Donna and Eric: Out to See What Nature Has for Us: Sitka: Music, Mountains, Fish, Boats, Water

Thursday, September 24, 2015

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.