But Bergen says those metrics aren’t as useful as they once were.

“So (it was) really, really important in the beginning of the pandemic, to track the active cases,” she said. “As we see community spread, it’s harder to know when people recover.”

As for how people caught the virus, as the state reduces contact tracing, there simply won’t be as much data to report. But Bergen says nurses are still keeping track of who gets sick and where.

“We still in the background will notice if there’s some kind of cluster — meaning for some reason, there is an outbreak locally at say, a food processor or a school or a congregate setting. Public health will still be aware of that. It just won’t be posted on the dashboard,” she said.

And the state and local dashboard numbers don’t totally match up — when KRBD spoke with Bergen late last week, local numbers for the past week were about 4% higher than the state’s numbers.

“That difference does exist because there is a little bit of a lag between cases reported locally versus cases reported to the state,” Bergen said.

But still, Bergen says the state dashboard gives a good overview of pandemic trends — whether cases are high or low, rising or falling — that can be useful as residents make decisions about what measures to take to protect themselves and their community.

The post Here’s how to find Ketchikan’s COVID-19 data on Alaska’s statewide dashboard appeared first on KRBD.

Craig High School in September 2021. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Public schools in Craig are struggling to stay open as the omicron variant rips through the Prince of Wales Island community.

Schools in Craig are open for in-person learning — for now.

“We are close to the edge at this point,” Craig’s Superintendent Chris Reitan said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Reitan says the district is struggling with a wave of new infections.

“We have about 20% of our students who are out either confirmed positive or out with symptoms. We have about 20% of our staff — and that’s including all staff, not just teachers — but 20% of staff who are out either confirmed positive or with symptoms,” Reitan said. “We’re making it work. We’re keeping the school open and running.”

The district’s 56 staff and 230 students returned to in-person classes earlier this month after a week of remote learning. Reitan had called for the abrupt shift to online classes after teachers and students tested positive in the first week back from winter break. That forced many to quarantine at home and brought into question whether there’d be enough teachers to teach.

So Reitan put the question to Craig’s school board with a plan to reopen schools. It came from a committee of district staff and outside advisers tasked with developing COVID-19 policies.

High school teacher Deanna Claus had been part of that effort. She says the primary change was allowing students to avoid quarantines if they wore a mask.

“Because people really want to be in school. I want to be in school, we all want to be in school,” Claus said Friday. “But at the board meeting, what happened was all of that was scrapped in favor of mask choice the entire time.”

Facing pressure from parents who called for a return to classrooms and decried mask mandates, the school board voted on Jan. 14 to reopen schools without requiring exposed students to wear a mask or stay home. The board also ditched contact tracing, which had been the responsibility of school staff while state public health nurses were overwhelmed.

Board Vice President Joel Steenstra acknowledged at the time that COVID-19 could spread widely.

“I kind of get the impression this is just kind of like, let it run wild. It’s going to get in school, it’s going to run wild,” he said at the Jan. 14 meeting.

Board President Scott Brookshire suggested that was inevitable.

“I think regardless of what we do here, that’s going to happen anyway,” he said.

But Board Member Marla Dillman pushed back.

“To some degree it is going to run wild, (but) I think the school should try to do their part to try to mitigate that where and when we can,” she said.

In the end, she was the lone vote against. It passed 3-1. Under the new policy, the only people required to wear masks are those who test positive between five and 10 days before and some athletes and activity participants who have to abide by interscholastic rules. Parents, students and staff get a generic email when someone at a their school tests positive instead of a call telling them they’ve been exposed.

Two members of the Craig district’s COVID committee resigned from the body in protest. One of them was Deanna Claus.

“It’s absolutely mind blowing. I just cannot understand it. And I’m horrified that the district would take such a measure,” she said.

The other was Jessica Priddy, the medical director and regional administrator for Prince of Wales Island at the local Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium clinic which advises Craig’s school district. She declined to comment.

Craig’s teachers are divided on what to do next. In a lengthy statement, Courtney Wood, the head of the Craig Education Association teachers union, says the new policy reflected the will of a majority of the Craig community. The union hasn’t taken a position on the recent changes, but Wood says everyone can agree that teachers prefer to teach face-to-face.

The post Schools in Craig are struggling to stay open as students and staff come down with COVID-19 appeared first on KRBD.

A kelp harvest in Kodiak. (Kayla Desroches/KMXT)

Southeast’s seaweed and shellfish industry is in line to receive a boost from the feds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday it would provide $500,000 in funding to draw up plans for a new mariculture processing facility on Prince of Wales Island. Producers and processors are welcoming the news.

USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small says the initiative goes hand-in-hand with the Biden administration’s plans for new economic opportunity in an area that’s been in transition as the timber industry shrinks.

“It’s a great opportunity for economic diversification,” Torres Small said in a phone interview Friday. “And one of the things I love about this project is it really is driven by partners on the ground.”

She credits Southeast Conference, a regional civic and industry group, with the idea. Executive Director Robert Venables says the investment will go to good use.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is help support the industry and identify what their needs are, and it’s come to the forefront that a facility can help especially the smaller entities have a place to do processing, storage, shipping, aggregating, any number of things, but they don’t have the means to do their own individual construction of facilities.

Venables says the idea is to create a co-op facility that would be shared by a number of mariculture firms.

Mathew Scaletta owns Wildfish Cannery in Klawock.

“We’re like a craft seafood cannery,” he said by phone Friday.

Scaletta says Wildfish isn’t canning mariculture products at the moment, but they’re looking to get into the sector.

“We are hoping to be a value-added producer for mariculture products. Part of our business plan going into the future is to work more of these products into our lineup,” he said.

It’s all very preliminary, but Scaletta says he could see his company adding five to 10 jobs by expanding their business to the new facility.

Markos Scheer runs Seagrove Kelp, a mariculture outfit with a nursery in Ketchikan and a seaweed farm on the west side of Prince of Wales Island. He also chairs Southeast Conference’s Seafood and Maritime Committee.

“I think this is really an exciting time for mariculture in Alaska and the development of sustainable, non-extractive economic opportunities for coastal Alaskans. This, I think, represents part of a really interesting and terrific paradigm shift and an opportunity for sustainable economic development for coastal communities,” Scheer said Friday by phone.

Venables says the half-million dollar boost will pay for engineering and design work, community engagement, utility work, and other prep to get ready for construction. He says Southeast Conference is planning to help tap into funding from the recently-passed federal infrastructure bill to help make the facility happen.

The post Biden administration pledges $500,000 to design new mariculture facility on Prince of Wales Island appeared first on KRBD.

Troopers located Christerpher Perez’s remains on Catalina Island, circled, about seven miles west of Klawock. (Chart: NOAA)

State troopers provided this photo in 2017, when Christerpher Perez was first reported missing. (Photo: Alaska Department of Public Safety)

The body of a Prince of Wales Island man who went missing more than four years ago has been identified by authorities.

Alaska State Troopers say Christerpher Perez set out on a canoe near Klawock in December 2016 but was not reported missing until eight months later.

A statement from the Department of Public Safety says the state medical examiner’s office ID’ed skeletal remains discovered August 2 on the shores of Catalina Island, an uninhabited islet about seven miles west of Klawock.

Authorities say they haven’t determined the cause, manner or approximate date of death. Perez would have turned 52 this past April. His family has been notified.

The post Authorities identify human remains found on uninhabited island near Craig and Klawock appeared first on KRBD.

Final results are in for municipal elections in the Prince of Wales Island community of Craig. The City Council certified the election Thursday evening.

Mayor Tim O’Connor has won another two-year term. He led in preliminary results and expanded his lead over challenger Chaundell Piburn to more than 50 votes after absentee and questioned ballots were tallied by the community’s Canvass Board.

City Council Member Hannah Bazinet has also won another three-year term in Seat D, fending off a challenge from Trampus Conaster. She had just a five-vote lead on election night, but her lead expanded to nearly 20 in final results.

The Canvass Board also confirmed James See’s uncontested victory for City Council Seat C, and Joel Steenstra’s unopposed bid for a three-year term on the school board. Patricia Conaster won a one-year term on the school board, beating out Jeremy Crews.

Other Prince of Wales Island communities are set to report final election results in the coming days. Thorne Bay is scheduled to count its remaining ballots Friday evening, and officials in Klawock and Hydaburg are scheduled to finalize election results on Monday.

The post Craig Mayor Tim O’Connor wins another term as City Council certifies election results appeared first on KRBD.

A satellite view of Alaska and the Northern Pacific Ocean at 2:20 p.m. Alaska time Wednesday. (Image: CIRA/NOAA)

Officials in the Prince of Wales Island community of Craig are warning of potential landslides, flooding and high winds this weekend as a powerful fall storm bears down on Southeast Alaska.

The strongest in a series of three storms is forecast to arrive Friday night, the National Weather Service says in a special weather statement. That could bring high winds with gusts of 60 to 70 miles per hour along the outer coast, and even in inside waters near Ketchikan. Rainfall totals are forecast at between three and six inches between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon.

Similar conditions resulted in at least seven landslides across Prince of Wales Island after one storm last fall. Forecasters say saturated soils and strong winds are “a good recipe for landslides.”

Now, officials in Craig say they’re preparing for power and water outages, landslides and road closures. And they’re asking the public to be ready.

In Craig, residents are asked to use caution or avoid the landslide-prone Port St. Nicholas Road from Thursday through Sunday. Officials ask residents to be prepared to shelter in place with plenty of food and water in case roads are closed. Residents should also conserve water and be ready for power outages.

High wind watches take effect Friday afternoon for nearly all of Southeast Alaska with the exception of Upper Lynn Canal and the Yakutat area. The Weather Service says the Gulf of Alaska is expecting 30-foot seas and storm-force winds of 60 to 70 miles per hour. Widespread gales are possible along inside waters.

Meanwhile, city officials in Craig say they’re staging equipment for a potential response and stepping up their monitoring.

City officials are asking the public to keep an eye out for hazards and report them to police — specifically, flooding, soil movement, damage to culverts or roads and other signs of potential road failure. Craig residents, including people along Port St. Nicholas Road, should report hazards to the Craig Police Department at 907-826-3330

Elsewhere on Prince of Wales Island, residents are encouraged to call Alaska State Troopers’ 24-hour dispatch line at 907-451-5100. Officials say residents should call and report any hazard they see, even if they believe it’s already been reported. All emergencies should be reported to 911.

The post Officials warn of possible landslides on Prince of Wales Island as a strong fall storm heads for Southeast Alaska appeared first on KRBD.

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (blue) infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (red), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (Courtesy National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

The pace of new COVID-19 cases in the southern panhandle is picking up. On Friday, authorities reported 11 new cases in Ketchikan, 12 on Prince of Wales Island and three in Metlakatla.

Ketchikan

The 11 new Ketchikan cases bring the community’s active case total to 26. One person is hospitalized in the COVID-19 wing at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center as of Friday’s update.

Five of the new cases were reported in a place where people live and work in close proximity, though public health data does not show precisely where. Of the past week’s 26 new cases, half have been detected in so-called “congregate settings.”

A PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center spokesperson says one of the new congregate setting cases was found in a resident of its long-term care unit. The person is reportedly mildly symptomatic and does not require a higher level of care. Five other patients in the 21-resident unit and one long-term care staff member tested positive earlier this week.

The majority of the new cases — 7 of the 11 — were detected in people who had not received a COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccines are free and available at a wide variety of local doctors’ offices and pharmacies, including at grocery stores.

Though the vaccine does not fully protect against COVID-19 infections, experts say vaccinated people tend to have less severe symptoms and are much less likely to be hospitalized or die from the disease.

Free rapid COVID-19 testing is available five days a week at a clinic outside Ketchikan’s Alaska Marine Highway System terminal.

Prince of Wales Island

Of the 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Prince of Wales Island, six are Craig residents and five are residents of unnamed smaller communities. One is a nonresident who is isolating in a community of less than 1,000 people.

Since March, 88% of Prince of Wales Island’s COVID-19 cases have been detected in people who are not vaccinated against the disease. Vaccines are free and available at SEARHC Alicia Roberts Medical Center in Klawock, PeaceHealth’s Craig clinic, and Craig Public Health.

COVID-19 testing is available at those same locations, according to a state testing locator.

A total of 34 cases are active on Prince of Wales Island as of Friday. An all-time monthly high of 44 cases have been recorded on the island in the month of July. More information is available in a recorded message at 888-894-1321, the Prince of Wales Island COVID-19 hotline.

Metlakatla

Metlakatla Indian Community reported three new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. That ended a month-and-a-half stretch with no active cases in the Annette Islands Reserve.

Masks and social distancing are mandatory for all residents and visitors to the reserve, and gatherings are limited to no more than 10 people, according to a public notice posted by the tribe.

Nearly all unvaccinated residents and visitors are required to quarantine for 10 days. Metlakatla requires quarantines for people who arrive from areas of moderate or high COVID-19 risk, which includes most of Alaska and the Lower 48. Vaccinated arrivals are required to show their vaccine cards, and all are required to check in with COVID-19 trackers upon arrival in Metlakatla.

Testing and vaccinations are available at the Annette Island Service unit. The AISU hotline is 617-7200.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s newly-updated guidance recommends that masks be worn indoors in areas of elevated COVID-19 transmission, including all of the southern panhandle, regardless of vaccination status.

The post 12 new COVID-19 cases on Prince of Wales Island, 11 in Ketchikan, 3 in Metlakatla reported Friday appeared first on KRBD.

Transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. Image captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (Courtesy National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

At least seven people in Ketchikan tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, according to data from local public health officials. Some 16 people are actively infected with COVID-19 in the First City. PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center says two people are hospitalized with the disease.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 19 people have tested positive since Ketchikan’s emergency operations center shut down on Friday. The EOC served as a clearinghouse for local COVID-19 data and coordinated local resources to fight the pandemic.

More than half of the cases reported since Friday, 10 in total, have been reported in what officials call a “congregate setting.” That’s an area where people live and work in close proximity — think a jail, fish plant, shelter or nursing home — though the data does not specify the exact location of the cases. Public health data shows two mostly separate clusters of congregate setting cases.

One person who tested positive in Ketchikan on Monday has since left the state against medical advice. But state health officials say the person “does not pose any risk to others within our community” and is not counted among Ketchikan’s active cases.

At least seven of the 19 cases since Friday have been reported in people who are fully vaccinated, though at least four of those people did not report COVID-19 symptoms.

Some of the recent public health data is incomplete — officials say they’re starting to fall behind on contact tracing because of the amount of work that is required for each positive case.

Elsewhere in the southern panhandle, officials reported 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Prince of Wales Island on Wednesday. Those include one Craig resident, five residents of smaller communities, and six non-residents. A total of 22 cases are active on Prince of Wales Island according to the official tally.

Health officials say that while the COVID-19 vaccines are not a perfect shield against the disease, they are highly effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths. More information about COVID-19 vaccines is available at covidvax.alaska.gov.

The CDC recently updated its recommendations for face masks. The federal health agency now recommends that unvaccinated and vaccinated people wear masks in public spaces in areas with “substantial” or “high” COVID-19 activity, including Ketchikan and many other Southeast communities.

COVID-19 cases have been surging in Alaska, with Juneau and Sitka setting records in recent weeks. Executives from the state’s largest hospitals say the statewide surge is straining a health care system already struggling with staffing shortages and burnout. The more contagious delta variant of COVID-19 and low vaccination rates are thought to be behind the surge.

The post Health officials report 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Prince of Wales Island, 7 in Ketchikan appeared first on KRBD.