Dancers step out to the music of Sitka contra band Fishing for Cats, during Porch Fest 2024. This year’s Porch Fest morphed from a lawn party behind KCAW, to a full-fledged street festival with food, music, and art all day long on May 18. That evening, three bands performed on the festival “main stage” at the Crescent Harbor net shed: Anel Y Los, Los Castaways, and Hank Moore & Friends.

A famously dark and wet holiday in Sitka, Halloween dressed up as a beautiful, sunny day on October 31, 2022. Hundreds of trick-or-treaters took advantage of the clear skies to roam down Lincoln Street, collecting candy from downtown businesses participating in the Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event.

The 21st annual Parade of Species took place this Friday in downtown Sitka, and was open to the public for the first time in two years. The event, which is hosted by the Sitka Conservation Society encourages Sitkans to dress as their favorite plants, animals and bugs in observance of Earth Day. Many sported silly hats, animal onesies, or hand crafted costumes as they paraded from downtown Sitka’s Lincoln street to the Sitka Fine Arts Campus.

After a “lionish” month of stormy weather, with strong gales and high seas occasionally topping 20 feet, the last day of March 2022, dawned quite peacefully off the coast of Southeast Alaska near Sitka. The 86084 Cape Edgecumbe weather buoy automatically captured this image at sunrise on March 31. The buoy is moored approximately 20 miles west of Necker Bay, and is an essential resource for the Southeast fishing fleet, and recreational vessels alike.

Since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine on February 24, more than 2 million Ukrainians have been displaced. Alexander Donstov and his daughter, Natalia, live in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city which has been surrounded by Russian forces. After a long journey, the pair arrived in Sitka on Wednesday (3-9-22) to stay with Donstov’s other daughter, Dasha Pearson. Despite uncertainty over the future of Ukraine, Pearson told KCAW “We are calling it a family visit for now.”

A caravan of about 50 cars and trucks drove through Sitka on Saturday (2-14-22), as a show of solidarity with truckers who’ve been protesting coronavirus mandates in Canada. The “Freedom Convoy” gathered at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park, before driving down Sawmill Creek Road, then down Halibut Point Road, and back through town, ending on Japonski Island. Many participants honked their horns and adorned their cars with American flags, and homemade signs condemning mask and vaccine mandates.

Earlier this month, hundreds gathered in Petersburg for a convoy in support of the truckers in Ottawa, and calling for an end to health mandates and COVID mitigation measures, locally.

On Thursday afternoon (12-2-21) city officials closed the lid on a box of 2021 mementos that will be sealed away for the next 50 years.

The box included everything from yearbooks from Mt. Edgecumbe and Sitka High School, to cloth masks, which have become synonymous with 2021 and the continuation of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz included a sealed letter to Sitka’s future mayor. Other items ranged from Elizabeth Peratrovich coins, to newspapers and radio theater tickets, to a gas receipt and an updated harbor rate sheet. The box also included a picture of the Sitka Charter Commission from 1971, marking 50 years since the city’s unification.

View the full list of items included in the time capsule here

The box will be stored for safe-keeping among the numerous artifacts in the Sitka History Museum. And it won’t be seen by the public until it’s opened in 2071.

“My boy asked me ‘what happens when you get to the 50th state?’ I told him, a band plays and you get a medal,” he said jokingly. 

Fluss thought it would be fun to land the joke by contacting local musician, Mike Kernin, and asking  if he could prepare a band for their arrival. 

“He wanted a brass band, but I couldn’t swing it on such short notice,” said Kernin. 

Instead a group of four local sax players gathered outside the airport to play Stars and Stripes Forever as the father son duo entered Alaska for the first time. 

In alphabetical order, the graduates are: Eric Alvarado, Lindsey Bartolaba, Melissa Gibson, Jayvan Iya-Kowchee, Douglas Johnson, Madison Roy-Mercer, Elizabeth Newell, George Stevenson, Chelsea Taylor, and Korbin Tugmon.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ceremony was closed to the public, masks were encouraged at the event, and families in the audience were spaced out throughout the auditorium. Students wore matching blue graduation robes and masks.

Although scaled down from pre-pandemic years, the 2021 graduation was a step up from last year, when the class of 2020 graduated in a virtual ceremony over Zoom. While most guests attended the Class of 2021 graduation in person, some still attended virtually.

The seventy-three members of the Mt. Edgecumbe High School Class of 2021 were graduated in ceremonies on campus the morning of Thursday, May 6. Although not the usual standing-room only crowd in the Sitka Performing Arts Center, Thursday’s event in the BJ McGillis Field House brought many families into Sitka, with students hailing from far-flung communities like St. Paul Island and Alakanuk.

This year’s Salutatory Address was delivered by Cheyenne Murphy of Bethel; Tia Patkotak of Anchorage was Valedictorian. See a full program here.

Graduation 2021 was quite a contrast to 2020’s ceremony, which was put together virtually as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened into the spring that year, forcing the cancellation of all events large and small. But the pandemic also left a mark this year: Besides masking, social distancing, and limited tickets for visiting family, a handful of students were in quarantine after athletes around the region were exposed to the virus at the Bill Weiss Wrestling Tournament in Ketchikan at the end of April.