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Canadian Authorities Arrest 'Hostile' Alaska Man After Denying Him Entry at Border

KUAC file photo

An Anchorage man was being held this morning at Fairbanks Correctional Center after he was denied entry into Canada then was arrested on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border over the weekend.

Alaska State Troopers say 61-year-old Terry Sharkey was first arrested by Royal Canadian Mounted Police after he was denied entry into Canada, due to restrictions imposed as a COVID-19 precaution. A Trooper spokesperson didn’t have any information about the incident this morning, nor whether Sharkey was charged by Canadian authorities. RCMP officials at the Yukon headquarters did not return a phone call this morning.

A Trooper report says RCMP officers transported Sharkey from the Canadian Customs port of entry at Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, to the U.S. Customs facility about 20 miles away at Port Alcan, in Alaska, about 300 miles south of Fairbanks. But Sharkey refused to identify himself to the Customs officers and was detained.

The report says the officers offered to release him, because they had no facilities to hold him. But the report says he again refused to leave.

Troopers responded to a call from Customs at around 9:30 a.m. Saturday, who called to report a "hostile subject," and arrested Sharkey for second-degree trespassing. He was taken to the Tok Trooper post, where officers again offered to release him, but he again refused. Troopers then transported him to Fairbanks Correctional Center.

An FCC booking office staffer said this morning that Sharkey was still being held but was scheduled to be released on his own recognizance, possibly later today.

Tim has worked in the news business for over three decades, mainly as a newspaper reporter and editor in southern Arizona. Tim first came to Alaska with his family in 1967, and grew up in Delta Junction before emigrating to the Lower 48 in 1977 to get a college education and see the world.