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Normally bustling with workers, Peter Pan’s boardwalks and bunkhouses are now empty.
By Hal Bernton for ProPublica and Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal
This article was produced in a partnership with ProPublica, Northern Journal and the Anchorage Daily News.
Last summer, an unsettling quiet cloaked the isolated Southwest Alaska community of King Cove as the town’s economic engine — a sprawling seafood processing plant — sat shuttered.
Bunkhouses, once filled with hundreds of workers during the peak salmon harvest, were vacant. Four diesel generators that had rumbled day and night were stilled. The plant docks, once lined with boats and circled by fish-scavenging gulls, were empty.
The closure resulted from the financial implosion of the plant’s owner, Peter Pan Seafood. Some local fishing boat captains directed their ire at company leaders who accepted their seafood, then failed to pay them.(more…)
Sand Point is without access to fuel after a fire broke out at the local Trident Seafoods plant.
The fire started early Thursday morning, pausing the processor’s operations, including its fuel sales, which the small eastern Aleutian community relies on.
Sand Point Police Chief Benjamin Allen said the lack of fuel is the biggest concern at the moment.
“Nobody can get gas right now,” Allen said. “[Trident] has to get clearance from the Coast Guard before they can start the gas pumps back up again.”
Allen said he doesn’t know how long that will take, but Trident has been working to get things going again.
“During the incident, their generator threw a connecting rod out the side of the engine block and it ruptured the fuel line to the generator,” Allen said. “And there was a good bit of diesel on the surface of the water that Trident’s been cleaning up.”
The small fire started in the generator room of the facility around 1 a.m. Thursday, according to Trident’s Vice President of Global Communications Alexis Telfer.
2025 AML Sockeye Classic:
Final Score: Sand Point Eagles (65) Vs. Koliganek Huskies (34) – Boys
3:30PM on Saturday, January 25th, 2025
Naknek Middle/High School
Announcer – Rivera
AEB Fishermen’s Meeting
FRIDAY November 22, 2024 10AM
via Teams/virtual meeting
Teams meeting will be held at Aleutians East Borough meeting places –
• Sand Point Borough Office
• King Cove Borough Office
• False Pass City Office
• Nelson Lagoon Tribal office
• Anchorage AEB office conference room
Fishermen wishing to logon individually should contact the Natural Resources Department for
login info.
Meeting also scheduled to be broadcast live on local radio KSDP and at www.apradio.org
Draft Agenda
• Board of Fisheries update
• North Pacific Fishery Management Council items
• Groundfish Plan Teams update
• Alaska Legislative Seafood Industry Task Force, other meetings
• AEB projects
• Fishermen’s open forum
For more information, please contact Aleutians East Borough:
Natural Resources Director Ernie Weiss 907-274-7557 eweiss@aeboro.org or
AEB Fishery Analyst Charlotte Levy 907-274-7566 clevy@aeboro.org
The At-Sea Processors Association, which represents Alaska’s pollock industry, has announced that its longtime leader is preparing to retire.
In a statement Monday, the group said former Unalaska resident Stephanie Madsen will step down at the end of the year. Madsen has been with the association since 2007, following nearly five decades in fisheries. She was also the first woman to chair the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Matt Tinning, who has worked with the association for about five years and led sustainability initiatives, will succeed Madsen as executive director.
The trade group represents five companies operating 15 large catcher-processor vessels in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. Madsen’s retirement comes as the industry faces ongoing scrutiny over pelagic trawling.
Earlier this year, Rep. Mary Peltola introduced legislation that would heavily restrict the trawl fishery, which Madsen warned would create “unworkable and burdensome new federal mandates.”
The association said Madsen will retire at year’s end after 18 years as its executive director.
A judge in Anchorage has dismissed the case against Danielle Gould, a King Cove woman who faced felony charges related to a fatal vehicle accident in March 2023. Gould was accused of driving under the influence and refusing a chemical test after her truck struck and killed a pedestrian.
According to court documents, the King Cove Police Department responded to a collision early one morning, where a pedestrian was critically injured and later died from his injuries. The victim’s identity has not been released.
Luka Loi, a passenger in Gould’s vehicle at the time of the accident, told investigators that Gould had been driving at a high speed after leaving a local bar when she struck the pedestrian. Police officers at the scene reported that Gould appeared intoxicated, noting her slurred speech and unsteady movements. Gould refused to undergo field sobriety tests and declined to provide a breath sample for alcohol testing.
The State of Alaska charged Gould with felony DUI and for refusing a chemical test, as well as manslaughter. However, the case was dismissed in a confidential ruling earlier this month.
A state prosecutor indicated plans to file to reopen the case but did not provide details on the grounds for the dismissal. The state has one month to take further action.
It’s unclear how the sale will affect King Cove, which relied on the processing facility as its main economic driver until it closed in January.
A Washington state judge approved a deal on Thursday giving the assets of Peter Pan Seafoods to the company’s former co-owner Rodger May, a decision that follows months of controversy over the seafood processing company, which ceased operations this year.
May placed the winning bid for the company’s assets at auction last month, but the sale wasn’t approved until Thursday’s hearing, when King County Judge Steven Olsen signed the motion to approve the $37.3 million sale, which includes processing plants in Port Moller, Dillingham and King Cove.
“I really haven’t heard anybody say that the receiver failed to comply with that order approving the sale,” Olsen said.
Peter Pan Seafood Company was placed into a court-ordered receivership back in April at the request of Wells Fargo, which pointed to more than $60 million in debt owed by the Alaskan processing company. A receivership is a process similar to bankruptcy, but intended to protect a company’s lender. Both Wells Fargo and the court-appointed receiver, the Los Angeles-based Stapleton Group, supported the deal proposed by May.
However, more than 90 Alaska fishermen in August signed a letter that opposed selling Peter Pan’s assets back to May, saying that May had broken the fishing community’s trust by not paying fishermen.
“Mr. Rodger May and co-owners have done irreparable harm to the many people and their families that make their living from the commercial fisheries on the Alaska Peninsula,” they wrote. “There are still many fishermen that have not been paid for fish they delivered as well as vendors and tenders not being paid for goods and services provided.”
It’s unclear how the sale will affect King Cove, which relied on the processing facility as its main economic driver until it closed in January.
May acquired Peter Pan back in 2020 with the backing of California-based RRG Capital Management and McKinley Capital Management, which used funds from the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s in-state investment program.
May attended the meeting on Zoom but did not speak during the hearing. May also did not respond to a request for comment from KUCB.
Ravn Alaska, one of only two commercial airlines offering regular passenger service from Anchorage to the Aleutian Islands, says it’s suspending scheduled service to Unalaska, Cold Bay and Sand Point, effective Aug. 16.
The company announced the decision in an email to customers. A statement posted to the company’s website Tuesday afternoon said the airline was looking to focus on other Alaska destinations.
Ravn is still offering flights from Anchorage to Homer, Valdez, St. Paul Island and Unalakleet.
“This change comes as part of a broader initiative to optimize operations and ensure long-term sustainability and growth for the airline. By reallocating resources and capacity, Ravn Alaska/New Pacific Airlines aims to enhance service reliability and customer satisfaction across its core network,” the statement said.
Ravn representatives declined interview requests.
“This was not an easy decision, but it is a necessary step in our long-term strategy to strengthen the overall success of our airline and this shift allows us to concentrate on routes where we can make the most significant impact,” the company said.
The company’s frequently asked questions page on its website says the airline will issue refunds to ticket holders, which will be processed by the end of the month.
“Refunds will be processed within 14 business days from the suspension date [Aug. 16],” the page says. “The exact time frame may vary depending on your bank or payment method.”
New Pacific Airlines, Ravn’s sister brand, announced in April that it would halt scheduled service to focus on chartering its Boeing 757.
Air travel to the Aleutians has been mired in turmoil since a fatal accident in 2019 led to the bankruptcy of the region’s previous carrier RavnAir. The new Ravn Alaska began operating in the region in 2020 after several months without a commercial airline serving the Aleutians.
Ravn’s decision to pare back its routes leaves Aleutian Airways as the only airline with scheduled passenger flights from Anchorage to Unalaska, Sand Point and Cold Bay.
The Peter Pan processing plant in Dillingham, Alaska. (Meg Duff/KDLG)
This spring, Peter Pan Seafoods was put into a receivership by a Washington state court after the company became unable to pay its bills. Silver Bay Seafoods stepped in to operate Peter Pan’s plants in Dillingham and in Port Moller. It also put in a bid for some of Peter Pan’s assets. But then, one of Peter Pan’s owners came back with a counter offer—and an accusation: that the bidding process wasn’t fair. He recently scored a victory in that battle.
Reporter Kirsten Dobroth has been covering Peter Pan for Undercurrent News. She spoke with KDLG’s Meg Duff about this summer’s developments.
Meg Duff: Peter Pan Seafoods was a fixture in Bristol Bay for decades, but last year, the company ran out of money and could no longer pay its debts. It didn’t go bankrupt, exactly; instead, it was put into receivership. Can you explain what happened?
Kirsten Dobroth: Right. So, bankruptcy is typically a voluntary legal process where a company in financial trouble would seek out protection from collections. In this case, Wells Fargo, which is Peter Pan’s major lender, petitioned a court in King County, Washington back in April to place the company in a receivership, which is a way for creditors to recover debt. Another difference is that a receivership is involuntary and allows a court to appoint a neutral party to sell off assets and pay back that debt.
Duff: Okay got it, and that request from Wells Fargo was granted by the court back in April.
Dobroth: Yeah, exactly. Wells Fargo said in its request that Peter Pan had missed payroll and owed tens of millions of dollars, and the court appointed a fiduciary group based in California to be the receiver.
Duff: Peter Pan’s King Cove processing facility is now closed, and Silver Bay is running its Dillingham facility and its Port Moller facility. But Silver Bay doesn’t actually own those facilities. Not yet anyway. What’s going on there?
Dobroth: Well, exactly that so far. Before this all happened, Silver Bay said that its plans for this summer in Dillingham and Port Moller were part of its long term restructuring plan. Since then, Silver Bay has reiterated that it intends to work with Peter Pan’s court appointed receiver on any long term plans for the facilities. But there hasn’t been a lot of news, at least as far as acquisitions from Peter Pan, outside of that.
Duff: This summer, while folks in Bristol Bay have been busy fishing, Silver Bay put in a bid. Then Peter Pan owner Rodger May swooped in to counter bid. Tell us the story of that bidding war.
Dobroth: I think it’s important to get out in front and say anything we know about these bids are coming from claims made by Peter Pan’s co-owner Rodger May in court documents. So there’s not really a paper trail to look at and say this person offered this much for this processing plant. That being said, Rodger May has argued – again, in court filings – that the process hasn’t fairly estimated the worth of some of Peter Pan’s assets. He says in one instance he learned of a bid from Silver Bay for some of those assets and put in his own offer, which wasn’t accepted. I guess one of the more concrete things I can say is that in the last week, Rodger May asked the court to approve his request to purchase eight Peter Pan assets, including the Port Moller processing facility and the fuel business in King Cove.
Duff: Oh interesting! So May is still trying to get some of Peter Pan’s assets back, but it’s not really clear if he is trying to get everything back.
Dobroth: Right.
Duff: In addition to claiming that Silver Bay had an unfair advantage, May also claimed that Peter Pan owed him money. What did the court say about those claims?
Dobroth: Yeah, again in court filings, Rodger May has argued that he and his wife are also Peter Pan creditors and owed about $40 million. He has also claimed that Silver Bay hired away Peter Pan executives as a way to buy up some of the company’s assets, which Silver Bay very quickly said was not true. The court won’t necessarily rule on all these individual things. But it did amend the receivership order recently upon his request to allow for more time and transparency for the sale of the company’s assets, which he had argued would benefit junior creditors – so people who are owed money other than Wells Fargo.
Duff: So now May can bid on any of Peter Pan’s assets. And so can anyone else. Do we know yet who will wind up running these facilities after the season ends, or is it still anyone’s guess?
Dobroth: Yeah, there’s been some rumors as far as the facilities that are up for sale, but nothing’s been announced. There’s also assets that aren’t real tangible property, like fisheries quota, so it’s hard to say who will end up with what when all is said and done.
Peter Pan’s grounds are normally bustling with workers, but the boardwalks and bunkhouses are now empty.
Alaska’s fishing industry has faced major challenges this past year. Low fish prices and high overhead costs have led some of the industry’s biggest players to sell or shutter their processing plants, sending shock waves through the coastal communities who rely on those canneries.
Perhaps no other community has been harder hit than the small city of King Cove, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, 600 miles from Anchorage, the closest major city.
Its only seafood processor closed almost overnight this spring, and the city is reeling, not only from the loss of 75% of its revenue, but from the larger questions of the city’s survival.
King Cove didn’t even exist until 1911 when a seafood company, Pacific American Fisheries, opened a salmon cannery, and Unangax̂ folks moved in from surrounding villages to work there.
That fish processing plant grew to become one of Alaska’s largest. Peter Pan Seafood Co. employs about 700 seasonal workers at its King Cove facility during a typical summer. That means housing 700 people in company bunkhouses, and feeding those people daily.
The freezers and pantries were packed when the cannery, burdened by debt, closed, just before salmon season, so the company gave the food away to the community.
Ernie Newman, 65, just retired from a lifelong fishing career. Like most folks in town, he’s a company man.
“I fished for Peter Pan all my life, tendered for ‘em,” Newman said.
He was one of about 100 residents who attended the pop-up pantry at King Cove’s old school, filling his shopping cart with canned pineapple and pancake mix.
Community members attended a pop-up pantry on June 14, picking up food left behind by the seafood company’s last-minute closure.
“Peter Pan finally doin’ us a favor,” Newman said. “Oh, dandy.”
City Clerk Cora Rocili helped organize the food drive. Another lifelong resident, her parents met at the cannery, and she grew up living in company housing and hanging around the fish plant with the other workers’ kids.
“They called us the Peter Pan Brats,” Rocili said.
Just about every business in town revolves around fishing. Rocili moonlights as a bartender at MC’s Bar, near the harbor. But she says the bar is empty these days.
Everybody’s affected by what’s going on with Peter Pan. It’s sad to see. It’s definitely something I never expected to see,” she said.
Local business-owner Lillian Sager runs a food truck, and she said her business has been cut in half, forcing her and her husband to make a tough decision.
“We’re moving,” Sager said. “This is our home. This is where you know, our ancestors lived and we want to stay here, but we’re moving to Washington [State].”
Many of the folks in town are direct descendants of the Unangax̂ and European families who founded the town. That includes Mayor Warren Wilson, a third-generation King Cove fisherman who also runs a boat welding service. He said one of his welders has also moved away to find work, a trend he finds troubling.
Mayor Warren Wilson is a third-generation King Cove fisherman. He hopes the city can attract another seafood company to buy the Peter Pan facility.
“Once you start losing your population, you lose your school, and once you start losing your school, you lose children. Once you start losing children, you lose smiley faces, and then you don’t hear the laughter anymore. That’s when your community is going to die,” he said.
Wilson hopes the city can convince another seafood company to buy the Peter Pan facility. An Alaska-based company took over some of Peter Pan’s other facilities earlier this year, but didn’t purchase the King Cove plant. The town is hoping that someone comes along soon. Nobody made an offer in time for the summer salmon season, so folks are hoping it happens in time for fall.
The cause of a fire at Eagles View Elementary School on July 4 remains unknown but does not appear suspicious, according to a Thursday night statement from the City of Unalaska.
“The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, but does not appear to be suspicious in nature,” the statement said.
The Unalaska Fire Department responded to an automatic fire alarm at the school at approximately 11:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Firefighters did not observe visible signs of fire from outside, but discovered smoke and elevated carbon monoxide levels upon entering the building.
A power outage originally complicated the response, but firefighters still managed to pinpoint the fire’s location.
“Fire crews successfully located and extinguished the fire, which originated in an air conditioning unit,” officials wrote in the statement.
The fire was extinguished and the building turned over to UCSD Superintendent Kim Hanisch.
Updated at 8:55 p.m. on July 4, 2024.
The City of Unalaska released a statement Thursday evening saying the cause of last night’s elementary school fire did “not appear to be suspicious in nature.”
The Unalaska Fire Department responded to an automatic fire alarm at Eagle’s View Elementary School around 11:45 Wednesday night.
Original story published July 4, 2024 at 12:35 a.m.
Firefighters responded to a fire at Eagle’s View Elementary Wednesday night shortly before midnight.
As of 12:35 a.m. the fire was still active in the elementary school’s ceiling, with five firefighters inside the building, according to Unalaska Fire Chief Ben Knowles.
The fire’s cause is unknown at the time of reporting and there is no reason to believe anyone was inside the building, as the doors were locked.
Ravn Alaska has a new leader: Southern California businessman Tom Hsieh will take over the regional airline and replace former CEO Rob McKinney. Hsieh is the president of FLOAT Alaska LLC, the parent company of Ravn Alaska and New Pacific Airlines.
McKinney did not respond to several requests for comment.
Tina Hanley, Ravn’s chief commercial officer, said the company doesn’t have an official statement, but confirmed the airline is passing the baton to Hsieh.
Alaska Airlines has suspended its mileage-sharing agreement with Ravn in light of the news. Alaska Airlines Public Affairs Manager Tim Thompson said in an email to KUCB that the decision is the result of Ravn’s recent “transition in leadership.”
Many Unalaskans have recently expressed concern over the reliability of local air service, citing frequent and unexplained cancellations on the airline, which serves nine communities across Alaska, including Homer, St. Paul, Valdez, and St. Mary’s on the Lower Yukon River.
According to Alaska’s statement, travelers can no longer purchase and redeem Ravn flights on their website, or accrue mileage. Thompson said any travel already booked will be honored. Travelers who purchased flights before July 1 on Alaska’s website will still accrue mileage, as long as they include a mileage plan number.
The factory trawler Alaska Ocean seen in Dutch Harbor during A Season 2023.
Communities in the Aleutians are pushing back against proposed legislation that would bring stricter regulations to the Bering Sea trawl fishery.
The City of Unalaska and the Aleutians East Borough are among 53 organizations that signed onto a letter sent to U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola last week, urging her to withdraw H.R. 8507, a bill she sponsored in May.
The proposed legislation aims to add new regulations to where trawling can take place across the United States, not only in Alaska.
Trade organizations and some coastal communities whose economies rely on trawl fisheries have pushed back against the bill, asking the congresswoman to repeal it.
“If enacted, H.R. 8507 would directly harm fishermen and coastal communities in Alaska and throughout our nation, along with countless other people who rely on a healthy domestic seafood sector for food, jobs, and their way of life,” the letter said.
Alaska’s fishing industry has experienced major turmoil in recent years. The collapse of some fish stocks, like Bristol Bay red king crab, the decrease of salmon prices in world markets, and a flood of foreign fish have led to something of a crisis in Alaska’s commercial fisheries.
The Aleutians East Borough, which consists of six communities on the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Chain, has been hard hit by fluctuations in the industry. Low salmon prices last year and the closure of Peter Pan Seafood Co., which operated in the borough, have led community leaders to sound the alarm.
“Our major source of revenue is from raw fish taxes on seafood products, the majority of which comes from Alaska trawl fisheries,” said Aleutians East Borough Mayor Alvin D. Osterback. “These revenues fund our schools, community services, and our infrastructure.”
“If our trawl fisheries were to be substantially harmed by the requirements of this legislation … then it all comes to an end for us out here,” he added.
Bycatch has been a hot-button issue in Alaska’s fisheries, and Peltola promised to limit the accidental catch of non-targeted fish during her campaign. Dismal salmon returns in Western Alaska have created an existential threat to the region’s subsistence culture, and brought increased political pressure to limit bycatch in the Bering Sea, which some say is exacerbating the problem.
“Predatory industrial and foreign trawlers, ineffective management systems, a changing climate, and more have all played their own role,” Peltola said in a statement on her website.
But the letter’s authors point to research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Science Centers, which suggests climate change, not bycatch, is the reason salmon numbers have fallen so drastically.
“This science shows climate-related shifts in our nation’s marine ecosystems, including significant changes in the distribution of fish populations and other marine life,” the letter says.
The authors continue to say that Peltola’s proposed legislation would hinder regulators’ ability to effectively manage fisheries, calling the bill’s methods “archaic and counterproductive.”
Alaska’s seafood industry is the economy’s second largest sector, falling behind only oil and gas.
Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the seafood trade organization At-Sea Processors Association, said the legislation would hurt seafood workers, one of the largest working groups in the state.
“This bill threatens seafood sector jobs in Alaska and across the United States. More than 1.5 million Americans have jobs that depend on commercial seafood, and they deserve better than the politicization of fisheries science and management,” she said.
The summer season for Alaska’s largest trawl fishery, Alaska Pollock, opened June 10 and can last as long as Nov. 1.
Representatives from Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan’s offices arrived in Sand Point Monday, their first stop on a multi-city tour around the region. The trip, which will include stops in King Cove and False Pass, comes ahead of a strategic plan the senators are expected to present to the Secretary of Commerce this summer.
Matthew Robinson, a legislative assistant with Murkowski’s office, and Sullivan policy advisor Carina Nichols, are meeting with community leaders, fishermen, and community members to hear about the impacts of Alaska’s fishing industry on locals.
Coastal communities along the peninsula have been hard hit in recent years; fish numbers and prices have been low, putting the squeeze on local budgets and households.
The congressional representatives are also traveling with Abby Fredrick from Silver Bay Seafoods, and they plan to fly to King Cove Monday evening, where the community is dealing with the closure of Peter Pan, the town’s only seafood processor.
King Cove has recently implemented several state-of-the-art infrastructure projects, including a hydroelectric power plant capable of supporting the large processing facility.
The group plans to fly to False Pass Tuesday, where Silver Bay recently took over the Trident plant, before ending their tour in Bristol Bay.
Sens. Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski are expected to present a strategic plan to the Secretary of Commerce sometime later this summer.
