Food trucks are common in Anchorage and in other, bigger communities across Alaska, but for the most part, they are still rare in smaller places.

Listen now

One food truck in Kodiak is creating quite a stir, serving up the national food of El Salvador, along with some other dishes.

Inside the bright blue food truck parked in the driveway of their simple one story home, the Martinez family spends most Friday nights chopping and prepping enormous amounts of cabbage, carrots and cilantro.

“We are from El Salvador. We sell pupusas, tamales, but at the same time we sell Mexican food. We got tacos, burritos, quesadillas. We got two kinds of tamales — Salvadorian and Mexican tamales,” Moises Martinez said.

Moises explains that Mexican tamales are wrapped in a corn leaf while Salvadorian ones are packaged in a banana leaf.

After conditions in his home country of El Salvador became dangerous, Moises moved with his wife and children to California. He heard that there was money to be made working at a fish processing plant on Kodiak Island, so he traveled here. He only planned to work one season, but he liked it in Kodiak. So in the early ’90s, he brought his family, and they’ve been here ever since.

Moises says he thinks there are roughly 100 Salvadorians here. Many, like Moises, came to Kodiak fleeing war, found good jobs, became involved in the community and stayed.

Moises has a full-time job as a dock foreman at one of the fish processors, but for years his family has been selling pupusas along with Mexican cuisine from small stands, off and on around town. In his spare time, he says he recently converted and customized the family’s food truck himself.

“You look from outside it looks like a small bus, but actually inside it is completely different,” Moises said. “[I] took up all the seat[s] and changed all the floor, put new walls on, ceiling and ready to cook.”

Moises says it took him about a year to transform the minibus into a commercial kitchen.

It’s a family business.

“I like how busy it is,” 21-year-old Jency Martinez, Moises’ daughter, said.

Before Jency went off for training to become a dental hygienist in Washington State, she worked four summers at the family’s food business to save up money for school.

“I mean, I know how to cook everything in there,” Jency said. “Its has taught me a lot. Sometimes your parents being your boss is, you know, kinda different. It’s good. I don’t know. It just keeps me busy.”

And Jency is busy. She has three jobs.

“Monday through Friday I work at the dental office. Saturday mornings I work at a coffee shop, and then Saturday afternoons I help out here.”

Jency’s mother, Maria Portillo, is the cook. She prepares family recipes and Jency takes orders. But before Maria prepares the food, she has to do a lot of chopping.

“This is salad for the pupusas and we need to make everything today,” Maria said.

Portillo starts on Friday evening after she closes her in-home daycare and preps all the food until late into the evening.

“Cabbage, carrot, cilantro and pepper and … a lot of vegetables,” Maria said.

Maria gets up around 6 a.m. to finish and to make tamales. She’s ready to open the food truck by 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Over the years, all of her kids have helped out.

That they are proud to share the foods from their homeland, makes her happy, Maria says.

“All the kids they make tamale[s], they make pupusa[s]. I have my oldest son. He’s the [engineer]… and when they have a party they make it and they say, ‘This is my food from my mama country, yeah,’” Maria said.

The truck is nestled in between a coffee drive-through and a large construction project along Kodiak’s main drag. As soon as they open the window, people start lining up, brought in by the aroma of of lime, cilantro and frying meat.

Inside the truck, Jency and Maria do a well-choreographed dance as chicken and steak sizzle on the grill. Jency takes orders and makes change while Maria puts food in to-go boxes.

Standing outside the food truck on a recent Saturday, customer Erin Briggs said, “It’s the quintessential food truck.” Briggs says that she has lived in Kodiak just a couple of years and she says she was excited to see Maria’s appear.

“Everybody needs tacos,” Briggs said. “We’ve been out and about all day, and it was a great reason to not make dinner.”

Moises Martinez says that earnings from the business, in its various forms, have helped the family achieve several financial goals, but it isn’t just about how many tacos they sell. He says they brought their business back with the new food truck because they love sharing their food and a little bit of their culture with the community.

“We’re happy to be cooking for the community of Kodiak,” Moises said. “And we’re happy again that they [are] enjoying [it]. Actually, we had a few comments this last week in which [they said] ,my first time I tried this food, and it is the best food in Kodiak., We are happy to hear that. And thanks [to everybody for supporting us.]”

Maria’s Place, the food truck, is open Saturdays through the summer, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

This week we’re hearing from Lewis Pagel in Kotzebue. Pagel is a chiropractor who also serves on the local city council.

Listen now

PAGEL: You know, I was practicing in Minnesota. My wife was a public defender down there, and I was a chiropractor. And we just kinda got sick of living in Minnesota. We’re from Wisconsin originally, and there’s a football battle there that we played into pretty good. And we weren’t really attached to anything, so we decided to strike out on a new adventure, and saw a posting for a chiropractor clinic here in Kotzebue. And I said, “Yeah. If you wanna move to Alaska, I’ll try it out.”

We came up here thinking we might stick up here for a couple years and move on and try something new. But we fell in love with it. Been here for just about 11 years now.

I’m a big outdoors person, lots of fishing, lots of hunting, riding snowmachines all winter and spring long. And this just seems to be the best place in the world to do it.

This last weekend (in March), my hunting partner and I were out looking for musk ox. He had a tag. And it was a windy, stormy day but we found a herd and made a good stock. Now I’ve got a musk ox down in the shop and in the garage that we’re working on cutting up. And I had musk ox burger for lunch today.

We moved a few places when we were younger, my wife and I. Most of the communities seemed to be really clique-y that we moved to. But when we got here, it seemed a little different, kinda just one big clique. Everybody here seems to help each other out more than my experience in the Lower 48.

I think a lot of people try to avoid local politics, so when someone puts their name in the hat, oftentimes they’ll get the privilege, so to speak, of being able to serve the public. And I’ve always been a public servant my whole life. I serve people. That’s what I love to do.

Rivers and streams across the state are closed to king salmon fishing, and sockeye returns are shockingly low in parts of Southeast Alaska. Meanwhile, commercial fishermen in parts of Bristol Bay are netting millions of sockeye. What’s happening to salmon stocks around the state? Hear from salmon scientists and fishery managers about what’s affecting this year’s runs on the next Talk of Alaska.

HOST: Anne Hillman

GUESTS:

• Ed Jones – Chinook Salmon Scientist, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game
• Scott Kelley – Director of Division of Commercial Fisheries, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game
• Jim Murphy – Research Fisheries Biologist, Alaska Fisheries Science Center

• Call 550-8422 (Anchorage) or 1-800-478-8255 (statewide) during the live broadcast
• Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).
• Send email to talk@alaskapublic.org (comments may be read on air)

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide.

SUBSCRIBE: Get Talk of Alaska updates automatically by email, RSS or podcast.

A new legal opinion from the solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior throws doubt on whether Alaska tribes can gain “Indian Country”-type jurisdiction by putting land in trust with the federal government.

Listen now

The land-in-trust issue has a long, complicated history. Basically, if the Interior Department agrees to acquire a tribe’s land in trust, the tribe can exercise sovereignty over that territory. Trust land is similar to an Indian reservation, and it’s exempt from some local laws, typically zoning and taxation.

For decades, the Interior department has gone back and forth over whether Alaska tribes can put land in trust, or whether that’s precluded by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The Obama administration did not see ANCSA as a barrier, and just before President Obama left office, his Interior Secretary accepted 1.08 acre in the center of Craig into trust for the Craig Tribal Association. Other Alaska tribes have also applied to put land into trust.

But the new acting solicitor, the top lawyer for the Interior Department, issued an opinion in late June that says the Obama administration’s legal reasoning was incomplete, and he’s ordered a new period of  consultation and review. He says that’ll take at least a year.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

Listen now

Domestic violence suspect killed in state trooper shooting

Associated Press

A Copper Center man died after he was shot by at least one Alaska State Trooper.

Missing man’s body found in Anchorage mudflats

Associated Press

Anchorage police say the body of a 27-year-old man missing since January has been found in mudflats near a local park.

Fresh doubt for Alaska tribes seeking land-in-trust

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

A new solicitor’s opinion throws doubt on whether Alaska tribes can gain “Indian Country”-type jurisdiction by putting land in trust with the feds.

Top four gubernatorial candidates voice support for Donlin mine

Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel

Walker, who is running for re-election as an independent, and three other top gubernatorial candidates have pledged support for the Donlin mine, which would be the one of the biggest gold mines in the world.

An uncertain future for immigrants pushed out of military

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Service members who joined under a program designed to recruit more medical and language professionals from immigrant backgrounds are now being kicked out, according to the program’s architect.

‘There really isn’t anything held back’ — A whaling festival in Nuiqsut

Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

In fall, Nuiqsut’s whaling crews travel roughly 80 miles by boat to the village’s camp at Cross Island, north of Prudhoe Bay. From there, last year, Nuiqsut’s crews harvested four bowhead whales. The Ipalook crew took one of them.

AK: Family food truck spices up Kodiak food scene with Salvadorian, Mexican fare

Daysha Eaton, KMXT – Kodiak

A food truck in Kodiak is creating quite a stir, serving up the national food of El Salvador, along with some other dishes.

49 Voices: Lewis Pagel of Kotzebue

Anne Hillman, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

This week we’re hearing from Lewis Pagel in Kotzebue. Pagel is a chiropractor who also serves on the local city council.

Immigrants who joined the military under a program granting a pathway to citizenship are being kicked out of the service, and face a precarious fate with their residency statuses now in jeopordy.

The Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest,or MAVNI, was started under the George W. Bush Administration, designed to recruit non-citizens into the Armed Forces in order to address a critical shortage of healthcare jobs and fluency in languages deemed strategically important. Alaska Attorney and former independent Senate candidate Margaret Stock is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and helped develop the MAVNI program. For months she’s been contacted by immigrants who joined the Armed Forces in the last few years, now being told they’re disqualified because of failed background checks.

“Nobody will tell them why they failed, nobody will tell them who made the decision to fail them,” Stock said in her midtown Anchorage office on Friday morning. “They’re not being offered any evidence, they’re not being given due process. And they’re just simply getting a text message, an email, a phone call, saying that the military has decided after a couple years of background checking that they don’t want to take a chance on you and you’re being kicked out.”

Attention on the changes to MAVNI roared back into headlines after an Associated Press article came out on Independence Day, and since then Stock has been fielding calls from national TV networks and newspapers. Alaska Public Media’s Zachariah Hughes spoke with her about what’s happening to immigrants in the military.

Listen now

Messages left with the Defense Department seeking comment had not been returned as of our broadcast deadline.

Whaling captain Herbert Ipalook Sr. is sitting in the driver’s seat of a white pickup truck. It’s parked at the center of a sandy baseball field in Nuiqsut, a village of about 400 on the North Slope, not far from where the Colville River meets the Arctic Ocean.

Listen now

It’s the day of the summer solstice, and all around Ipalook’s truck, a celebration is beginning. Today is nalukataq, a feast hosted by a successful whaling crew. And nalukataq is special.

“Special, because it was created thousands of years ago, and passed down to the younger generation, to the next generation,” Ipalook said.

Ipalook upholds this tradition. In fall, Nuiqsut’s whaling crews travel roughly 80 miles by boat to the village’s camp at Cross Island, north of Prudhoe Bay. From there, last year, Nuiqsut’s crews harvested four bowhead whales. The Ipalook crew took one of them.

“It’s about the whale. The whale gives up to you, to the people that worked really hard,” Ipalook said. “Some people might get left out, some people will gain, but everybody gains something to eat.”

Next to Ipalook’s truck, folding tables are weighed down with big, steaming pots and colorfully frosted cakes. The baseball field’s bleachers are filling with family members and neighbors, kids and elders, bundled up in puffy coats, furs and blankets and waiting patiently with paper plates and cups. People wish each other “happy nalukataq!”

The crew starts serving: homemade goose and caribou soup, bread, crackers and hot drinks.

Later, the focal point — the whale — arrives in large plastic tubs. It’s prepared several ways, like mikigaq, fermented meat, urraq, cooked meat and muktuk, frozen skin and blubber, carved into hand-sized chunks. The crew carefully distributes the whale based on the number of people per household, and everyone’s coolers start to fill up. Some is eaten on the spot, and the rest is stored for take-home, in plastic containers or ziploc bags.

Vera Ipalook, the whaling captain’s wife, is at the center of the action. She plays an important role, working long hours with the crew to prepare the whale for nalukataq.

In between making sure everything is going smoothly, Vera sneaks in a few hugs. Her family is here from near and far — almost all her kids and grandkids, she says. But it’s not just about the relatives. She wants everyone there to feel welcome.

“I make sure that my crew have big smiles on their faces, to keep people happy,” Vera Ipalook said.

There are many moments of joy. Like the candy — there’s so much candy. Every half-hour or so, Hershey’s chocolates, Laffy Taffy, Sour Patch Kids and the like are tossed over the bleachers, and all the kids pounce.

There’s even more candy during the event nalukataq is known for: the blanket toss. A circular sealskin blanket is suspended about ten feet above the ground. Men and women grab hold of the edges and start pulling in unison, and one brave soul holding a bag of candy jumps on top.

Getting the timing down isn’t as easy as it looks. But when it’s done right, the person on the blanket is catapulted upwards, and candy goes flying. It makes your average trampoline look tame.

Once everyone has their turn on the blanket, the day ends at Nuiqsut’s city hall, where the village gathers for drumming, singing and dancing. The sealskin from the blanket toss becomes a dance floor at the center of the room.

A line of men in folding chairs leads the singing, keeping time with shallow hand drums. James Taalak is among them.

“I have been drumming all my life. Since infancy. Since probably before I could walk,” Taalak said with a laugh.

Taalak says nalukataq songs have been passed down for generations, heard not just in Nuiqsut, but across the Arctic, in Canada, even parts of Russia.

Some of the music has even more universal themes:

“Some songs will urge people in the crowd to come out and dance,” Taalak said. “You know, get them motivated.”

And most everyone does — elders and children, Nuiqsut residents and visitors from far away, all take their turn on the sealskin blanket.

“It’s an open celebration for anyone that’s present,” Taalak said. “There really isn’t anything held back, as far as community — not just community service, but that feeling of being welcome.”

The dancing continues into the early hours of the morning. On the wall behind the drummers, there’s a line of framed photographs of elders who have passed on: Nuiqsut’s past leaders, whaling captains and whaling captain’s wives, looking on as today’s generation carries forward the nalukataq tradition.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

Listen now

Mt. Marathon from a kid’s point of view
Mt. Marathon is one of the toughest races in the world, but kids still do the hardest stretch of the trail.

Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Facing the Chilkat Challenge

The Mount Marathon race isn’t the only big athletic event in the state this summer. Over the weekend Haines hosted athletes from Alaska, Canada and the Lower 48 for the second annual Chilkat Challenge Triathlon. During the race, competitors paddle, cycle and run a nearly 40-mile course through the Chilkat Valley.

Henry Leasia, KHNS – Haines

New law gives judges more discretion when setting bail

For the second time in six months, there’s a change coming in how defendants awaiting trial must post bail. As of January, most Alaskans charged with misdemeanor offenses didn’t have to post cash bail in order to be released from jail. But due to a new change in state law, this measure is being reversed.

Andrew Kitchenman, Alaska Public Media & KTOO – Juneau

Anchorage school vandalized

Over the weekend, a vandal ransacked an Anchorage school, causing at least a hundred thousand dollars in damages. That’s according to the Anchorage Police Department, who say they responded to an alarm call late Saturday night at Alpenglow Elementary in Eagle River.

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Study examines risk to marine mammals from increased Arctic traffic

A new study looks at how vulnerable marine mammals are to increased traffic in the Arctic.

Ravenna Koenig, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Fairbanks

Washington state carbon tax could be on ballot

A carbon tax could move forward on Washington state ballots this year. Two years ago, Washington voters rejected a different carbon tax measure.

Austin Jenkins, Northwest News Network – Olympia

Healy 2 Powerplant could run with coal again

Golden Valley Electric Association restarted and briefly operated the boiler of its coal-fired Healy 2 powerplant during a test run Monday.

Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks

SEARHC takes over city-owned hospital in Wrangell

After months of negotiations, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health consortium and Wrangell Medical Center have struck an official agreement. The tribal non-profit will take over the city-owned hospital and build a new facility within the next four years.

June Leffler, KSTK – Wrangell

Teen rescued after kayak accident

After an intensive search Tuesday a 13-year old girl was found safe on shore after her kayak capsized in Shelikov Bay, about 15 miles from Sitka.

Robert Woolsey, KCAW – Sitka

Fishing, food, and funerals during a time of mourning

Two families in Kasigluk lost loved ones in June. The deaths stopped many from going fishing for the food they need for winter. In response, state and federal fishery managers teamed up to deliver salmon to the two families in mid-June.

Anna Rose MacArthur, KYUK – Bethel

Residents of Larsen Bay are working to keep recycling alive for the population of around 70 people.

Postmaster and Larsen Bay tribal councilman Richard Henson opens a container that is doubling as a recycling center down the road from where the airport, post office, school and city building are clustered together.

Garbage bags cover one wall of the container.

“That’s probably maybe a month, two months. Mostly beer cans,” Henson said.

Henson says the number of cans increases in the summer when lodges open and guides move in. As a member of the tribal council, he helps oversee funds for recycling in the village.

“It was just years of watching the cans and garbage just build and build and build and it’s just not our community. It’s statewide,” Henson said. “There’s a lot of rural villages out there that are dealing with a lot more serious issues than we are.”

Larsen Bay was part of a federally-funded project to remove roughly 2,600 tons of scrap metal from the Kodiak Archipelago communities between 2015 and 2016. They’re working with the Indian General Assistance Program, or IGAP, to fund an ongoing recycling program.

Henson says IGAP funds – about $36,000 this year according to council staff – goes toward keeping the amount of trash and the number of aluminum cans under control.

“Cause’ that is one of the metals that you can recycle forever,” Henson said. “Just seems like a waste to not do anything with them.”

Henson says government funding is also how the community bought the multi-baler, which they purchased in 2012 for almost $18,000. It’s set up at one end of the storage container.

The machine can compact anything from 55-gallon drums to cardboard boxes.

“There’s an issue that we didn’t foresee,” Henson said. “See the grooves back in here… for some reason when you’re compacting the aluminum cans… they just fall apart.”

Henson says the city mayor is working on making some modifications to the machine to fix that problem.

Just outside the shipping container, there are several rows of large metal drums which Henson says are now empty.

“A lot of them come off of fishing vessels. They haul whatever out here, heating oil whatever, some of the gillnet sites do that,” Henson said. “Once they’re empty, they just would sit around, and if no one used them for anything, you see what’s happens to them, they just kinda start rusting and start leaking.”

Henson points to an empty spot on the property, where he says they hope to build a storage space. That way, they can process the cans, shrink wrap them and store them neatly in a nearby facility, a step which he says could make it easier for barge companies to remove the recycling.

“A lot of ‘em when they hear aluminum cans, they’re thinking garbage bags that are ripped open and smell like old beer and sticky soda and stuff like that,” Henson said.

He says Larsen Bay wants to use IGAP funds to construct the storage facility next year and strike a deal with a company to haul the recycling out of the village.

A power source failure in Anchorage Monday morning caused service issues for GCI customers across the state. According to GCI spokesperson Heather Handyside, the outage happened between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. near company headquarters.

Listen now

“What we know is that services statewide that were impacted include our wireless service, our local and long distance service,” Handyside said. “We have had some reports of video service being interrupted in Southeast communities, and we have some interruptions to internet services services in the Anchorage area.”

Handyside said a backup power system failed after several hours following the outage, but kicked in again mid-morning.

In a statement, GCI said the original problem was connected to a transformer provided through Anchorage-based electric utility, Municipal Light & Power. According to ML&P, they have since replaced the transformer and are trying to determine the exact cause of the outage.

As of around 4 p.m., GCI told KMXT that they’ve restored wireless, local and long distance service, and the majority of internet service is back statewide. They said they’re still working on returning TV access in Juneau, Kodiak, Sitka, and Valdez.

The Alaska Aerospace Corporation launched a subsidiary, Aurora Launch Services, which will focus on providing support for customers to launch vehicles with smaller satellite payloads into orbit.

Listen now

Craig Campbell, President and CEO of AAC, says it will also be cheaper because they won’t use state employees anymore, instead hiring contractors for services on demand.

“Now, you’re only paying for the launch services when you need the launch services,” Campbell said. “So, one of the problems we’ve had in the past, or one of the costs we’ve had in the past, has been keeping a large employee force paid on payroll, even when we had no launches. Now you’re only paying for the launch services when you have a customer that is going to launch from your facilities.”

Campbell says the company is wholly owned by AAC. After its 2014 launch failure, the corporation went two years without a launch and laid off many employees, but Campbell says now, business is coming back.

“The best way to now be able to address the business that we’re getting is to just pay by the drink,” Campbell said. “Bring on the people you need for the launch time that you need them and not have to pay them year round. It also is an opportunity to provide more Alaskans jobs and specifically for people that live in Kodiak.”

Most jobs will be in launch operations or facility maintenance, Campbell says. There will be a handful of full-time employees and the number of part-time employees will be flexible and determined by contracts.

Campbell says that the corporation hopes to continue range and telemetry services for a New Zealand launch site as well as add an equatorial launch site in Hawaii or the Mariana Islands in order to offer both polar and equatorial launches.

John Cramer will serve serve as the subsidiary’s president. He says there is no other company that will be able to do what Aurora will do.

“The subsidiary will be able to provide launch services to any customer anywhere in the world to be able to bring in a team to launch their vehicles,” Cramer said.

Cramer said that Aurora should fully operational within the year, and he adds that they could hire their first employees over the next couple of months.

An Alaska State Trooper who fatally shot a Copper Center man Friday, has been identified as a six-year veteran of the force. Glennallen-based Trooper Kamau Leigh, shot Eric Hash at a Copper Center residence at about 3 a.m. Friday. Troopers say family members called, saying Hash had assaulted one person, and others were in fear of being hurt.

Listen now

Troopers say Leigh fired as Hash advanced toward his patrol vehicle with a container of an “incapacitating, flammable liquid”.

Hash died after being medivaced to a hospital.

The Alaska Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting, after which the Office of Special Prosecution will make a determination on whether deadly force was justified.

Trooper Leigh was one of five officers involved in a September 2015 shooting in Fairbanks. Thirty three-year-old Vincent Perdue was killed, and 20-year-old Sarah Smoke was injured in the shooting which came at the end of a vehicle chase, during which Perdue and Smoke had fired on pursuing officers.

There’s only one historical record of a great white shark in the Bering Sea: fishermen caught one nearly 40 years ago. But scientists have reason to believe that in recent years there might be more of the predators around.

Listen now

In the past three years or so something strange has been opening its jaws to marine mammals in the Bering Sea. Seals have turned up with chewed off flippers and large bite marks. Some were beheaded.

Brandon Ahmasuk is the subsistence coordinator at Kawerak, the nonprofit arm of the Bering Straits regional Native corporation. He says killer whales have been known to maim their prey, but the bite marks that have been showing up recently look clean. Killer whales tend to tear apart their food, which got Ahmasuk thinking about great white sharks.

“When we first started getting pictures of these, we started asking local fish and game and the fisheries department, ‘could this be a shark attack?’” Ahmasuk said. “Right off the bat, we kind of got laughed at.”

Eventually, with help from Alaska Sea Grant, the pictures were sent off to a shark expert in Hawaii.

“Within five minutes we got a response back: this is a classic shark bite,” Ahmasuk said.

About seven years ago, a couple of hunters spotted a large predator in the water on the south side of St. Lawrence Island in December. It had been a warm year, and sea ice hadn’t developed on that side of the island yet.

Ahmasuk says the hunters were looking for seal, when they saw a Steller sea lion leap out of the water.

It was “trying to get his butt to the island as fast as he can,” Ahmasuk said. “Before it got to the island, it came out of the water, and all a sudden it got hit from underneath, and [the hunters saw] a shark hitting [the steller sea lion] and going down …  Nothing else came up after that, but the water was just red.”

The hunters saw what appeared to be a 16-foot long shark, which is consistent with the size of a great white.

Ahmasuk estimates there’s been about 20 reports of seal maimings, and scientists are still trying to gather more information from coastal communities before they can definitively say what’s going on.

But as the Bering Sea continues to warm, it’s not impossible to fathom: more great white sharks could be hanging around.

International seafood buyers are scheduled to visit Unalaska this month, but they don’t hail from a massive importer like China or Japan.

Listen now

They’re coming from Ukraine — a once-modest market for Alaska fish that’s slowly reemerging after political upheaval and economic crisis.

In 2013, Ukraine spent $105 million on American seafood — a record for the Eastern European nation that loves hake, pollock and salmon roe.

But two years later, those imports had plummeted more than 200 percent as the Ukrainian government was overthrown and parts of its land occupied by Russia.

Today, the country’s political conflicts are ongoing, but inflation and income have stabilized enough that foreign fish is back on the menu.

“The Ukrainian market is a growing market for U.S. seafood exports, and therefore it makes sense for Alaska to be part of that presence,” Jeremy Woodrow of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute said.

Woodrow said ASMI is organizing the Ukrainian visit to rebuild trade relationships that’ll hopefully pay off down the road.

“It’s definitely not as large as, say, Japan or China or maybe some other countries in Europe, but it is a growing market,” Woodrow said. “And it’s always good to have new customers and a growing demand for our products. It creates competition, and competition usually helps drive value.”

Woodrow said the six Ukrainian delegates represent companies that are eager to connect with Alaska seafood suppliers. They’ll tour processing plants and fishing boats in Unalaska before making stops in Juneau and Seattle.

“They’ll be interested in seeing some of the larger fisheries like pollock, as well as some of the groundfish fisheries, like halibut and cod,” Woodrow said. “And of course, it’s going to be salmon season when they’re here, so they’ll see how that operates across the state.”

While the delegates develop contacts in Alaska, Woodrow said Ukraine’s political landscape shouldn’t present any new obstacles.

Woodrow doesn’t expect anything like the new tariffs levied by China. And in fact, he said an ongoing Russian embargo on American food is only boosting interest in Alaska fish.

“We’ve actually seen some of that shift from Russia go to countries like Ukraine, who have similar customs and similar preferences in their diets,” Woodrow said. “That’s where we’ve seen some of our industry shift their focus, and that’s why it tends to be a growing market right now.”

The Ukrainian delegation will be in Unalaska July 22-25, then head to Juneau and Seattle at the very end of the month.

Passengers were stranded Thursday on a ferry tied up in Angoon for seven hours after it lost power. In that time, they were fed the galley’s melting ice cream, a fatal dogfight ensued and a seafood dinner donated by a local lodge ended up uneaten in the ship’s freezer.

Listen now

The ferry had been stuck in Angoon with 52 passengers aboard for nearly six hours. One of them, Kathleen Dean Moore, left KTOO’s newsroom a voicemail.

“I am on board the LeConte, the ferry, that is in dock in Angoon,” Moore said. “It has lost its electrical power. It is unable to open the gate that would let the people from Angoon to go home.”

The ferry’s primary generators failed and the stern door was unable to open.

“And the people in Angoon were besides themselves because their friends were waving and beckoning, and they weren’t able to get off the ferry,” Moore said in an interview Friday. “They weren’t able to get off the ferry for hours and hours and hours.”

It didn’t help that it was also one of the hottest days of the year.

“Things got bad on board because without electricity the toilets didn’t flush and so the toilets were filling up with nasty stuff,” Moore said.

A published author, Moore wrote a full account of her experience on board.

“It was an unprecedented and difficult situation without any power,” Aurah Landau, the spokeswoman for the state’s ferry system, said. “The cooling systems on board for the food and water systems were not working. So what the crew did was first they gave away all the ice cream because that’s going to melt and made sure there were liquids available, they passed out sandwiches and food.”

People brought pets up from the car deck. By this time, Moore recalled, tempers were frayed and one person’s two dogs began fighting.

“It was very difficult for people to take care of their dogs, as you can imagine,” Moore said. “It was really sweltering hot. And people were going down and trying to keep them from suffering and one dog seriously bit another dog and the little dog died on deck.”

The state Department of Transportation had a technician flown in from Juneau. Mark Powers was waiting for a grocery delivery and offered his boat to help.

“We got the mechanic aboard with the skiff,” Powers said Friday. “They were able to open the side door but they couldn’t open the stern doors of the ship.”

Powers said he could tell how desperate things were getting for those on board. The captain and crew had their hands full. He co-owns the Whaler’s Cove Lodge with his wife and figured they could help.

“I called over to them and offered to get everybody fed,” Powers said. “We didn’t really know it until about that time that they didn’t have any electricity to the galleys so they were down to I think just bread and a couple cases of bottled water.”

The lodge’s staff sprang into action.

“We pulled a bunch of crab out of our crab tanks and cooked ’em up and did some hotel pans and took them all over there,” Powers said.

By this time repairs to the generators were complete and the power was back on. The doors were opened and Angoon passengers were off the ship.

But there were around 30 passengers bound for Juneau. Kathleen Moore recalls sighting the lodge’s boat.

“We were all excited because we saw that the lodge was bringing over a skiff which was filled with a feast and it had crab and I think it was salad,” Moore said. “We thought, ‘Hooray! They’re going to feed and treat us well.’ They brought that food on board and it disappeared and we never saw it. So what we had was a sandwich. Oh yeah, and a scoop of ice cream.”

Ferry spokeswoman Aurah Landau confirmed the donated food was never served.

“The crab came on board right when the power came back on so the crew was working on getting passengers off in Angoon and then getting underway to get back to Juneau,” Landau said. “So it was late at night and they just put the crab in the freezer so that they could run the boat and get the operations going.”

Landau added that the captain had decided that if the generators couldn’t be restarted before dark he’d risk putting passengers on lifeboats. They wouldn’t spend the night aboard the disabled ferry.

Mechanical failures aboard the ferries are not uncommon. Landau said there are a number of reasons: the aging fleet and plus a $29 million cut in state funding over the past five years.

The LeConte eventually arrived in Juneau at 4:15 a.m. – eight hours late. At 10 a.m. it was back in service on a run to Haines and Skagway.

According to the National Park Service, there are no more mountaineering or ranger teams on North America’s tallest peak.

Listen now

Out of just over 1,100 climbers, 45 percent reached the summit of Denali this season. The summit rate could see some adjustment as National Park Service staff verifies the counts. While that number is slightly below average, one statistic thankfully stayed at zero this year.

According to Denali National Park spokeswoman Maureen Gualtieri, there have been no fatalities in the Alaska Range this year. She says this is the first time in fifteen years that there has not been either a medical or climbing related death in the range.

While the season is done on Denali, climbing in the Alaska Range will continue in various forms. The annual climbing summary includes statistics on search and rescue operations and a medical summary as well as sections on new climbing routes and interesting climbs. The 2018 report will be completed and released in the coming months.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

Listen now

GCI customers lose service statewide

Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak

A power source failure in Anchorage this morning caused service issues for GCI customers across the state.

Some Alaska Native corporations have ties to ICE detention centers

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Some of the outrage over the separation of families at the southern border has spilled over to the government contractors who work in migrant detention. And several of those contractors are Alaska Native corporations.

Trooper identified in fatal Copper Center shooting

Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks

An Alaska State Trooper who fatally shot a Copper Center man Friday, has been identified as a six-year veteran of the force.

Kuskokwim River opens 24/7 to subsistence gillnet fishing

Anna Rose MacArthur, KYUK – Bethel

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in consultation with the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, lifted its federal restrictions Friday, July 6, beginning at 3 p.m.

Calista shareholders maintain balance of power at tense annual meeting

Teresa Cotsirilos, KYUK – Bethel

The ongoing power struggle within Calista’s upper leadership reached a stalemate on Friday night. After hours of public comment at a particularly tense annual meeting, shareholders opted to maintain the Calista Regional Native Corporation’s current balance of power.

Alaska Aerospace Corporation launches subsidiary with focus on satellites

Daysha Eaton, KMXT – Kodiak

The Alaska Aerospace Corporation launched a subsidiary, Aurora Launch Services, which will focus on providing support for customers to launch vehicles with smaller satellite payloads into orbit.

Melted ice cream and uneaten crab: misery aboard the ferry LeConte

Jacob Resneck, KTOO – Juneau

A power failure aboard the LeConte kept the doors from opening and passengers couldn’t disembark in Angoon. During that time, they were fed the galley’s melting ice cream, a fatal dog fight ensued and a seafood dinner donated by a local lodge ended up uneaten in the ship’s freezer.

Judge OKs city’s $275,000 payout to Juneau family

Jacob Resneck, KTOO – Juneau

The settlement goes to the family of a fourth-grader partially blinded by a soccer ball in PE class. It’s by far the largest cash payout by the City and Borough of Juneau in recent years.

Denali climbing season ends, with zero fatalities

Phillip Manning, KTNA – Talkeetna

According to the National Park Service, there are no more mountaineering or ranger teams on North America’s tallest peak.

Ukrainian seafood buyers want to connect with Unalaska’s fisheries

Laura Kraegel, KUCB – Unalaska

International seafood buyers are scheduled to visit Unalaska this month, but they don’t hail from a massive importer like China or Japan.

Are great white sharks sinking their teeth into Bering Sea seals?

Elizabeth Jenkins, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

In the past three years or so, Brandon Ahmasuk says something strange has been opening its jaws to marine mammals in the Bering Sea.

Eleven people have survived an airplane crash Tuesday morning on Prince of Wales Island, and were back in Ketchikan early Tuesday afternoon.

Listen now

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the plane crashed on Mount Jumbo on POW, ending up about 2,000 feet up the mountain.

Petty Officer Charly Hengen said the Coast Guard dispatched two rescue helicopters out of Air Station Sitka, and they were joined by Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad personnel.

Visibility was poor, which delayed the rescue, but eventually, rescue crews were able to locate the downed plane.

“One of the Jayhawk helicopter crews did hoist all 11 people from the crash site. They then took them to a staging area,” Hengen said. “At that staging area, there was room enough for the helicopter to land, plus around six or seven other contracted-out helicopters were there, along with emergency medical personnel.”

Hengen said the medical personnel assessed injuries, and those who needed medical attention were taken directly to PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center for treatment. Others were brought to Ketchikan.

Chris John of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad said all the passengers were brought to Temsco helicopters in Ketchikan, and were met by what he estimated were all the ambulances on the island.

John said it’s gratifying to be part of a plane-crash rescue where everyone survives. Hengen agreed.

“We are very relieved that we were able to locate them as quickly as we did with the coordination, and thankful to have the Ketchikan mountain rescue volunteers on standby as well, being able to help out and being available to help as needed,” Hengen said.

Hengen said in an earlier interview that the pilot had activated the craft’s emergency locator, which helped in the rescue efforts. He also was the one to call and report the accident.

Hengen couldn’t confirm the airline that owns the plane, but other media outlets have reported it was a Taquan-operated de Havilland Otter.  A call to Taquan seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned.

At the time of this report, Clint Johnson of the National Transportation Safety Board also had not returned a call seeking information.

This story has been updated.

A judge has approved a $275,000 settlement for the family of a Juneau elementary school student injured in a PE class.

Listen now

Court documents said the Harborview Elementary fourth-grader was hit in the face by a soccer ball in 2016. The youngster suffered a concussion and was permanently blinded in one eye.

The family sued in February accusing the elementary PE teacher of inadequate training.

“The settlement is the product of a negotiation and compromise between the parties,” the family’s attorney Matt Singer said outside the courtroom. “The case involved an unfortunate and significant injury and we think it reflects a fair compromise for both parties.”

Judge Trevor Stephens approved the terms of the settlement Monday in Juneau Superior Court. In it, the school district admits no wrongdoing.

“The Juneau School District admits no fault – there was no fault,” Clay Keene, the Ketchikan-based attorney retained by the city last August, said. “The decision to settle this matter was a business decision on the part of the district and the CBJ.”

The city spent about $105,000 in legal defense since at least August 2017. Add the settlement, and the total cost of the case rises to $380,000.

But the city’s insurance will cover all costs above $250,000. That makes the amount of tax money spent a quarter million dollars – still by far the highest payout in recent years.

“I don’t know of another claim like this that’s happened for some time with the city or the school district,” Jennifer Mannix, the city’s risk management officer, said. She directs payouts from the city’s $7.7 million risk management fund.

There have been few large cash settlements – until this one.

“We’ve had a good five years as far as no large claims in the general liability area,” Mannix said.

The net proceeds of the six-digit settlement will be held in trust until the child turns 18 years old.

Editor’s Note: KTOO isn’t naming the family out of concern for the child’s privacy.

U.S. Coast Guard and Alaska law enforcement agencies seized 56 grams of heroin, an ounce of methamphetamine and almost two pounds of non-commercial marijuana in a large-scale search for illegal activity on ferries in Washington state and Alaska.

Listen now

According to a press release, Coast Guard investigated ferries in Bellingham, Wash., Kodiak, and Ketchikan between June 24 and July 2.

Coast Guard members from across the state and the West Coast worked together with local police and Alaska State Troopers to inspect more than 1,500 passengers, 400 crew members and 500 vehicles during that time.

Their search included the use of drug-sniffing dogs.

Lt. Cmdr. Bernie Auth, who helped coordinate the operation, said joint operations help strengthen relationships between law enforcement agencies and encourage the sharing of resources and abilities.

Auth adds that a major goal is to deter and detect the transportation of illegal items via the sea.

“Just with the Coast Guard being a maritime service, we know that’s one of the ways that illegal activity can be make it up to the state and throughout the state, so we want to do everything we can do eliminate that,” Auth said.

This is the second operation the Coast Guard and their partners have completed together, Auth said. The last one was in March.