Articles
Pat Kehoe: Fisher-Painter-Guardian-Nurse
Pat Kehoe’s life might sound like a John le Carré book. We met one evening over a pint (after Pat’s cherished tap dance class) to talk about how art and life had evolved.
Trained as both artist and nurse, Pat came to Sitka from Washington in 1980, specifically to go fishing. She’d been working as an RN in a “very intense setting” and needed to do something different. She and a friend put their VW van on the ferry, got to Sitka on July 4th and settled in at Starrigavin campground.
Read MoreHarbor Notes 2020
Crescent Harbor is being re-built – installation of the timber floats is “going really well,” per Sitka Harbormaster Stan Eliason.
Eliason is hoping to get boats back into their stalls as soon as possible. The Harbor Dept. has a time-lapse camera recording the progress of the renovation and reviews the footage once-a-month. This will provide an archivable record of the project.
“The utility portion,” says Eliason, “will be substantially complete by June 12th. That will be the final portion.
Read MorePassing the Baton: Sharing Marine Mammal Science Across Generations
These days, in marine science education in Southeast Alaska, turns out that “sharing” is the name of the game.
Much of the philosophy (and some of the structure) of scientific sharing that now exists in this place is largely the offspring of Sitkan Jan Straley. Having lived in Alaska since 1979, Straley is famous for her decades-long research, writing and photography about whales. Equally important, though perhaps less well-known, is Jan’s influence on at least two generations of Alaskan scientists.
Read MoreBethany Goodrich: Nature is Not Just a Place You Visit
This year’s cover artist was born and grew up outside Boston – interestingly, she notes, at the one-mile mark of the Boston Marathon.
Bethany Goodrich’s photo is striking to some because of its tranquility and the feeling of respect and connectedness between the salmon in the foreground, and the hand and mussels in the background.
Read MoreHarbor Notes 2019
Plans continue for the re-building of Crescent Harbor, located in the center of downtown. Said Sitka Harbormaster Stan Eliason, “We received $5 million from the State of Alaska (out of an anticipated $12 million).” The construction phase of the project should begin during the winter of 2019 with estimated completion by March of 2020.
Eliason thinks that “We are right on track timing-wise, but (the scope of the project now covers) only re-building the timber floats, rather than the whole harbor.”
Read MorePat Glaab: Everybody Wins
During the 1980s, in the spring of each year, halibut fishing in Sitka resembled a combat zone. Massed on the fishing docks and back decks of longline fishing vessels were (mostly) men – deckhands and skippers surrounded by endless buckets of stainless steel circle hooks connected to miles-long poly-line, gearing and baiting-up to hunt the (up to) 400-lb. flat fish.
In those days the catch quotas were filled by any fishermen who wanted to fish and it was known as a “derby” fishery.
Read MoreSandy on Sandy: Raising the Bar
You’ll definitely see “a bird with attitude” when you look at the cover of this year’s Sitka Harbor Guide. So says artist Sandy Greba, who is lighting up a Harbor Guide cover for the second time in five years – this time with her watercolor painting, “Hooded Merganser.”
Sandy has a knack with color, light and water – you can see this both in “Hooded Merganser” and in her earlier cover art, “No Vacancy,” whose sea lions-atop-a-buoy-in-water graced the cover of the 2013 Harbor Guide.
Read MoreHarbor Notes 2018
The next major project slated for the Sitka Harbor Dept. is the re-building of Crescent Harbor, located in the center of downtown. A matching state grant has been applied for, to implement the project.
If the State of Alaska is unable to fund 50% of the project, bonding will have to occur.
According Harbormaster Stan Eliason, the harbor dept. now receives 100% of the fisheries tax. Fisheries tax collected for the 2016 season was $953,323.80.
Read MoreAMSEA – Teaching Safety, Saving Lives
Commercial fishing has always been at or near the top of the list of the most dangerous jobs in America. But after decades-long efforts from many organizations in and outside Alaska, as well as government safety requirements for vessels and mariners and a change in fishermen’s attitudes toward safety, the number of fatalities has been greatly reduced.
High among the groups helping to make fishing safer is the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association.
Read MoreHarbor Notes 2017
The transient float is complete, providing 980 feet of additional moorage to the Sitka harbor system. The float, located off Thomsen Harbor just north of the Harbor office, also acts as a protective breakwater. The $5.8 million project was funded partially with a matching state grant.
Harbormaster Stan Eliason said he was pleased with the completed facility, already in use. “It will serve Sitka well,” he said.
A complete refurbishing of Crescent Harbor is the next project to be addressed, according to the Harbor Master Plan.
Read MorePhil Long: No Room for Mistakes
When herring return to Sitka Sound each spring, so does watercolorist Phil Long. This year’s Harbor Guide cover image is from Long’s painting “Net to Tender” that depicts an action scene from the Sac Roe fishery.
Long lives in Sitka for four months of the year during the herring and salmon seasons to oversee the movement throughout Southeast of refrigerated shipping containers. The containers are destined to be packed with fish and shipped, mostly to Asia. The rest of the year, he lives in Oakland, California.
Read MoreHarbor Notes 2016
The rebuilding of the Sitka Transient Float was underway this spring with hope to complete it by summer. The $5.4 million float provides the harbor system with nearly 1,900 feet of new improved facility, now including 50 amp and 30 amp electrical service. The float is used all year by transient boaters, those on the harbor waiting list and people who have to be moved from other spaces.
The float employs the same technology as the recently re-vamped ANB Harbor – wooden floats tied to steel pilings and buoyed by foam-filled polyurethane tubs.
Read MoreMike Mayo: Lucky Liner
If you see Sitka longliner Mike Mayo at the helm of F/V Coral Lee, you’re looking at a man of contradictions. Mike embodies the rough-and-rugged image of the Alaska fisherman, but he was initially trained as an accountant and didn’t wet a line, commercially, before his mid-20s.
He is a demanding captain, but is generous with those who work for him and in his adopted home port of Sitka, where he is well-known for his philanthropy. The head of a large family and a lover of life, Mike is quietly philosophical about his several close brushes with death. He can be alternately perceived as a hard-as-nails businessman, a holy man or Santa Claus.
Read MoreEyak’s Back!
What a difference a year makes!
The Eyak, an integral part of the Sitka waterfront, tore a chunk out of her middle on a rock near Goddard Hot Springs and sank on Jan. 19, 2015. On Jan. 24, 2016, the Eyak was back in the water, ready to faithfully carry mail and haul cargo to Port Alexander and other points on southern Baranof Island.
Skipper Dave Castle, three passengers and Castle’s dog Olive all escaped the sinking without injury, but the material loss was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Read MoreTerry Pyles: Abundant Depth
Ketchikan artist Terry Pyles had a brainstorm at the world-famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, while staring at Alejandro de Loarte’s 1610 painting The Kitchen. The work portrays a jolly and prosperous European man, surrounded by fish and game ready for the cooking pot.
Pyles said he immediately thought of an Alaskan in his kitchen, surrounded by regional delicacies. “I’ve always loved still life (paintings) since I was a kid,” Pyles said. “I was drawn to de Loarte’s painting – (the man in it) reminded me of my friend Dave. I thought, `how perfect this could be just changing it out to Alaskan stuff.’”
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