https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240906-News-Update.wav In this newscast: Juneau Police Department say they will release body camera footage from July’s fatal police shooting early next week, along with findings from the Alaska Office of Special Prospecutions Investigation into the incident. The Alaska Democratic Party is suing t…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240905-News-Update.wav In this newscast: Homeowners in the Mendenhall Valley are cleaning up and making repairs after last month’s record-breaking glacial outburst flood. They say it’s hard to know what kind of flood mitigation will protect them next year. Advocates for the “Ship Free Saturday” ba…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240903-News-Update.wav In this newscast: A state agency that’s been awarding annual grants to Alaska libraries cut some of its stipend this year, and smaller rural libraries may suffer. For Tongass Voices, Nutaaq Doreen Simmonds is an Inupiaq actor starring in “Cold Case” a play opening this weeke…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240903.wav In this newscast: A widespread internet outage in Sitka continued into the weekend. Underwater anthropologist Kelly Monteleone kicks off Sealaska Heritage Institute’s fall lecture series this week. A new project helps provides communities with data in…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240830-News-Update.mp3 In the newscast: Heavy rainfall is coming to Southeast Alaska this weekend, beginning Friday afternoon, An advocacy group is telling Juneau residents to vote no on a proposition set to appear on the local ballot this fall. It’s about whether large cruise ships should be bann…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240829-News-Update.mp3 In this newscast: A new partnership between a cruise ship company and a local Alaska Native corporation aims to improve internet in the downtown area during the cruise season, Juneau’s Echo Ranch Bible Camp is among the places where a California man allegedly abused boys ove…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240828-News-Update.mp3 In this newscast: Teams of scientists, engineers and meteorologists continue their work assessing the steep hillside in Ketchikan following Sunday’s fatal landslide, The annual State of the Climate report is out, Officials say the Covenant House youth homeless shelter in Anc…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240827-News-Update.mp3 In this newscast: US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has finalized a decision to maintain protections for 28 million acres of wilderness lands across Alaska, known as “D-1” lands, Ketchikan residents describe a chaotic scene in the minutes and hours after a landslide r…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240826-News-Update.mp3 In this newscast: Southeast Alaska health officials say cases of pertussis, commonly called whooping cough, are up in Juneau, Emergency crews responded to a large landslide that killed one person and destroyed several houses in Ketchikan on Sunday, A bellweather trial is beg…

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240823-NewsUpdate.mp3 In this newscast: A new program in Gustavus will provide residents with money for heat pumps, The family of a man who was shot and killed by law enforcement in Juneau in July say they’re still waiting for answers, Alaskans have limited access to medicinal and recreational psy…

A paper boat made by KTOO staff braves Gold Creek. July 11, 2024. (Photo by Clarise Larson/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/cj_race-2.mp3 Alaskans celebrate the Fourth of July in a myriad of ways, whether it’s log-rolling competitions, launching cars off of cliffs, or jumping high in the air in the blanket toss. Do you have a …

This wind turbine on Gastineau Channel generates just under 10% of the electricity needed to run Juneau’s Coast Guard station. (Photo by KTOO/Clarise Larson)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/27CJwind.wav On a windy day in Juneau, you can see state flags fluttering along Egan Drive or a bald eagle coasting over Gastineau Channel. On …

Gary Waid points to the man depicted on the “Raven discovering mankind in a clamshell” mural at City Hall on Monday, June 11, 2024. The man is modeled off of Waid in the ’80s. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CJmuralMP3.mp3 Spanning an outside wall of City Hall in downtown Juneau, there’s a 10-and-a-half by 61-…

People walking at Aanchg̱altsóow, or Auke Recreation Area, on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CJAukeRec.mp3 Every other June, canoes — or yaakw — arrive at a beach in Juneau. With carved formline paddles in hand, Southeast Alaska Native people row for days to get there. They come for …

A raven sits on the roof of the Foodland grocery store on Thursday, May 16 2024. (Photo by Anna Canny/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/16CJravens-new.wav Marc Wheeler lives in downtown Juneau, close to the Foodland grocery store. He often stops there for lunch. That’s when he sees the parking lot’s resident ravens. “I’ll be li…

The De Hart’s gas station in Auke Bay charged $3.49 per gallon on Feb. 15, 2024. (Katie Anastas/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/12CJgas.mp3 On a sunny Saturday at the Fisherman’s Bend gas station back in February, Juneau resident Joyce Sepel was filling up her tank. She said the Auke Bay gas station is her favorite. “I’ve bee…

Signs tell Juneau residents where to deposit their recyclables at the city Recycling Center in Lemon Creek. (Photo by Adelyn Baxter/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/05CJRecycling.mp3 Editor’s Note: After we finished this story, a power outage forced the city’s recycling center to close for repairs. The city’s public works depa…

Makenzie O’Halloran makes a sandwich at Subway in the Mendenhall Valley on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CJfastcurious3.wav Fast-food restaurants have come and gone from Juneau for decades — but very few stick around for long. Beyond Subway, McDonald’s, Domino’s, Papa John’s and Papa…

The Salvation Army Family Store on a busy Saturday donation day in February 2024 (Photo by Anna Canny/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/26cjthrift.wav Dick Wood wrestled white garbage bags and cardboard boxes from the backseat of his beat up red car. There were children’s books, toys and clothes that once belonged to Wood’s son…

Snow dusts trees on a mountain in Juneau on Nov. 30, 2023. (Katie Anastas/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CJnames_lede.mps_.mp3 Anywhere you go in Juneau, there are mountains shooting up…

Alaska’s Capitol has a ground floor and a first floor. It’s relatively uncommon in American buildings. (Katie Anastas/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/24capitol.wav When Americans walk into a multi-story building, they’d usually say they’re on the first floor. Not in the lobby of Alaska’s Capitol building. “It has a very Europ…

A jumble of fallen trees at Auke Nu Cove caught the attention of a Curious Juneau listener (Photo by Anna Canny/KTOO) https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/26microbursts.wav If you look across Auke Nu Cove from the parking lot at the Juneau ferry terminal, there’s a strange patch of fallen trees — about a dozen — that are splayed out in…

A Coast Guardsmen working on the recovery of the 81-year-old tugboat Tagish, which sank just south of Juneau’s cruise ship docks in December, 2022. (Courtesy of Coast Guard Sector Juneau)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/29CoastGuard_adjusted.mp3 At a Coast Guard change-of-command ceremony on Thursday, about 30 active-duty Coast Gua…

A sign at the airport tells drivers to go no faster than 19 1/2 mph. (Katie Anastas/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/05sign.wav On a rainy afternoon at the Airport Dike Trail, Laura Minne is walking her dog, Bodhi. Over on the airport side of the fence, a speed limit sign tells drivers to go no faster than 19 ½ miles per hour.…

Charles McKenry poses in front of the menu at Juneau’s downtown Taco Bell in 1999. (Photo courtesy of Charles McKenry)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/03TacoBell.mp3 In the late ’90s, Juneau had two Taco Bells. But by the early 2000s, they were both gone. Juneau has a history of fast food franchises coming and going, but the disapp…

A street light near the Juneau Public Library glows purple on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. (Photo by Bridget Dowd/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/24PurpleLights.mp3 On a foggy Sunday night in Juneau, the corner of Ferry Way and Marine Way is made eerie by a violet glow coming from a nearby street light. It’s just one of several lig…

A Maloja Snake or naagáas’ cloud formation over downtown Juneau at dawn on Aug. 26, 2021. (Image captured from SnowCloud Services webcam) In the 2014 film “Clouds of Sils Maria,” the climax of the story features a scene in the Swiss Alps where the two lead actresses, Kristen Stewart and Juliette Binoche, hike up high in the mountains to witness an …

The 1958-1959 girls’ high school rifle club poses for a yearbook photo in the basement of Harborview. (Courtesy of Karleen Grummett) As part of KTOO’s Curious Juneau project, a listener asked: “Was there really a gun range in the basement of Harborview Elementary School?” The short answer is yes. It was there for decades, and there are plenty of pe…

There were two giant hurdles preventing cruise ships from coming back to Alaska in April when they usually start showing up. For one, the Canadian border is still closed. Also, the CDC banned cruises last year. And even though it lifted that ban, it was replaced with a Conditional Sailing Order that came with a long list of hoops that cruise compan…

This summer was slated to be Juneau’s biggest ever for cruise ship visitors. Instead, 1.4 million cruise ship passengers and hundreds of millions of dollars never arrived in port. In May, we couldn’t imagine what an entire year of off-season would be like. It ended up feeling like summer never came. But, how bad was it? Will the industry bounce bac…

Since this spring, we’ve been following along as the biggest cruise season in Juneau’s history got canceled. In August, Juneau did see some cruise visitors after all. But it was a far cry from the 1.4 million visitors we were expecting -- it was 36 to be exact. The first and only cruise ship to sail in Southeast Alaska during the pandemic left June…

For the past several months, it’s been a lot of “will they or won’t they” with regard to the cruise industry coming to Alaska this year. And now that it’s clear that they won’t, cruise towns in southeast Alaska are thinking about next year. The hope is that by the time April rolls around, the pandemic will be on its way out or cruise ship companies…

A lot about Juneau’s future is up in the air still, but one thing is certain now: more than a million cruise ship passengers will not be coming to town this summer. Local businesses are already struggling to get by without tourists. By next year, Juneau could look like a very different place. It all depends on how the industry, and the world, recov…

An Alaska cruise is all about the scenery. And Juneau doesn’t disappoint. There’s a glacier in town and some of the best whale-watching in the world. But, this episode is about how Alaska can make some people squirm. Because climate change is so in-your-face here. And at some point, tourism is just going to be too much, but no one knows when exactl…

Safety at sea is serious business. And as the industry continues its explosive growth in Juneau, safety concerns are at the top of everyone’s list. In this episode, we ask what’s the worst thing that could happen? And we talk to the people who have thought about how to prepare for it.

What we know as Juneau has been the home of the Aak’w Kwaan since time immemorial. Some cruise ship tourists are curious about the people who were here long before Cruise Town and long before Juneau. In this episode, we’ll meet the cultural interpreters with the difficult task of explaining their history, their culture, their art — their existence …

Juneauites are a lot like whales. Some are year-round residents -- enduring or even thriving during the cold and wet off-season. But some migrate in for the summer -- making a splash when they arrive and then leaving again, chasing prey or love or something else equally magnetic. On this episode, we’ll meet some of the year-round and part-time resi…

Juneau has a new park featuring a life-size statue of a humpback whale breaching from a reflecting pool, complete with water works. The statue was privately funded, but the park where it lives was almost entirely paid for by a controversial per-person tax on cruise ship passengers. It was one of the first taxes of its kind and the cruise industry a…

On this episode, we go back -- not to the 1880s when Juneau was founded and steamships started coming north, but to the 1980s when Juneau made a conscious decision to change its destiny. We meet two people who were there when an old mining town sold its history and transformed itself into Cruise Town.…

This year, cruise ship passengers outnumbered local residents in Juneau 35 to 1. That’s why the KTOO news team is making a podcast about how we got here, what it’s like to live here and what the city’s future holds in light of the industry’s explosive growth.

https://media.ktoo.org/2019/05/28GOLDDREDGE-CJ-NPR1.mp3 It’s after work, and the summer sun and the tide are out at John Wright’s go-to fishing spot in Juneau: the wide, sandy beach where Sheep Creek meets Gastineau Channel. “I’ve been fly fishing in Alaska — Juneau specifically — for seven years. I’ve been fly fishing for 20 years. I’m 32, so that…

Even in the middle of the workday on Tuesday, there’s steady traffic at Costco in Juneau. The city assessor’s records put its total square footage at 76,696. (Photo by Jeremy Hsieh/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/2019/03/28COSTCO-CJ.mp3 The other day, Phil Fleming was loading up a car in the parking lot of the Costco in Juneau. He said a salty version …