Sitka’s local bookstore celebrated its 50th birthday on Saturday. Throughout the afternoon, locals wandered into the downtown shop to buy a book, eat a cupcake, and reminisce on five decades of the community hub.
50 years ago, to buy a book, Sitkans had to call up the bookstore in Juneau and have it mailed to the island. So in 1976, three families came together to start Old Harbor Books — a place where Sitkans could gather and find nearly every genre of book: from philosophy and classics to best sellers and Alaskan authors.
“The vision was to have books, and to make sure that Sitka had an opportunity to be a literary community. Sitka deserved to be a literary community,” said board member Roger Schmidt, who grew up in the bookstore.
His parents helped open the place when he was seven and his sister Laura was nine. They spent weekends selling seashells out front and screenprinting tote bags with the bookstore logos still used today. And they spent their down time reading every book they could get their hands on.
“My dad had this passion, everybody had this passion, which was: people need to read books, and they need to have access to lots of books, and they need to have access to lots of different ideas,” Schmidt said. “So not just, ‘We’re gonna have the best sellers,’ but whatever the subject, books are so critical to learn. It was before the internet too, [and] living on an island, books were our pathway to knowledge.”
Schmidt says a large part of the mission of Old Harbor Books from the beginning was to give back to the community. Instead of taking a paycheck, the owners made the decision to use the profits to support local organizations, by doing things like subsidizing — or making free — their rental space upstairs.
“The vision for the business was never to make money,” he said. “It was to pay employees well, and then it was to be able to support the community in every way it could, and it’s done that for 50 years in all kinds of ways.”
Bookstore manager Ashia Lane says the bookstore continues to work with the Sitka Public Library and schools, sells tickets for local events, and for years, even had the “Book Boat,” which traveled to surrounding communities like Tenakee Springs, Angoon, and Kake to deliver titles to folks who didn’t have access to a local bookstore.
“We’re trying to continue community service via the bookstore,” she said. “We will deliver books to the jail if you find yourself unfortunately over in the Sitka local lock up for the weekend. We’re really trying to not just be for private consumers.”
Despite community involvement, it wasn’t always easy keeping the doors open. Just like bookstores across the country that found it hard to compete with the dawn of online shops and e-books, so did Old Harbor Books. So they pivoted, and expanded their local inventory to include games and puzzles, book-themed items, cozy candles and blankets, and even art supplies. And according to Schmidt, they began to rely more on rental income to keep the bookstore going.
“The most encouraging thing is that it seems like people love books again, and thank goodness for that,” he said. “We were so worried around 2000 when it just seemed like people were turning away from books, and they were not passionate readers. And it just feels so hopeful that people want to read books, and they want to read books in their hand. It’s just really great.”
The bustling anniversary party is a testament to that fact, as dozens of adults and children mill about the space sifting through book titles and looking at posters speckled with collaged photos of the bookstore throughout the years.
For Sherry Foster, a retired third grade teacher, the bookstore is part of the reason she chose to live in Sitka.
“We moved here in ‘76 and when we saw that there was a bookstore, we said, ‘Well, that’s it. Then we’re gonna stay.’” she said. “It was a given. If there’s a bookstore, it’s an okay place to live.”
And Foster isn’t the only one who thinks Old Harbor Books is a local treasure. Rhiannon Guevin’s first job was working at the bookstore, tidying shelves and ringing people up at the register.
“Old Harbor Books is one of my happy places in Sitka,” she said. “Like the minute I walk in the door, I just feel a welling of joy.”
She describes herself as “anti-Amazon” and made a vow to herself years ago that if she’s going to buy a book, it’s going to be from Old Harbor.
“And I think that there’s like a weirdly large number of people for such a small town who feel the same way,” she said. “Especially in these times, I think supporting local businesses is of the utmost importance. If you want to have something in your community, you have to support it.”
Many rural communities throughout Alaska don’t have a local bookstore. For a town of about 8,400, Sitka is pretty unique.
Karen Hegyi first supported Old Harbor Books 30 years before she actually moved to the community. It was the summer of 1983, and she was visiting Sitka on a kayaking trip with a friend.
She’s lived all over rural Alaska, and she says it’s wonderful that she gets to live in a place like Sitka with such an incredible bookstore.
“The fact that it’s endured for 50 years is a testament to the people who run the bookstore and to the community too, that it’ll be here for another 50 years,” she said.
If these party-goers have anything to say about it, it probably will be.
