Sitka: Music, Mountains, Fish, Boats, Water

Note: This is the last post from our June-July 2015 Alaska trip.  The others are in the archive below:  
                introduction (July 26)

                Tatshenshini people (July 27)

                Tashenshini raft trip (August 3)

                ferry (September 7)

                Juneau (September 17)

Table at Picnic Area on Harbor Mountain

Looking from Harbor Mountain toward Olga Strait

Sitka, like Missoula, full of people who care about fish, boats, and water, also rings with music and is ringed with mountains.  

A day did not pass during our eight there without our saying “So Missoula!” about something or someone, though, of course, the fish, boats, water, music, and mountains have their own distinct flavors in Sitka. 

 





Sitka, for example, has views across the sound from a road that goes from zero to 2,000 feet in 5 miles. 

 









It’s probably just a matter of time, though, before we have fish-shaped bike racks 

"Heads Only" (!) Boxes at Fish Packing Plant on Katlian Street

Crescent Harbor, Mt. Verstovia, and Nunataq on Dock behind Closest Boat

and a grocery store with “welcome” and “thank you” painted on the pavement. But then there's Sitka Sound just past the Sea Mart pavement.
 















Sitka also has a whole different relationship with fish, evident at Katlian Street’s fish packing plants,















and has very, very different boats, evident at the ferry terminal, harbors, and anywhere within sight of the water.













Xtra Tufs--Sitka Sneakers--will not appear at 4^th of July parades in Missoula.

Still, Sitka's ukulele band at the farmers’ market,

brass quartet in a pocket park,    

and camper-shell window full of stickers that include "Love one woman…many guitars" and "Vita brevis, Carpe Guitarum," would fit right in back at home.

Unique to Sitka: a Russian history that began in 1799 and pervades the town still. 

St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Cathedral Built 1848

On Top of Castle Hill

And unique to our experience of Sitka: learning about the much longer history of Tłingit clans on what they called Shee and is now called Baranof Island.  Castle Hill, a Tłingit village site, later a Russian fortress, and later yet (in 1867) the place where ownership was transferred from Russia to the United States, now holds layers of history.  

Nunataq in Jamestown Bay

Katlian Bay

Also part of our Sitka experience: paddling trips starting from Crescent Harbor and Starrigavan Bay and hours of walking around the docks. 

Loons in Starrigavan Bay

Sidewalk Ovoid at Crescent Harbor

These paddles and walks led to seeing all around something Jonathan Raban writes about in Passage to Juneau--a design element strongly present in Pacific Northwest art. 

Ovoids on the Surface of the Crescent Harbor

Ovoids on the Owl and Thunderbird Wings

The ovoids, one of three shapes--formlines--that distinguish the art of coastal tribes, look like lightly squashed ovals.  







Having seen the ovoids on the surface of the water as he sailed between Seattle and Juneau, Raban hypothesized this natural source on the water for their ubiquity in coastal native art; I believe him.  We saw them everywhere--on a sidewalk, calm harbor surfaces, and Tłingit art like the Raven Crest totem pole.

Most of our nights in Sitka we stayed in the Forest Service cabin in Starrigavan Recreation Area.  It was built on an overused creek-side campsite from 44 Sitka spruce logs harvested while thinning dog-hair (densely crowded new-growth) stands in the Starrigavan drainage, the construction done by students in a 2-week log-cabin-building course at the University of Alaska Southeast in Sitka in 2008.  In addition to this cabin with sleeping loft, picnic table, and wood stove, Starrigavan has a beautiful bay, trails, and an estuary-viewing platform.  Sitka was the seed that grew into our plans for this trip, and it felt like pulling up roots when we left on the ferry and headed home.

Donna on the Boardwalk at Starrigavan Estuary

Eric at the Creekside Bench by the Cabin

Great Blue Herons at the Starrigavan Estuary

Looking Back toward Sitka from Olga Strait

Juneau

Otto in Juneau

Note: Our previous Alaska posts are below and in the archive below:  introduction (July 26)

                Tatshenshini people (July 27)

                Tashenshini raft trip (August 3)

                ferry (September 7)

Magical to drive off the ferry and find ourselves presto-change-o in Juneau!  There Otto was full of storage boxes; ice chest; Coleman stove; books and maps; laptop; cameras, binoculars, spotting scope, and tripod; clothes and boots; tent and rain shelter; sleeping bags; and Nunataq, for paddling later in the trip in Sitka, packed in two fairly huge bags. 

Early Morning, Lake Mendenhall and the Glacier from Our Campsite

Heading Down Fourth St.'s Continuation East of Harris St.

On the nights just before and after the wonderful Tatshenshini raft trip, we stayed in a motel; we camped our other Juneau nights at the Forest Service’s very beautiful Mendenhall Campground.  During our days, we hiked near the glacier, walked around town, shopped in the world’s smallest Costco--really--, and tried out restaurants.  

Ready for Mosquitos on Seventh Street?

What Were They Thinking?  What Happens When It Rains?

Using the Juneau-Douglas City Museum’s brochure that maps out two relatively short walking tours in downtown Juneau, one through the business district and one through the very, very uphill residential neighborhoods, we sauntered around, meeting a census worker trying unsuccessfully to find addresses on the 4^th and 5^th Street stairs. 



We also met, by coincidence, the resident of a house we had just puzzled over as we were puzzling over another.  He got off his bike and solved two mysteries: what looked like mosquito netting around an outdoor desk at his house turned out to be old curtains that his wife had draped around a dining table, and the oddly shingled and rounded eaves on his neighbor’s house were an effort at creating an English look.  As did many people we met in southeast AK, he had MT connections, including having ridden a bike up the Rattlesnake on a trip to Missoula. 

Evening, Juneau and the Gastineau Channel from Douglas Island

Three of These Downtown Buildings Are Cruise Ships

We ate well.  Imagine rolling out of the tent and taking a short drive down the Mendenhall Valley for perfect coffee, pastries, and frittatas at the Paradise Café with its décor of skis, musical instruments, cowboy boots, a bowling ball and set of pins, and signs that say, "Paris is always a good idea" and "Beer, wine: it isn't good to keep things bottled up."  We also had great bagels and a warm place to dry out one morning at Silverbow and had excellent crêpes one evening down by the public library.  The evening of the NBA finals we discovered a great beer at McGivney’s Sports Bar.  Since we didn't know the local beers, the server asked us what we like.  What were the chances she'd know Big Sky Moose Drool and guess what we'd like based on that? She did it: Iron Horse Irish Death.  Another evening brought another Missoula-related recommendation.  Moseying downtown, we ran into Rattlesnake neighbors also using the ferry to connect parts of an Alaska trip who had just eaten at Saffron.  Wonderful surprises to see them and find great Indian food in Juneau!   

We made other interesting, surprising discoveries in Juneau, one of them at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in an unusual way: a woman announced to all in the restroom that she was using paper towels instead of heeding the request on the wall to use the high-efficiency electric driers because, she said, utilities generate electricity with coal.  That’s true in many places, but in Juneau, where coal would have to come in by barge, that didn’t sound right.  When I asked, a ranger told me that Alaska Electric Light and Power in Juneau gets 100% of its electricity from hydropower generators at dams south of Taku Inlet, with the electricity crossing the inlet through a submarine transmission line.

Mendenhall Glacier from the Visitor Centor

   

Juneau felt nicer when we visited before and after Nunataq’s saltwater christening in Glacier Bay 19 years ago.  Since then cruise lines have deeply changed the part of downtown closest to the docks.  Nonetheless, cruisers apparently don’t walk far ashore, and Juneau is still mostly, greatly, uniquely itself.