Sitka – Riveted

Sitka and the Fortress of the Bear

Laura Domela — Sun, 07 Aug 2016 18:08:43 +0000

We had a nice breakfast with Sam and Anna in Kalinin Bay on Friday morning and then said goodbye to Safe Harbour as Sam and Anna cruised out toward Peril Strait to the east side of Baranof Island, and we headed south to Sitka. We decided to troll for a bit after leaving the bay and about 10 minutes in, Deke caught a nice coho.

Kevin filleted it for him while we were underway. All that filleting practice is paying off. Look at these beauties!

We arrived at our slip in Eliason Harbor and immediately met our neighbor because Tiffani needed to meet his dogs, pronto.

We grabbed a cab (Hank’s Cab) and headed for Fortress of the Bear so we could make it before they closed. Fortress of the Bear in Sitka, Alaska is a private, non-profit bear rehabilitation center. They rescue abandoned or sick cubs and bring them back to health and then care for them. The rescue center opened in 2007, and now houses 8 bears. We arrived in Sitka on Friday afternoon and decided that since we hadn’t seen a whole lot of bears over the last two weeks with Tiffani and Deke, we could visit the Fortress of the Bear to get a good close up look at some brown and black bears.

Pretty cool to see them close up (and not on a trail during a hike). Admission is $10.

After Fortress of the Bear, we stopped at the Alaska Pure Sea Salt Company to get more Alder Smoked Sea Salt (absolutely the best smoked sea salt ever). We also grabbed a bag of their new Vanilla Bean Flake Salt, which is nicely mild and has a great flavor that isn’t desserty at all.

After salt, we stopped in the Sitka Rose Gallery, (the place where we bought a couple Eric Bealer woodcut prints last year). We bought one more Bealer print (Puffins!), and also we found some work by a new artist at the gallery that we really liked (Brenda Schwartz-Yeager), so we bought two of her prints. One on paper, and one printed on aluminum. They are prints from original watercolor paintings on nautical charts. This is the one on paper, called Secluded Harbor:

The chart behind the painting is everywhere we’ve been in SE Alaska. So cool! Here are a couple detail shots:

And here is the one printed on aluminum. This chart shows SE AK, the Gulf, and a bit more, and I can’t remember the title of this one (it’s all wrapped up now). This one’s a little harder to capture in a photo because of the reflective quality of the brushed metal. It’s great in person.

We are (obviously) catching up on blog posts now, as well as a doing bunch of work here in Sitka for a couple days. We were super sad to say goodbye to Tiffani and Deke yesterday morning.

Today was filled with exciting events like doing laundry, filling our propane, grocery shopping, washing the boat, cleaning the inside of the boat, fueling up, and picking up some more patch glue for any future dinghy repair we might need to do. We got a tear on the starboard side of the Zodiac while in Klag Bay, probably on some submerged metal thing from the mining operation there, so Kevin hightailed it (sagging a bit) back to Airship with Sam following in his dinghy, so we could get it up on the davit to examine the damage. It was about an inch and a half tear. We patched it up and it seems to be holding nicely…after it didn’t hold once…so we’ll keep an eye on it and get more patch glue in case we need it. Fun stuff!

Here’s the route from Kalinin Bay to Sitka (26.7 nautical miles, 4 hours 20 minutes):

I think we’ll head out tomorrow or Tuesday…back up to Peril Strait and out to the east side of Baranof Island.

Sitka, Appleton Cove, Warm Springs Bay

Laura Domela — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 02:51:00 +0000

Our new crew (daughter Christy and her 7 year old daughter Mijonet) arrived in Sitka on Friday and we got Mij outfitted with some Xtratufs and a Grundens rain coat and then headed to check out the totems in the Sitka National Historical Park.

It was a super rainy day in Sitka so we just cooked some salmon on the boat and got to bed early. On Saturday we fueled up and headed back up toward Peril Strait.

Counting the gallons:

We did some fishing on the way and got to Sergius Narrows early for the 2pm slack tide, but it was fine and we went through a half hour early with no issues.

We anchored for the night at Appleton Cove. Kevin and Christy and Mijonet went out to set crab traps.

I managed to snap these photos of an eagle catching a fish!

We checked the crab traps in the morning and had one nice big male, in addition to one female and an undersized male.

We left Appleton Cove and decided on Warm Springs Bay for our next stop. The options were Ell Cove, Warm Springs Bay, and Red Bluff Cove, but the new crew voted for the hot springs.

Quiet morning at Warm Springs:

We fished on the way and caught three big rockfish and one too small king salmon. Big mouth rockfish:

Here’s the drama of the salmon catching:

Mijonet overseeing:

I drove the fishermen over to Kasnyku Falls for a quick nature break:

We anchored in Warm Springs Bay at the same cove where we anchored with Tiffani and Deke a couple weeks ago…Wooded Cove. We dinghied over to the public dock to hit the trail to the hot springs and saw that there was a spot at the dock we could have gone to, but it wasn’t visible with binocs when we were deciding whether to cruise over there or not (and there was no one in Wooded Cove so we had the little anchorage to ourselves).

The hike and the soak next to the waterfall were just as great as it was the first time, but this time after our soak we hiked the rest of the trail up to Baranof Lake. Wow! Not sure why we didn’t do that the first time…it’s gorgeous. (No camera or iPhone with us though, so no photos.)

We got back to Airship and cooked up the rockfish for a dinner of delicious rockfish tacos. Tomorrow we’ll head over to Pybus Bay.

Chore Days

Laura Domela — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 23:38:19 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

Here's what we've been up to for the past couple days:

I finished layout for some of next week's articles (since we'll be in the AK boonies once again)
Kevin did a whole bunch of client reports, webcast intros, business correspondence, and two consulting gigs with financial analysts and hedge fund managers
I finished a design project for a client back in Portland
Grocery shopped for the week
Refilled propane so we can keep cooking
Picked up oil filter and 3 gallons of oil (1/2 mile away, carried back to the boat in backpacks) for 250 hour oil change
Did 250 hour oil change, plus added a bit of coolant and cleaned up the engine room all sparkly
Procured some kid Xtratufs (also known as "Alaskan sneakers") and a PFD for 7 year old joining us tomorrow (we went with the blue PFD instead of the red one, so as not to clash with her pink binoculars)
Got more of that alderwood smoked sea salt from Alaska Pure Sea Salt because OMG yum
Picked up more of those spot prawns from Sitka Sound Seafood because same as above
Got rid of all the trash and recycling we could
Washed boat

The weather was great today so we did a bunch of the walking and outdoor stuff. View from washing the boat:

It was super rainy all day yesterday so we each donned our full Full Alaska (rain pants, rain jacket, Xtratufs) and went down to Murray Pacific to get some kid Xtratufs and PFD, then stopped at Sitka Sound Seafood for some more spot prawns.

Yesterday late afternoon:

Dinner last night was Coho salmon and asparagus. I made a glaze of dijon mustard and brown sugar for the salmon and baked it in the oven rather than grilling outside in the rain. It was delicious, and SUPER easy.

Oh yeah, dinner the other night at Ludvig's Bistro was very good! It's a tiny place (maybe 6 tables, plus the counter) and the atmosphere, the service, and food were all fantastic. We shared some Alaskan scallops with prosciutto, capers, and truffle oil….

…a delicious caesar salad (no photo, because…salad), and the Wild Alaskan Paella (with prawns, scallops, salmon, rockfish, calamari, chicken and chorizo baked with saffron Arborio rice, vegetables and fresh lemon..this was our favorite):

…and then Kevin ordered a chocolate dessert with blueberry salt (from Alaska Pure Sea Salt) called Boca Negra that was very rich and very delicious. We shared a bottle of Zenato Valpolicella and chatted for a bit with the couple at the table next to us (from NY) who were on Day 3 of an 18 day tour of Alaska that they put together themselves. Their trip included airplanes, ferries, car rentals, even a three day kayak camping trip! It sounded like a remarkable schedule and like they were going to see SO MUCH of Alaska in those 18 days. It was their first time to AK and they were already in love.

Tomorrow, our daughter and her daughter arrive in Sitka and we'll do a reverse trip back to Juneau, showing them some of our favorite things so far…South Sawyer Glacier, Ford's Terror, humpbacks, bears, etc.

Small Xtratufs:

After next week, we'll be working in Juneau for a bit while one of our employees (our other daughter) is in Europe, and then we'll probably head out to see Hoonah, Elfin Cove, Pelican… At some point we'll need to head south, I guess.

Seafoodie Things in Sitka

Laura Domela — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 19:15:58 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

The weather! It's STILL like this here in Sitka!

Since Tiffani and Deke left on Sunday morning, we've mostly been depressed catching up on work and boat cleaning and laundry and stuff like that. We ordered an oil filter that'll be here tomorrow, so we'll do our 250 hour oil change here in Sitka this week. We also ordered a new carburetor for the outboard from Gary's Outboard, which hopefully will lessen the amount of swearing when we go exploring by dinghy.

We went for a walk the other day down to the Sitka Sound Seafoods retail store to pick up some fish. We got two pounds of large spot prawns (frozen), some halibut, some king salmon, and some coho. We figure it'd be good to have some fish up in the freezer for when we aren't catching and still want to eat some fish.

I love these wooden houses across the street from the fish market. They remind me of something from a video game landscape:

The other night I decided to cook up the spot prawns. I found a couple recipes and made up my own from there. First, I put some tomatoes in the oven with olive oil, salt, and pepper to roast them.

I shelled the prawns, and then made a sauce/stock by browning the shells with a chopped shallot in a pan and then adding two cups of white wine to reduce. I reduced that down until I had about a half a cup of liquid and strained it into a bowl for later, discarding the shells and shallot.

I sauteed the prawns for about a minute in the same pan with a little olive oil and then set them aside. Next, I sauteed some garlic and more chopped shallot, adding the saved stock at the end, and some chopped spinach. When the pasta was done, I added it to the pan with the garlic, shallot, roasted tomatoes, some additional chopped fresh tomatoes, stock, and then tossed all that with a bunch of spinach to wilt, then added the spot prawns and a little butter.

I served this topped with a bit of shaved romano cheese and some of the alderwood smoked sea salt I picked up the other day in Sitka from Alaska Pure Sea Salt.

So good!

Spot prawns are so much better than regular shrimp…so sweet and buttery flavorful. Love 'em! Also, did you know that spot prawns start their lives as males and then all of them at some point change into females?

Last night we grilled up some Alaskan Halibut, and tonight we're going to go out to dinner. We tried to get into Ludvig's Bistro up the road (recommended) while Tiffani and Deke were were but they were completely booked on Friday and closed for the holiday weekend after that, so we'll go tonight and toast Tiffani and Deke on their 8th anniversary.

Fourth of July in Sitka, AK

Laura Domela — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 23:24:16 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

The official 4th of July fireworks in Sitka happened on Friday night, July 3rd. We had the most perfect spot for fireworks viewing here in the marina. (It actually looks way darker in these photos than it was, because I metered on the light of the fireworks for these photos.) The official fireworks show started around 11:30pm, but prior to that there were several other local shows happening that we could see from the top deck as well.

As the show progressed, the moon rose up to add its glow to the show:

This was the very best fireworks show I've ever seen. It did not let up for a second, and was LONG. It's a pretty good fireworks show when halfway through the show the smoke from the fireworks is blocking the fireworks:

On the morning of the 4th, we all slept in and then headed into town for some lunch before catching the 4th of July parade. We stopped to walk through the little Sitka Farmer's Market on the way:

Next, we grabbed lunch at The Larkspur Caffe. Kevin and I shared a Cubano sandwich and a king salmon sandwich and both were fantastic.

All lined up for the parade:

We went into Harry Race Pharmacy where there's a soda fountain and got ourselves some milkshakes, and then found our spot on the sidewalk for parade viewing. The parade was quite a bit better than expected (we have low parade expectations). It began with a dramatic fly over by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and the Coast Guard was the first to show up:

Your usual parade participants…fire trucks, cool cars, cute kids:

The Alaska Airlines entry had a kid driving his own little car dressed as an airplane, and it also had this giant inflatable airplane:

It looked a little sad from behind though:

The Sitka Fine Art Camp campers were a fun and lively bunch:

I'd forgotten about all the candy that is thrown from the paraders to the audience! The kids in front were cleanin' up! (The grocery stores both carefully threw plums, peaches, oranges, and bananas, as well as some candy.)

No parade would be complete without an umbrella-hat-wearing selfie-taking dude:

As the parade ended, we headed upstream as most of the crowd followed the last parader. We wanted to check out a few shops that were going to reopen after the parade.

As we passed St. Michael's Cathedral (the Russian Orthodox Church) we noticed it was open for touring, so we went in to check it out.

Lots of gold…

Lots of metal work in the art…

This gorgeous blue…

…and a little embroidery:

After touring the cathedral, we went into a few shops and galleries and browsed around. Deke bought Tiffani a beautiful silver bracelet by a local artist at the Fisherman's Eye Gallery. While we were there we got to chatting with the owner, Vern Culp, about other local(ish) artists and I asked him about the artist I'd seen work by back in Ketchikan, Eric Bealer. Eric Bealer lives outside of Pelican, AK, very much off the grid. He is a painter and printmaker and I fell in love with his wood engraving prints when I first saw them. For some reason I didn't buy one immediately, even though they were insanely affordable. Vern had a couple pieces, but told us that the Sitka Rose Gallery just down the road a bit carried more of his work, so we decided to go look.

Well, we bought three prints. "Raven's Rock" (8in x 8in, framed $55, no. 183 out of 190 — this one is going in the boat!):

Ice Wall (7-1/4 x 3-1/4 unframed $45, no. 396 out of 400) (see tiny kayaker in the lower left of the image):

…and "Ocean Motion" (10" x 13" unframed $75). This is the largest engraving he's ever made, and he'll apparently never do another one this big…way too much work! We got an artist's proof, number 5 out of 14.

You should see the detail in these…it's incredible. I did a bit of wood block carving as well as copper engraving and etching in art school, and the amount of tiny detail he gets on these wood blocks is remarkable. (We saw two of his wood blocks in the Sitka Rose Gallery…fabulous!)

Here's the new home for Raven's Rock:

On our way back to the marina, we walked past Totem Square where they were having the Firemen vs. Coast Guard water fight (kind of like a reverse tug of war, with hoses). Needless to say, the crowd got soaked as well:

Last night we grilled up some burgers with blue cheese and bacon and had ourselves a little deck top party in the gorgeous weather. It's so sad to have to say goodbye to Tiffani and Deke tomorrow morning. Sharing this trip with them has been the best two weeks of of it all!

Exploring Sitka, AK

Laura Domela — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 02:58:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

We arrived in Sitka early in the afternoon on the 3rd. The harbormaster put us in an end spot on Float 9 which as it turns out, was a primo spot for watching fireworks from the top deck, but more on that later.

The weather was perfect for an afternoon of exploring, so we headed out shortly after docking. We walked through town, past the Russian Orthodox church…

…and the Moose Family Center (love that 70s signage!)…

…and over to the Sheldon Jackson Museum:

This museum is small but mighty. The Sheldon Jackson museum is the oldest museum in Alaska and is located in the first concrete building in the state. Construction began in 1895 and it has been occupied since 1897. The building was placed on the National Historical Register in 1972.

From their website:

Alaska was under the Russian flag for 126 years, almost as long as it has been part of the United States. The museum’s historical collection of 1,700 objects includes both the Russian colonial era and the American period (1867 to present). Outstanding among the Russian objects are a bronze double-headed eagle emblem, one of only two known to exist, a medallion presented to Alexander Baranov by Catherine the Great, a tri-corner hat and brocaded caftan from the 1840s, and material related to Russian exploration. Tools, weapons, religious icons, documents, and utensils form a comprehensive representation of life in Russian America.

Alaska Native material dominates the collection and includes objects from Alaskan Eskimo, Athabascan, Aleut, and Northwest Coast groups. Items from daily life as well as ceremonial and sacred objects are well represented. The collection of Northwest Coast and Eskimo baskets is among the most comprehensive in existence, and includes fragments of three recently discovered baskets which have been dated to 5,000 years b.p., the oldest ever recovered in Alaska or the Northwest Coast. The collection of Eskimo carved ivory is comprehensive, ranging from prehistoric to twentieth century. The Alaska State Museum also maintains an outstanding collection of work by contemporary Native artists.

We arrived only 30 minutes before they closed and went in anyway. Amazing. They gave us tickets to get back in after the holiday weekend if we want to, and we just might!

After the museum, we headed for the Sitka National Historical Park.

The visitor’s center was already closed, but we got to do what we really came for…the totem trail through the forest.

Earlier in town, we stopped at a bookstore where Tiffani picked up a book of information about the totem poles, so she played tour guide and told us about each of the totems we saw along the trail.

The Centennial Pole, the newest one in the park:

The Tlingit Raven/Shark pole:

View from the trail, looking back toward town:

Totem detail:

This is the Haida “Trader Legend” pole:

Detail:

This is what’s known as a ridicule pole. These poles were raised to notify everyone of an unpaid debt or of harm or injury to another. The crest of the person who owed the debt or caused the harm or injury would be carved into the pole and raised at a potlatch. The righting of the wrong or payment of the debt was accomplished at another potlatch, again, so that there would be many witnesses. The pole was then burned and the wrong was never mentioned again.

At the top of this pole is a figure representing a white man, indicated by the use of curly hair and a beard. The next figure down is holding a shrimp in its mouth, a symbol to represent a thief. Another symbol of thievery is the crab. It is the fourth one from the top in an upside down position. The bottom figure is a beaver, recognized by the teeth and tail. The original pole stood in the Kaigani Haida village of Sukkwan. This is a replica carved during the 1938-1942 CCC project using local Native carvers.

(Info gathered from EveryTrail.com because I couldn’t remember all the cool details from Tiffani’s book.)

This is the Lakich’inei Pole. The top figure on this pole is Lakich’inei from an ancient Tlingit legend. He is pressing a child who was half human and half dog against the spine of a fish, killing the child. The bottom figure, which you can’t see in this photo) is a bear with a shrimp in his mouth.

This totem pole was carved by Tlingit Tommy Joseph in 1999 to commemorate Chief K’aylaan, leader of the Tlingits, in the Tlingit/Russian battle in 1804. The pole is located on the site of the Tlingit fort.

After the totem trail, we continued on and headed over to Baranof Island Brewing for some beer and a late lunch. Here’s Tiffani and Deke with their beer flight:

We got food from the Ashmo’s food truck parked at the edge the outdoor seating area (fish & chips, fish tacos, smoked salmon mac’n’cheese, all good) to go with our beer. Fun afternoon!

We walked back to Airship (along the National Park trail…so nice!):

Back at Eliason Harbor:

Sitka’s fireworks are tonight (July 3rd), but not until it’s dark(ish), which will probably be close to 11pm. We’re ready in our perfect spot!

We brought back a growler from Baranof Brewing and we ordered a late pizza and sat up on the deck for a couple hours before dark, just chatting and watching boats and non-official fireworks.

Not a real bird on top of that mast:

Next up: Fireworks, and 4th of July in Sitka!

Camp Coogan Bay, AK

Laura Domela — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 04:53:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

It was gray and rainy this morning at our Leesoffskaia Bay anchorage. We thought we'd head around the corner to Camp Coogan Bay to anchor for the night (because new place!) but first we thought we'd do a little exploring (and maybe some fishing) on the way.

There were a ton of fishing boats out today:

Here's a map of our route. You can see where we started in Leesoffskaia Bay and where we ended up right next door in Camp Coogan Bay, with a cruise in and out of Silver Bay and some fishing in between:

As soon as we got near the head of Camp Coogan Bay, Tiffani (expert bear spotter) spotted a brown bear on the shore. The good anchorage area was pretty crowded with crab traps, but we managed to find a spot that was both far enough from shore (even shore at low tide) and far enough from any traps. We were motivated to anchor here because…bears! Right there!

We watched bears pretty solidly all afternoon, more in the evening (there were two or three roaming around eating grass and turning over rocks). There were also deer…probably 10 or so at one point…grazing near the bears. They didn't seem to mind each other.

Photo without bears:

Brown bear and bald eagle in the same photo:

Two brown bears in one photo:

One brown bear, two deer:

Kevin took the drone over to shore and got some great aerial footage of one of the bears. The bear maybe heard the drone once or twice, but never saw it and didn't seem to be bothered enough to stop eating for more than a second or two. Tiffani and I watched with binoculars. Here's the video:

Looking out the other way, which we did once or twice when we were not watching bears:

In the morning, I got up and looked out toward the meadow. Tiffani asked "Are there still bears?"

Yep, still bears:

Low tide this morning put us quite a bit closer to the bears:

It was a beautiful day, so we headed out to fish for a bit before going into Sitka (Mt. Edgecumbe in the background).

We were not the only ones:

We didn't catch anything, but it was such a great day to be out on the water that we didn't much care. Next stop, Sitka!

Oh yeah, and here's our route from Camp Coogan Bay, to fishing, to Sitka:

Baby Bear Bay, Sitka, Leesoffskaia Bay

Laura Domela — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 03:54:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

We left Baby Bear Bay around 9:30am, timing it to get to Sergius Narrows about a half an hour before slack tide. We slowed up and checked conditions through the binocs and it looked fine so we headed through with no issues.

Out past these islands…the Gulf of Alaska:

Tiffani spotted another brown bear on the shore and we went over to get a closer look:

We stopped in Sitka for an hour or so to get a little internet and do some work. We called the Harbormaster (Chuck) and asked if there was a spot where we could tie up for a little bit while we got some provisions, and he made some room for us on the dock between a sailboat and an aluminum fishing boat. He said today (June 30) is just about the busiest day of the year there because it’s the day before king salmon season opens (July 1) and everyone’s very busy readying their boats and stocking up on beer. Chuck was super nice and helpful and didn’t seem stressed at all, considering.

Tiffani and Deke went up to get a few things at the market while we caught up on work, and then we headed out to do a little trolling (caught nothing) on the way to Leesoffskaia Bay. I found this place on the map and the reviews sounded good, so we thought we’d check it out.

Lots of eagles around these parts:

Leesoffskaia Bay is fabulous! We wound in through rocky islets and anchored in the middle of the end of the cove in 20 feet of water. We’re completely surrounded by trees and mountains and eagles flying overhead and it’s SO QUIET.

Today's track from Baby Bear Bay to Sitka, then trolling, then to Leesoffskaia Bay (38 nautical miles):