Author: Lily Mihalik

This summer, as part of an ongoing project to document and preserve wilderness, the Forest Service is sending staff, scientists, and volunteers into the field to collect data.In the first of a two-part series, KCAW’s Lily Mihalik accompanied one such crew into the West Chicagof-Yakobi Wilderness.As it turns out, wilderness is as much about what isn't there, as it is what is.

Whether or not Sitkans have to pay diesel surcharges for electricity in the near future may depend on conservation choices residents make now. The Sitka Electric Department and the Sitka Conservation Society are collaborating this summer on making electricity conservation part of the town’s culture.

In Elfin Cove, residents continue to clean up after a fire two weeks ago that destroyed a lodge and restaurant. In Sitka, meanwhile, relief efforts are being organized by the restaurant owner’s daughter, who says help is still needed in the community’s rebuilding effort.

Sitka’s unemployment rate in March 2010 was 7.6 percent – lower than the state average but still on the rise compared to the same months in years past. That’s according to a quarterly report from the Sitka Economic Development Association. The report also shows that the community’s population is aging. In 2010, seniors over the age of 65 make up approximately 12 percent of Sitka’s population. That number is expected to be around 21 percent in the next 20 years.

The St. Lazaria birdcam is back. The US Fish & Wildlife Service has reinstalled what it hopes is a hardier system on the island refuge in the mouth of Sitka Sound.

A proposal to set up bear-resistant trash cans along part of Cascade Creek Road, as a trial program, was voted down by Sitka's Assembly at its regular meeting on Tuesday (6-22-10).

Local adventure racers will have a chance to get their feet – and the rest of their bodies -- wet this weekend during an open-water swim clinic. The clinic is designed to help residents prepare for the first-ever Sitka Sound Adventure Swim, scheduled for August 8. Open-water swimmer Claudia Rose has done the 21-mile Catalina swim and the 12-mile crossing of the Santa Barbara Channel in southern California. She’s also swum 12 miles across Lake Tahoe.

There is an alternative to going to court when individuals or businesses are in conflict. Mediation can be not only less expensive and divisive than traditional lawsuits, but also carry the weight of a court ruling. Two attorneys in Sitka are among the many statewide who are involved in mediation. They met with the Sitka Bar Association and local service providers this week (6-23-10).

For the past two weeks middle-school students from around Alaska and the country have been dancing, clowning, filming, sculpting, and doing just about every other kind of performance art in Sitka. The middle school session of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp culminates this week with a series of evening performances. The free shows start at 7 PM through Friday at the Sitka Performing Arts Center. KCAW’s Robert Woolsey dropped by rehearsals on Wednesday afternoon. He talked with students in the Mime class as they prepared for their eight minutes in the limelight, and sent this audio postcard.