Tag Archives: Sun’aq Tribe

Phyl Frets and Sophie Frets at a 2015 Northern Edge protest in Kodiak. (Photo Courtesy of Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak) Daysha Eaton/KMXT After requests from Gulf of Alaska communities that the U.S. Military reschedule or cancel its Northern Edge exercises in the Gulf, officials recently announced they’ll go ahead and hold the training this spring. Northern Edge involves all five …

Crew digs for clams on Mission beach. (Photo by Kayla Desroches / KMXT) Kayla Desroches/KMXT Kodiak tribal organizations are looking at how many clams are nestled in local beaches. Shellfish are a popular subsistence food on the island, and the Sun’aq Tribe, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and the Kodiak Area Native Association are surveying the density of the local …

Kelly Krueger and Randy Boskofsky downloading measurements from a buoy. (Photo by Mitch Borden/KMXT) Mitch Borden/KMXT A few years ago a runway at the Kodiak Benny Benson State Airport was extended into Chiniak Bay near the mouth of the Buskin River. This construction project raised some concerns about how the extension could affect the Buskin River’s salmon population, among other …

Breaching humpback whale. (Photo by Antarctica Bound/Flickr) Mitch Borden/KMXT The Sun’aq tribe is working on partnering with the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network so some of its staff can respond to alive and dead whales that wash ashore in the Kodiak Archipelago. Kelly Krueger, a biologist for the Sun’aq Tribe, was one of the people who came face-to-face with one …

Mitch Borden/KMXT At the  Kodiak City Council’s work session tonight, there will be a presentation about the Sun’aq Tribe’s Tribal Transportation Program, also known as TTP, and projects it’d like to collaborate with the city on. In a letter to assistant city manager Matthew Van Daele, the Sun’aq Tribe’s Transportation Coordinator Randy Boskofsky outlines some tasks the two organizations could …

Signal crayfish are not native to Alaska. Discovered in the Buskin River in 2001, the population is now well established and breeding. Lisa Hupp/USFWS Kayla Desroches/KMXT What kind of threat do invasive crayfish in Alaska pose to subsistence resources? That’s a question the Sun’aq Tribe won a grant to study. The award was announced Tuesday. Tribal biologist Kelly Krueger says …

Jessica Rich with unconscious young male bear. Jerry Belant / Mississippi State University Kayla Desroches/KMXT A small number of people ever get to touch a Kodiak bear in their lifetime. Sun’aq Tribe wildlife intern, Jessica Rich, had the opportunity multiple times this summer. She participated in a study looking at how foresting could be affecting elk and bear populations on …

Students and teachers in classroom in the Afognak building on Near Island during pilot semester. Kayla Desroches/KMXT Kayla Desroches/KMXT A preschool designed to immerse children in the Alutiiq language is about to enter its first full semester of classes. The Administration for Native Americans granted the Sun’aq tribe roughly $2 million dollars to establish the nest school. It wrapped up …

Kayla Desroches/KMXT The U.S. Navy has pinned down what the naval exercises in the Gulf of Alaska will look like for the next few years, and the new plan reflects input from Gulf of Alaska communities and tribal entities. The Navy conducts a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement every five years, and after consultation with the public, tribes, and state governmental …

Father Innocent Dresdow performs service on the remains in the room where they’re being kept, in a lower level of the Alutiiq Museum. Photo by April Laktonen Counceller / Alutiiq Museum Kayla Desroches/KMXT After years of work, ancestral remains from a 19th century settlement on Chirikof Island have returned home. In the 1960s, archaeologists removed the bones from Chirikof, which …