KNBA News

After two seasons without a commercial fishery, herring stocks in Sitka Sound are on the rebound, according to state scientists tracking the data. But subsistence users are skeptical : What herring there are in the Sound seem to be both thinly distributed and moving farther out of reach, suggesting that stocks remain stressed. Sitka’s commercial herring fishery never opened this past spring, and several factors contributed. In an industry where size matters, the fish were too young and too small

For more than 30 years, a bronze statue of Russian colonial administrator Alexander Baranov has stood in front of one of Sitka’s most prominent government buildings. But not for much longer, following action July 14, 2020, by the Sitka Assembly. Just before the assembly met, a group of around 120 demonstrators gathered around the statue of Alexander Baranov in downtown Sitka to call for the statue’s removal . They stood in silence, though signs that read “Remove It Now” and “Real Leaders

Broadband internet access in Alaska’s village can be difficult, spotty and, with few local options, expensive. A program from the Federal Communications Commission is giving Tribes across the country the opportunity to claim licenses that would allow them to provide broadband to their communities . To understand what the 2.5 Ghz spectrum is, Mariel Triggs suggests thinking about it like a radio signal. She’s the CEO of MuralNet, a nonprofit tech company that helps Tribal communities across the

Join award-winning journalist and broadcaster Tripp J Crouse (Ojibwe) on each episode of KNBA News to hear the important stories and news from around the state of Alaska and beyond. Click the link for your preferred platform: Google Podcast | iTunes | NPR | Stitcher | RSS You can hear KNBA News every weekday at 7:30 a.m. on 90.3 KNBA, Alaska's Native voice. Or via the web stream at knba.org or the KNBA app . KNBA is a subsidiary of Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and is based in Anchorage, Alaska.

State financial regulators have fined a Goldbelt Inc. shareholder over a Facebook post complaining of inaction by the state agency responsible for financial oversight of the corporate board. This comes as the state’s broad powers over shareholder speech is under review by the Alaska Supreme Court. Goldbelt shareholder Ray Austin complained to regulators in 2018 that board members were breaking the rules by not filing financial disclosures. “It’s important that board members disclose any conflict

The Elders and Youth Conference will be held virtually this year out of concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. According to a news release from First Alaskans Institute, the 37th annual conference will be held online in an effort to protect the health of attendees and communities at-large. La quen náay Liz Medicine Crow is the president and CEO of First Alaskans Institute. She says that the cultural knowledge and expertise in surviving pandemics and epidemics made the choice of going virtual

Alaska’s summer is short, but one of the ways it softens the farewell each fall is through a parting gift of delicious berries. In the late summer and early fall, Kenai Peninsula residents regularly flock to the wild lands for salmonberries, cranberries, blueberries, and crowberries and more. Like everything, berry plants are being affected by the changes in the environment as climate change increases the temperature, lengthens the summer and, in many cases, dries it out. But according to

NovaGold, one of the companies developing the proposed Donlin Gold mine, has filed a lawsuit against a short-selling research firm. That firm released a report in May opining that the proposed Donlin Gold mine would not be built, and that NovaGold was overvalued. The short-selling research firm J Capital Research and their clients make money from stock prices dropping. The firm released a report making the case that the proposed Donlin Gold mine is not going to be built because it’s too

Five sacred Tlingit items could be returned to Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. A notice published in the federal register on Monday stated the items were “acquired” by William P. Palmer III and given to the University of Maine in 1982. The items now reside in the university’s museum. They include a shaman’s pipe and mask and other items placed near grave sites or associated with death ceremonies. Under federal law , such cultural or sacred objects belong to Indigenous

An effort to institute term limits for Sealaska’s 13-member board of directors has failed despite receiving a majority of ‘yes’ votes from shareholders. Similar term-limit measures also failed to advance in 2016 and 2012 . The longest serving member is former state Sen. Albert Kookesh of Angoon, who’s been on Sealaska’s Board of Directors since 1976. This year’s measure faced a steep hill to climb. It needed more than 1 million shares directed by shareholders to succeed. But it still fell short