Alaska News Nightly: Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Summary

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Alaska News Nightly: Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Host: Casey Grove | Podcast: Alaska News Nightly (Alaska Public Media)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Alaska News Nightly covers a range of pressing statewide topics, from education test score debates and landmark criminal justice developments, to ongoing local policy dilemmas and unique stories of cultural connection. You’ll hear key voices from policymakers, education officials, community leaders, and everyday Alaskans, along with a memorable deep-dive into Ketchikan’s sea shanty tradition.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Alaska Student Test Scores & Education Policy (00:20 – 04:48)

Key Points:

• Minor Gains in Test Scores: Recent data from the Department of Education shows Alaska's test scores remain mostly flat, with only a third of students meeting grade-level standards in core subjects.
• Shifting Policy Focus: Commissioner Dina Bishop highlights the need for dialogue to shift from funding debates to concrete student learning.
• Persistent Challenges: Chronic absenteeism remains a major concern, with over 40% of students missing at least 10% of school last year.

Notable Quotes:

• "If we took all grade levels, generally, we were pretty flat."
  — Dina Bishop, Commissioner of Education [00:20]
• "Much of our discussions have been on everything other than student learning. And for me, when you do put priority on student learning … student learning improves."
  — Dina Bishop [02:00]
• "We need to now focus on student outcomes, as though that wasn't the whole entire focus of that dialogue and discussion."
  — Sen. Luki Tobin, Senate Education Chair [02:39]

Memorable Moment:

Sen. Tobin shares a local principal’s excitement over new reading curricula funded by boosted school budgets, and underlines the ongoing work needed, especially around attendance.

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2. Release of Alaska’s Youngest Female Convicted Murderer (04:48 – 06:55)

Key Points:

• Release After 40 Years: Wynonna Fletcher, convicted at age 14 for a triple murder, is freed via resentencing after shifts in attitudes toward juvenile life sentences.
• Arguments at Resentencing: Her attorney cited past abuse and exemplary prison behavior; the prosecution emphasized severity of the crimes.

Notable Quote:

• "I wanted to make sure that my actions spoke for how sorry I was for what I did."
  — Wynonna Fletcher [04:44]

Memorable Moment:

Judge Jack McKenna grants Fletcher a sentence reduction, reflecting both her rehabilitation and the nation’s evolving perspective on juvenile justice.

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3. Death of Italian Scientist on Mendenhall Glacier (06:55 – 10:02)

Key Points:

• Accident Details: Dr. Riccardo Pozabone, noted planetary geologist, died after falling into a moulin while researching glacier ice patterns.
• Rescue Efforts: Colleagues had no communications devices; rescue deemed too dangerous to attempt.
• Tributes: Pozabone remembered as a brilliant and generous researcher.

Notable Quotes:

• "Their friend was the only one that had an inreach and phone device. So they had no phones on them."
  — Jonathan Tuttle, Northstar Glacier Safety Director [07:42]
• "It's pretty easy to get complacent with the hazards around you. And this was a good wake up call… of just how quickly things can escalate."
  — Tuttle [08:44]
• "Riccardo was a brilliant researcher with a limitless passion for geology … always willing to share his expertise with enthusiasm and infectious happiness."
  — Francesco Suaro, colleague (quoted by Alex Solomon) [09:17]

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4. Anchorage Park Shootings & Homelessness (10:02 – 11:37)

Key Points:

• Double Shooting: Two people killed near Mountain View park, site of previously contested homeless encampments.
• Ongoing Investigation: Victims not yet named, no arrests; police ask for information from public.
• Community Impact: Past shootings and recent camp clearings highlighted.

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5. Search for University of Alaska Fairbanks Chancellor (11:37 – 13:41)

Key Points:

• Search begins for a new UAF chancellor.
• Interim chancellor Mike Srega, a UAF alumnus, will not seek the permanent role.
• Timeline for selection: review in October, announcement expected in March.

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6. Matanuska-Susitna Borough Ordered to Repay Federal Ferry Grants (13:41 – 18:16)

Key Points:

• Failed Ferry Saga: Mat-Su Borough ordered to repay $5.8 million after the infrastructure for the $80M MV Susitna ferry never got used as planned.
• Root Causes: Lack of docking facilities in Anchorage, political and financial hurdles, accumulating maintenance costs.
• Current Status: Ferry is now used by the Philippine Coast Guard after being sold for a fraction of its original cost.

Notable Quotes:

• "Things that are free are rarely actually free. ... the ferry itself was a gift. But as soon as it came into the possession ... it started to accumulate costs."
  — Amy Bouchatz, Mat Su Sentinel [13:41]
• "I cannot believe we're still talking about this. And I cannot believe that this is still costing the borough money."
  — Amy Bouchatz recounting community feedback [17:53]

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7. Southeast Alaska Red King Crab Fishery Reopens (18:16 – 20:07)

Key Points:

• First Commercial Opener Since 2017: Crab stocks finally meet regulatory minimum, allowing fishery to reopen.
• Economic Impact: Crab valued at over $100 each; anticipated total harvest over 200,000 pounds.
• Adaptive Management: Some bays remain closed, specific limits and reporting protocols in place.

Notable Quote:

• "Even for some of our survey areas, we set more conservative harvest rates ... and we still reach that £200,000."
  — Adam Messmer, State Shellfish Biologist [19:07]

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8. Ketchikan’s Sea Shanty Tradition – Community & Song (20:58 – 25:45)

Key Points:

• Greg Thomas’ Legacy: Leading monthly sea shanty nights in Ketchikan for 30 years.
• Cultural History: Songs highlight both work rhythms and social issues like class struggle and labor rights.
• Community’s Role: Emphasis on singing together, fostering camaraderie and intergenerational connection.

Notable Quotes & Moments:

• "You know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? I've had a song stuck in my head for 55 years."
  — Greg Thomas [21:52]
• "Plimsoll fought the corporate and political machine. ... I always introduce that song to let people know that a man did this. Thousands of people were dying and people didn’t care. The rich people of the world didn’t care."
  — Greg Thomas [23:31, 24:01]
• "It’s important that everybody sings, and I think that’s the fun part of it. People say I can’t sing, but they do."
  — Greg Thomas [24:54]
• "Maybe they say something about us, about humanity's pursuit of a port in the storm."
  — Jack Darrell, Reporter [25:06]

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Important Timestamps

• Education test scores & policy debate: [00:20 – 04:48]
• Wynonna Fletcher resentencing & release: [04:48 – 06:55]
• Mendenhall Glacier accident & tribute: [06:55 – 10:02]
• Anchorage double shooting: [10:02 – 11:37]
• UA Fairbanks chancellor search: [11:37 – 13:41]
• Mat-Su ferry repayment saga: [13:41 – 18:16]
• Red king crab fishery opens: [18:16 – 20:07]
• Sea shanty community story: [20:58 – 25:45]

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Tone & Style

The reporting remains calm, factual, yet distinctly Alaskan – balancing serious policy, poignant human stories, and quirky cultural features.

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For More

Stories from this episode are available at alaskapublic.org
News tips: [e-mail]

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Transcript

[Eric Stone]

Support for Alaska Public Media on Demand.

[Casey Grove]

Comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two US territories.

[Dina Bishop]

Overall, if we took all grade levels, generally, we were pretty flat.

[Casey Grove]

Alaska test scores showed little improvement last year, and advocates disagree about how to bring them up. From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, September 9th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, Alaska's youngest female convicted murderer is freed after 40 years in prison.

[Luki Tobin]

I wanted to make sure that my actions spoke for how sorry I was for what I did.

[Casey Grove]

Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. Alaska's students test scores improved modestly last school year, according to results released Friday by the Department of Education and Early Development. But the gains were small. Only about a third of students across the state are testing at grade level in English, math and science, as Alaska Public Media's Eric Stone reports. The test scores come as policymakers debate ways to improve the state's struggling schools.

[Eric Stone]

Overall, says state Education Commissioner Dina Bishop, Alaska's students showed little to no improvement last year.

[Dina Bishop]

We did have a few grade levels that showed some promising movement, especially in the area of reading in elementary school and then again in eighth grade in reading and math. But overall, if we took all grade levels generally, we were pretty flat.

[Eric Stone]

Bishop says she's hoping scores in reading start to improve in the next several years. Early data shows the Alaska Reads act is boosting literacy, but she says the lackluster progress is a sign that public debates about the state's school system need to move beyond funding.

[Dina Bishop]

Much of our discussions have been on everything other than student learning. And for me, when you do put priority on student learning and what they're supposed to learn and make sure our classrooms and teachers are able to do that. Student learning improves.

[Eric Stone]

Earlier this year, lawmakers boosted formula funding for public schools across Alaska by $700 per student. It took overriding vetoes from Governor Mike Dunleavy to do so. Boosting funding been the top issue for the largely Democratic bipartisan majorities controlling the state House and Senate, but it's not one or the other when it comes to funding and student achievement, says Anchorage Democratic Senator Luki Tobin. She's the chair of the state Senate Education Committee.

[Luki Tobin]

She's saying we need to now focus on student outcomes, as though that wasn't the whole entire focus of that dialogue and discussion.

[Eric Stone]

Tobin says despite a funding crunch, she's glad to see test scores stay roughly flat rather than fall. And Tobin says she's optimistic about the future. She says she's hearing from educators about the ways that the bill lawmakers approved this spring is improving classrooms across the state. She says a southeast Alaska principal recently emailed her, excited about the school year.

[Luki Tobin]

She's now been able to purchase reading curricula rooted in the science of reading for all grades. And she is excited about deploying it to all grades in her school that she's hired back teachers. She's been able to reduce class sizes. They have been working with parents on their cell phone policy.

[Eric Stone]

But Tobin says it's clear there's more work to be done. Tobin co chairs a task force looking at a wide variety of possible education policy changes created by the same bill that boosted funding. Tobin says she's especially interested in an upcoming presentation on chronic absenteeism. That's a focus for Bishop, too. She says more than 40% of the state's students missed at least 10% of school last year. Chronic absenteeism surged during the pandemic, and Alaska has one of the highest rates of absenteeism in the U.S. that's according to data from the federal Education Department. Bishop says the rates are highest among kindergarteners and first graders. Fundamentally, Bishop says that's a problem that local leaders should solve. She says school district leaders can tailor their approach to the communities they serve.

[Dina Bishop]

Really looking at attendance and the research behind it demonstrates that it has to be looked at at the local level that you have to really see what is it that's keeping your students from school. Is it the school climate, is it transportation, is it the school time, things like that.

[Eric Stone]

But Bishop says there is a role for the state to play, possibly by providing financial incentives encouraging all kinds of improvements. Lawmakers approved an incentive program in this year's education bill that rewards districts based on students reading performance. But it's unclear whether Dunleavy will sign a bill taxing out of state companies that would provide funding for the incentive program. He has until October 1st to decide. Reporting in Juneau, I'm Eric Stone.

[Casey Grove]

After 40 years in prison, Alaska's youngest female convicted murderer is free following a re sentencing on Monday. Wynonna Fletcher was 14 when she was convicted in the 1985 murders of three Anchorage residents, husband and wife Tom and Ann Faccio and Ann's sister, Amelia Elliott, during a home invasion robbery with her 18 year old boyfriend. Fletcher ultimately received a 135-year-prison sentence. Over the subsequent decades, there was a nationwide rethinking of what were essentially life sentences for juvenile offenders. Last year, Fletcher won an appeal for a resentencing that culminated in the judge's order Monday. Fletcher gave a brief tearful statement midway through the three day hearing on Friday.

[Luki Tobin]

I hear so much that people always say that, how sorry they are for things. I didn't want me just saying sorry to mean anything. I wanted to make sure that my actions spoke for how sorry I was for what I did.

[Casey Grove]

Testimony included accounts that Fletcher had been an exemplary inmate while incarcerated at Highland Mountain Correctional Center. Fletcher's attorney argued that she had been abused as a child, sex trafficked as a teenager and was under the influence of her older boyfriend who had planned the home invasion. A state prosecutor argued Fletcher had callously killed the victims and showed little remorse at the time. Their grandchildren submitted a letter to the judge, which he read aloud that said true justice involves not only accountability but the possibility of redemption. The state's request had been for a 90 year sentence, which would have made Fletcher eligible for discretionary parole and left her fate to the parole board. But Superior court judge Jack McKenna sided with Fletcher, agreeing with her attorney's request for a 60 year sentence with mandatory parole reducing that by a third. For Fletcher's good behavior in prison, it meant she had already served her time. As of today, court records showed Fletcher had been released on supervised custody. The man who died on Juneau's Mendenhall Glacier last week has been identified. He was a planetary geologist from the University of padua in Italy. KTO's Alex Solomon has more.

[Alex Solomon]

Ricardo Pozabone, a 40 year old researcher, was on the glacier with two other Italian researchers. They were there to study ice fracture patterns in an effort to better understand the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He specialized in planetary geology and was an instructor in the European Space Agency's astronaut training course. His fellow researchers told rescuers that Pozobon tripped over his crampon and fell into a stream of water that swept him down a mulan that's a vertical hole in the ice that funnels surface meltwater underneath the glacier. After he disappeared into the mulan, Pozaubahn's colleagues walked about a quarter mile to the Northstar helicopter landing zone on the ice. There they found Jonathan Tuttle, director of guiding and glacier safety for Northstar.

[Jonathan Tuttle]

They told me that their friend was the only one that had an inreach and phone device. So they had no phones on them.

[Alex Solomon]

So Tuttle's team called 911 and Juno Mountain Rescue and in the meantime they went to try to help.

[Jonathan Tuttle]

Was pretty quickly determined that the mulan that he went in there was no safe entrance to. So we set a rope about 500ft below to a mulan that was dry that the water used to have flood into and rappelled down to see if it might connect and there'd be any chance at a recovery effort.

[Alex Solomon]

Tuttle says that once he descended about 150ft down the second mulan he could see, it didn't connect to the one Pozauban disappeared down. When Juno Mountain Rescue arrived, they called off a rescue because descending into the hole filled with rushing water was too dangerous. Tuttle called it a tragedy and says the research team was experienced in this terrain. At least one member of the research group had done a lot of technical spelunking in both rock and ice caves.

[Jonathan Tuttle]

From a professional standpoint, it's pretty easy to get complacent with the hazards around you. And this was a good wake up call to you, all of our staff and kind of everyone else on the glacier of just how quickly things can escalate.

[Alex Solomon]

Tess Williams is a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. She says she's not sure whether Posabone was equipped with safety gear at the time of the fall.

[Luki Tobin]

The information that troopers have is that he was not roped to his companions when he fell and that he we don't believe he had safety gear on him.

[Alex Solomon]

Tuttle says Pozabone's companions reported they had stopped for lunch and sheltered in a canyon near the mulan to get out of the wind. Pozabone's colleagues at the University of Padua declined an interview, but highlighted his gentle and generous character in a news release. One colleague who was not on this expedition, Francesco Suaro, wrote, quote, ricardo was a brilliant researcher with a limitless passion for geology. He was also a generous person who was always willing to share his expertise with enthusiasm and infectious happiness. End quote. A European Planetary science Society, of which he was a member, reports that he is survived by a wife and young son. In Juneau, I'm Alex Solomon.

[Casey Grove]

Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, how one man's love of sea shanties started a community tradition.

[Greg Thomas]

You know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? I've had a song stuck in my head for 50.

[Casey Grove]

That's ahead. Stay with us. Anchorage police say two people were shot to death early today near a Mountain View park that has seen two fatal shootings in a contentious homeless camp cleared this year. Police Chief Sean Case says someone heard gunshots near the park at about 3am today. That person then found a man and a woman dead in an area across the street used as a snow dump.

[Adam Messmer]

We know that at least one of the victims we have on video just moments before the incident happened, walking across the street pushing a cart. So they there wasn't a camp that they were going to. There were no encampments in the snow dump area, so the two presumably have entered the park or the snow dump area very in close proximity to when the incident took place.

[Casey Grove]

Police have not yet named the victims or announced any arrests. Case says the investigation is ongoing. Davis park and the nearby snow dump were once home to the city's two largest homeless encampments, and earlier this year two women were killed in the area in separate shootings. Phil Cannon is head of the Mountain View Community Council. He says that after the city cleared the camps in June, people have returned to recreate, but not to camp.

[Adam Messmer]

The police have done a lot. I think they've just been very consistently going back and walking through the woods and kind of making sure that people aren't resetting things back up.

[Casey Grove]

Police are asking anyone with information about today's deaths or surveillance video from the area to call them at 311 the search for a permanent chancellor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has officially begun. University of Alaska President Pat Pitney announced Thursday that applications for the position are now open. In a press release, Pitney said she is looking forward to selecting a dedicated, visionary leader who will guide this institution well into the future. According to a search timeline, a committee will start reviewing applications in late October, and the university is planning to announce the next chancellor in March. The successful candidate will serve as the chief executive at the UA Systems flagship research institution. Whomever is chosen will succeed former Chancellor Dan White, who retired from the role this summer after eight years. Former U.S. arctic Ambassador and UAF alumnus Mike Srega started as interim chancellor at the end of July, but he will not be a candidate for the permanent position. On his first day on the job, Srega told reporters that's because he wants to continue focusing on Arctic and foreign policy work. The Matanuska Su Sitna Borough has been ordered to repay $5.8 million in federal grants over its failed ferry. Christened the MV Susitna, the ferry never fulfilled its intended mission to connect the Matsu and Anchorage by carrying passengers and vehicles across Knik Arm as an alternative to the Glenn Highway. Now, the Federal Transit Administration wants back some of the money it gave the Matsu Borough to build infrastructure to support the defunct ferry program. The Mat Su Sentinel's Amy Bouchatz says the $80 million price tag to build the ferry was covered by a federal earmark But Bouchat says there were strings attached that when the project failed, led to the repayment order last month.

[Luki Tobin]

Things that are free are rarely actually free. Right. So this was to be. The ferry itself was a gift. But as soon as it came into the possession of the Matsu burrow, it started to accumulate costs. Those were costs to simply keep it in the water. Those were costs to maintain it. And those things were not free. And then the other issue was where were was the borough going to land it on the Anchorage side? There had been discussions about developing such a, you know, a place that it could pull up to or a dock or something. Right. And those fell apart before it even accepted the ferry to start with. And the political will and funding on the Anchorage side just simply dried up. So we didn't have a place to land it. That was. That's a big problem. And then in the interim, the borough had also accepted money from the Federal Transit Administration to con create infrastructure for the ferry on the Port Mackenzie side, which is where the ferry was to go in and out of. And when they accepted that money, it was with the requirement that they actually operate the ferry. And so they build this facility out on Port Mackenzie and immediately face the issue where they can't actually operate the ferry because they don't have anywhere on the Anchorage side to land it. So now you have a situation where you've accepted and spent federal funds to, to support this project, but you don't have the infrastructure or the ability to fulfill the requirements of the grant.

[Casey Grove]

Now this ferry, I mean, it was built at the shipyard in Ketchikan. It was christened the MV Susitna. Never actually made it up to the Knik Arm. Right.

[Luki Tobin]

Never made it to the Knick Arm. Right.

[Casey Grove]

Where is it now?

[Luki Tobin]

So it is floating around the Philippines. The Matsu, given the humongous cost of the ferry to just make maintain it and keep it floating, decided back in 2014ish that they were going to sell it. And so they first they actually tried to give it away to another government in the U.S. no other government wanted it. So they said, hey, we're going to sell it off. They lowered the price to just over a million dollars and they ended up selling it to the Red Cross in the Philippines, which used it as a humanitarian vessel for many years. And actually just earlier this year, the Red Cross in the Philippines sold it, or rather gave it to the Philippine Coast Guard. So there it is, serving the Coast Guard now in the Philippines.

[Casey Grove]

Remind me, how much did the ferry cost? Whoever paid for it? How much did it actually cost to begin with? And then did you say they sold it for just over a million dollars?

[Luki Tobin]

Yes. So the ferry cost about $80 million to make. It was sold to the Philippine red Cross in 2015 for 1.8 million.

[Casey Grove]

Wow. So, turning back to the Mat Su and this repayment, it sounds like there may be an avenue still to appeal that. But if we're talking about the Mat Su having to repay the FTA $5.8 million, how big of a deal is that?

[Luki Tobin]

So I've talked to the borough manager about this since writing my story last week, and he seems to think that this is a surmountable problem, that the borough is not going to have a problem coming up with this money, that they will be able to pay this. However, he also told me the bureau is no hurry to pay this bill, that they will be taking whatever steps they can take to further appeal it. That seems to have worked with delaying what may be the inevitable. We don't know yet because it's been since 2017, since the FDA reached out last year. And so delaying doesn't seem to have hurt anybody here. And that is something that they're going to continue to look at doing. How can we get this further reduced?

[Casey Grove]

Interesting. Have you heard from just residents of the Mat Su about this since you published your story? Have people reached out to you when this happened?

[Luki Tobin]

At the time, there was a real sense in the Mat Su that this was a colossal and embarrassing waste of money, that people really couldn't believe that this was happening. And that's the feedback I'm seeing now as well. Oh my goodness. I cannot believe we're still talking about this. And I cannot believe that this is still costing the borough money, even in a delayed way, and even though they haven't paid the bill back yet.

[Casey Grove]

That was Amy Bouchatz with the Mat Su Sentinel. You can find her full story on the failed fairy susitna@ Matsuecentinel.com Red king crab fishermen in southeast Alaska are getting a competitive commercial fishery this year, the first since 2017. It's a low volume, high value fishery. The crab can bring in over $100 each. State regulations require at least 200,000 pounds of harvestable crab in order for a commercial opener to happen in the region. And for years, stock estimates have repeatedly fallen short of that. But not this year. Instead, over 211,000 pounds of crab are available for harvest. That number comes from surveys done by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. They check crab stock in several bays to see if there's enough to allow a competitive commercial opener to happen. Adam Messmer is a regional shellfish biologist for the state.

[Adam Messmer]

Even for some of our survey areas, we set more conservative harvest rates for a couple of our areas than we have in the past, and we still reach that £200,000.

[Casey Grove]

He says. They were preparing for a smaller commercial fishery with new regulation changes that the state Board of Fisheries approved earlier this year. But when they surveyed the bays, they found enough crab had grown to actually allow for a competitive opener.

[Adam Messmer]

I knew when we went out on the last survey that we needed at least two of the three bays that we surveyed that trip to be good, and we had one that was exceptional and showed a lot of promise for the future, and then the next bay was just as good, messmer says.

[Casey Grove]

Compared to doing a smaller, conservative fishery where permit holders would get assigned catch limits, this competitive opener allows more crab to be caught.

[Adam Messmer]

So you're talking catching 65 to 70,000 pounds of crab compared to 200,000 pounds of crab.

[Casey Grove]

Mesmer says this year's fishery will be managed bay to bay. Some areas will stay closed. Some will have predetermined time allowances. Others will be managed in season with call ins requiring fishermen to report their daily harvest to managers. Similar to the golden king crab fishery. He says the department will announce more information about the upcoming fishery, like which areas will be open and when within the next couple of weeks. Well, sea shanties have been around for centuries, but in recent years they've made a pop culture comeback. You can hear them all over TikTok or in the video game Assassin's Creed 4. But one man has been getting generations of people in Ketchikan to sing shanty songs for over 30 years. KRBD's Jack Darrell reports.

[Jack Darrell]

Once a month you can hear the Alaska Fish House in Ketchikan from blocks away. People are singing and thumping on the long wooden tables. A man named Greg Thomas is usually in the back standing by the wood stove, singing the loudest. He leads these sea shanty nights. He's been doing it for a a long time. So I met Thomas the day after one of these sea shanty nights. He was at the Ketchikan Yacht Club. It's a little floating clubhouse on the docks in Thomas Basin. Thomas grew up in Sydney, Australia, spent some time in St. Louis, Missouri before coming to Ketchikan.

[Greg Thomas]

Came up here on a whim 30 years ago to do kayaking.

[Jack Darrell]

Never left, and Thomas brought the swashbuckling tunes with him. Seems like, he can't help it. He says sea shanties are the love of their lives. Him and his wife. He's traveled all over southeast Alaska singing them.

[Greg Thomas]

You know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? I've had a song stuck in my head for 55 years.

[Jack Darrell]

That song is this old shanty he heard in the 1956 film adaptation of Moby Dick.

[Greg Thomas]

The opening, like the opening scene is Richard Bassart goes into the inn to get his room and he gets sucked into a sea shanty.

[Casey Grove]

Since that's been in my religion.

[Greg Thomas]

Come on, lad. And in that scene, the sailors are in the bar. They all get up and they're doing this like the traditional. You always think of a sailor dance. They're all doing that, you know, and singing. He gets sucked. Come on, boyo, you know, sing. And that has stuck with me forever.

[Jack Darrell]

Aan. That's the name of the song is called a Four Stroke Pump Shanty. Basically, old wooden sailing ships leaked constantly. You know, they were made of wood, so to keep them from sinking, guys had to spend hours on the deck pulling water up out of the inside of the ship with this big levered pump contraption. So the tempo of the song matched the rhythm of four guys pushing and pulling that lever over and over again. And Thomas says a lot of sea shanties are like that work songs that match the tempo of the repetitive work to be done on the high seas. But Thomas says that sea shanties aren't just about hauling levers and what one could possibly do with a drunken sailor. A lot of them were about class struggle, labor exploitation, like the classic, according to the act, an ode to an English politician named Samuel Plimsoll.

[Greg Thomas]

He could see the injustice of. Thousands of sailors would die because these huge companies would load up a ship so you couldn't fit anything else on it. And they would over insure it because they knew there was a good chance it would sink.

[Jack Darrell]

So Plimsoll fought the corporate and political machine. He introduced this act that gave sailors rights and cargo limits. Thomas says Plimsoll was practically booed out of politics. Died penniless after that.

[Greg Thomas]

I always introduced that song to let people know that a man did this. Thousands of people were dying and people didn't care. The rich people of the world didn't care.

[Jack Darrell]

I know journalists are supposed to be unbiased and all that, but I also have a favorite sea shanty. It's a song Thomas always does at the end of the night at the fish house.

[Casey Grove]

I thought I heard the old man called Lever.

[Jack Darrell]

Johnny, Johnny Lever. Frederick Pease Harlow, a sailor in the 1800s, wrote that they'd sing the song on the last day of a voyage, kind of as a way to complain about everything that went wrong. Skipper was bad, but the mate was worse. It's a long, hard pull to the next payday, the song goes. It's time for us to leave her. Thomas says the important part of sea shanties is the camaraderie, everyone singing together.

[Greg Thomas]

It's important that everybody sings, and I think that's the fun part of it. People say I can't sing, but they do.

[Jack Darrell]

Thomas says what makes sea shanties so universal is they're simple songs. You can sing them anywhere, with or without instruments. And maybe they say something about us, about humanity's pursuit of a port in the storm.

[Casey Grove]

For the voyage is done and the.

[Jack Darrell]

Wind in Ketchikan, I'm Jack Darrell.

[Casey Grove]

And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're [e-mail] and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Eric Stone and Alex Solomon in Juneau, Chris Clint in Anchorage, Patrick Gilchrist in Fairbanks, Catherine Rose in Sitka, and Jack Darrell in Catch a Can. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email [e-mail] Our audio engineer is Chris Hyde, Madeline Rose as our producer, and I'm Casey Grove. Good.

[Luki Tobin]

Sam.