The founder of one of Alaska’s largest homegrown marine tourism companies has died. Bob Allen, of Sitka’s Allen Marine, passed away Monday morning, March 2. He was 83 years old. 

His oldest son, Rob Allen, stopped by KCAW to talk with Robert Woolsey about his father’s legacy.

Note: Bob Allen was a devout member of the Orthodox Church in America. There will be a memorial service 7 P.M. Friday, March 6, at St. Michael’s Cathedral, with a funeral to follow at 11 A.M. on Saturday.

Bob Allen’s is a classic Alaskan story. His father first came to the territory from California and got a toehold working on the sternwheeler riverboats operated by the railroad companies. Bob joined him as a teenager, as the family settled in Nenana.

“You were on your own. You really were out in the middle of nowhere, and you had to take care of yourself and the community,” said his son, Rob Allen, of his dad’s ingenuity and work ethic. “And so I think he just got used to doing things.”

Allen continues: “If something needed to be done, you just had to take care of it yourself. He talked about that, when he talked about growing up there. He had a fish wheel, because he had dogs. A dog team. And he had to use the fish wheel to catch dog salmon to dry for the dog team for their food for the winter. Of course, he had a skiff with an outboard, and those outboards were a little more temperamental in those days. He said you had to work on it for two hours to get one hour of running out of it. And he always preferred to go upriver, because then he could at least drift home when the outboard inevitably broke down.”

This explains a lot about Bob Allen, but not everything.  He bought a Piper and learned to fly — eventually earning a twin engine rating. He tried his hand at prospecting, and at commercial fishing. He was always looking for opportunity, and Rob says he didn’t really fear failure — an attitude that underpinned all his future business endeavors: barge repair with his brothers Jack and Buck, running a boat yard, seafood processing, shipbuilding, marine transportation, and finally tourism. 

By the end of Bob’s life, Allen Marine would operate a large fleet of catamarans running day tours out of Sitka, Juneau, and Ketchikan — all built in the company plant in Sitka — and would own a small cruise line called Alaskan Dream Cruises.

KCAW – What was the thing in your dad that made him this kind of successful entrepreneur? Because to look at him — the flannel shirts, the hats — he looks like he could have been just somebody in the P-bar telling stories for the last 20 or 30 years of his life, instead of building this huge company. What was the difference there?

Allen – I think one of the things about him is that he was always working. You know, in the summer growing up we’d start off the day in the morning well before seven, out at the cruise ship picking up a load of people to do the Silver Bay cruise. Those were a couple of hours. We’d finish up at 11. And then he would take off to the boat yard or the shop to make things were going there, and sometimes jump right in and be helping with sandblasting or painting or welding. And then in the summer, every night for Silver Bay we had the “locals’ cruise.” That was just anybody who showed up. Independent travelers. It was an evening cruise at six or seven at night — again, a two-and-a-half hour cruise — so he would be on the boat to nine or nine-thirty doing a trip. And he was happy to go with two people. It didn’t matter to him. We’d have a boat with 150-passenger capacity and he’d have two people up in the wheelhouse, each paid $10 bucks, and he’d be doing the tour. One of us kids would be along as a deckhand. I got a lot of reading done. I’d be in the back with my library book.

And you can’t really tell Bob Allen’s story without mentioning the kids. In 1961 Allen met his future wife Betty, a single mother of two girls, when she waited table on him at Angelo’s in Juneau. The couple would have three more children — all of whom played a part in building Allen Marine, if only to keep the business running despite their teenage disinclination for work. Rob Allen says there was a time in the 1980s, when maintaining the chip barges for the Alaska Pulp Corporation was Allen Marine’s principal business, and tourism a costly sideline, that the family nearly mutinied.

“So there was a real discussion about whether we should get rid of the tourism business,” said Allen. “At that point, as kids, we were just tired of getting up early in the morning. (Laughs) So, the kids might have voted to get rid of it at that point. It was close, but we kept them all.”

Once Rob and his siblings were old enough to hold captain’s licenses, the pressure eased on Bob Allen somewhat, and the tourism side of the business gained real momentum. Like any of Alaska’s coastal waters, Sitka has its share of dismal, wet days. But Rob says that passengers were seldom disappointed when his dad would leave the wheelhouse and plug in a microphone in the main cabin.

“And he could really change the whole feel of cruise just by going down there,” said Allen. “Answering questions, talking about his history in Alaska and the earthquake. You’ve got a boatload of people wondering why in the hec they took this tour, and he would just totally turn it around with his storytelling.”

“The earthquake,” of course, was on Good Friday in 1964, while Bob Allen was piloting a 100-foot crab boat offshore of Kodiak.

They were all on the beach, right at the head of the bay where the old village had been. They had no food, no blankets. All they had was one little radio. And we brought out 46 adults, and probably 15 children. And one body. They were in shock.

This is Bob’s story of the rescue of the village of Kaguyak, as told to KCAW in 2014 on the 50th Anniversary of the Great Quake. Allen and his crew all told would deliver 130 tsunami survivors to the Kodiak Naval Station — all while never knowing the fate of his own young family.

When you reach a point where there’s nothing you can do to take care of your own family, you say, ‘Okay, I’ll take care of what I can — somebody else’s family — and somebody else is going to look after mine, I hope.‘

The Allen family all made it through the quake safely, and would eventually relocate to Sitka in 1967.

Alaskans of a certain age this week are remembering the Good Friday Earthquake.

55 years ago, on March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake struck Southcentral Alaska. It remains the largest quake ever recorded in North America, and the second-largest recorded anywhere on Earth.

In 2014, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Great Alaska Quake, KCAW’s Emily Forman prepared a five-part retrospective of the event, featuring residents who experienced it first hand — both in Anchorage and in Southeast.

Here are some excerpts of those remarkable stories.

Dennis Girardot: Those memories of being in the ‘64 earthquake are with me forever, and pretty vivid, even to this day, fifty years later. My mother was in the kitchen preparing a pot of chili and this beautiful birthday cake for my brother in the shape of a guitar. He was a Beatle wannabe at the time. I remember hearing her scream, and the chili went all over the kitchen, all over the cake. The door fell open to the closet and all my brothers presents fell out, so he got to see what he was going to get.

Nancy Davis: Bill, where were we?

Bill Davis: Well, we lived in East Anchorage at that time.

Nancy: What do you remember about that first five-and-a-half minutes?

Bill: Well, as the bookcase started to walk across the floor, that’s when I decided it was time to get out.

Nancy: I don’t know who left first, but I got outside and I held on to the little green VW bug.

Bill: What I remember most is the alders and the cottonwoods across the street: Wild swinging back and forth.

Kent Hanson: On this particular night, instead of taking the shore boat across, we took a 16-foot lapstrake skiff, and we were about halfway to the Langfeld beach, where we were going to beach the boat and walk up. And Warren stood up in the bow and said, “Did you feel that? Did you feel that?!”

Bob Allen: When you reach a point that there’s nothing you can do to take care of your own family, you say okay I’ll take care of what I can with somebody else’s family, and somebody else is going to look after mine, I hope.

Kent Hanson: We were stuck there on the Sitka side, and the shore boat was on the Mt. Edgecumbe side, and they weren’t going to go again until the next morning.

Nancy Davis: It gave me an opportunity to gather an incredible amount of data with the villagers  of Old Harbor and Kaguyak, who were relocated — evacuated, really — to Airport Heights School. I met them in Anchorage, and that’s where I recorded the original stories.

Bob Allen: We headed for Old Harbor, because that was wiped out too. And we’re going through hundreds of empty oil barrels, overturned boats, broke-up houses, deep freezes, refrigerators — anything that could float.

Dennis Girardot: I don’t remember being scared. I remember being like, wow, this is maybe even cool.

Bob Allen: That was the worst part of the whole thing for me was coming home and finding my family gone. And all there is is a note on the table from Betty saying that they went to Chiniak. 12 people had drowned on those roads because they got caught in the heads of the bays. I’m panic-stricken.

Emily Forman: 12 frantic hours later Bob finally got a call that his wife and kids had been to Chiniak by plane and were safe.

That was a 2014 retrospective on the 50th anniversary of the Great Alaska Quake, March 27, 1964, from KCAW’s Emily Forman. We heard the voices of Dennis Girardot, Kent Hanson, Nancy and Bill Davis, and Bob Allen.

Note: Emily Forman was KCAW’s Post-Graduate Fellow in Community Journalism in 2013-2014. After her tenure in Sitka, Emily went to WUWM Milwaukee as a producer of the Precious Lives series, and then to WFYI Indianapolis to produce Side Effects. She now works as a podcast producer for Gimlet Media.

In 2018, a stranded sea lion captured the hearts of Sitkans. NOAA Fisheries biologists believe he became disoriented and could not find the ocean. The sea lion became a fixture over the weekend, attracting onlookers as it sought shelter near Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital and the surrounding woods. (Photo provided by Sitka Fire Department)

In 2018 in Sitka, fortune favored the bold. From landlocked sea lions refusing to stand down, to protesters calling for change, Sitkans fought for what they believed in this year. KCAW’s Katherine Rose reflects on a year in Sitka when its residents behaved boldly, without apology.

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It was early morning in late August, when not a deer, not a dog, but a sea lion was spotted flopping its flippers along the roadways of Japonski Island.  

Concerned biologists tried to track him down, and the fire department even did their best to prod him with a light touch of the fire hose. As the stream of water drenches him, for a moment the sea lion looks undeterred. He lifts up his head, proudly elongating his neck, and stands resolutely, as if to say ‘No bother. I needed a shower anyway.’

For four days the sea lion hid in the woods, boldly going where perhaps no sea lion has gone before, refusing to go back to the water from whence he came. The image of him, resting on the porch of the old community health building, looking smugly at the camera, refusing to move, traveled across the world. He was a viral sensation, inspired Halloween costumes and even ended up on some Christmas cards.  

Perhaps he’d taken some inspiration from Sitkans, because in 2018, it seemed was a year for the bold. Whether we were slapping on some bright red lipstick before a drag show or taking a strong stance on an issue, being bold was as en vogue in Sitka as smart speakers or Nissan Leafs.

Sitkans Stand Up in Protest

With the cost of living on the rise, city budget cuts, and multiple fisheries seeing record low harvests, there was a sense of economic malaise in Sitka, perhaps felt strongest by the fishing fleet.

Fireworks crackle

Fishermen chanting: Let us fish! Let us fish!

Three dozen fishing vessels paraded along Sitka Sound on a sunny day in June, boat horns blaring. Perched on the bow of one vessel, troller Cavan Pfeiffer held an orange traffic cone against his mouth, and shouted, “Governor Walker! We need you! Stand up!”

Salmon fisherman were worried the Governor would agree to a Pacific Salmon Treaty that deepens cuts to Alaska’s king salmon fishery. Standing with a group of conservationists and fisherman to greet the Governor’s vehicle, Eric Jordan said, “It’s a tough time for trollers.”

“There are things going on out here in the ocean. I fished all morning, got up at 3 a.m. in the morning and was out there in the fog and stuff for one fish.”

Governor Bill Walker looks out over Sitka Sound, as trollers pass by calling for him to not sign a Pacific Salmon Treaty that would further cut Alaska’s allocation. The salmon fleet organized a boat parade and rally to send that message. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

And while over three dozen trollers paraded up and down Sitka Channel fighting for a fair shot at catching hopefully more than one fish, one Sitkan stood alone, but with a message just as loud. In March, as hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington DC to call for tighter gun laws, Annabell Lund-George stood in the roundabout bearing a sign that said “Books Not Bullets.”

“I’ve lived in Alaska for more than 40 years, the last decade here in Sitka,” she said. “This is a tough one for Alaskans particularly. Look, I’ve lived in Alaska for decades. I own guns. I’ve been a hunter. I even own a pickup truck. But I do believe there are things that we can do that can help (horn honk) prevent gun violence and increase gun safety without endangering our Second Amendment.”

Annabel Lund-George stands in the roundabout in downtown Sitka with her homemade sign on March 24th, in solidarity with “March for Our Lives” demonstrators in Washington D.C. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Although the national protests were led by students, Sitka didn’t see any youth led protests that weekend — it was spring break, after all. But one was in the works for April, on the anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. Led by Sitka High students Ella Lubin and Joe Pate, and a counter protest organized by Anders Marius, the students walked out, stood on opposite sides of the school chanting, mirroring the national conversation surrounding a contentious issue.

“The last presidential election showed the quick polarization that’s taking place in the country,” Lubin said. “I think for our generation right now that kind of was a wake up call. Wow, if people can change and digress to one side so quickly, why can’t we rise up so quickly?”

Protest organizers Ella Lubin and Joe Pate (KCAW Photo/Kelsie Barbour)

Anders Marius organized a counter-protest. (Photo/KCAW/Kelsie Barbour)

In October, students rallied again, this time in support of Juliana vs. the United States, in which 21 youth plaintiffs are suing the federal government over climate change. The case was put on hold in the US District Court of Oregon , but youth in Sitka spoke out nonetheless. Over 100 people gathered in front of the court house, to hear Pacific High student Killian DeTemple and others voice their concerns about government inaction.

“The current predicament is not born of plastic straws and car combustion engines.” He added, “Those contributing most to the state of the world are not those in our homes and daily lives, but those in corporate offices and executive meetings. It is these people who bleed the byproduct of their profit into our oceans and waterways, suffocate our atmosphere with our carbon haze and pretend like they care while doing all of it. As individuals, our voice may not always feel heard and to corporations even less so. But this cannot stop us.”

Sitka Tribe Sues State

Locally, the effects of a changing environment were visible in the empty freezers of the Tlingit and subsistence communities when the herring harvest came up short. As Sitka Tribe of Alaska resource protection director Jeff Feldpausch bagged hemlock branches for distribution to elders, he noted that the coating of herring eggs was far below expectations. 

People don’t want trees in their freezer, it’s all about putting eggs in their freezers not branches,” said Feldpausch. “This is looking grim. This is really grim.”

The commercial herring fishery also ran into trouble in March, falling over 8,000 tons short of a quota. And this fall, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game set a guideline harvest limit STA didn’t feel was sustainable.  So they filed suit against the state of Alaska, claiming mismanagement of the herring fishery. STA chair KathyHope Erickson said they were taking a stand over 20 years in the making.

“We’ve been testifying before the board of fish for a couple of decades now at least, and it hasn’t gotten us very far,” Erickson said. “It’s getting to be such a dire situation.”

Sitkans Demand to be Seen

Many of those testifying against the ordinances were senior citizens themselves. Grace Larsen stood before all seven family members, six of whom are under 65, a yellow sign that said “Seniors Do Count.” (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

And Sitka’s seniors pushed back when programs were cut. In April, the assembly voted 4-3 to eliminate the senior sales tax exemption and replace it with a rebate program. Over 40 citizens testified at the meeting. Then, in the coming months, a petition led to a question on the November ballot- should the senior sales tax exemption be reinstated? 58 percent of Sitkans said ‘yes,” and the new ordinance was overturned. A second ballot measure to make Sitka’s bars exempt from a statewide smoking ban failed.

For some, being seen was an act of boldness. A group of Sitkans held their first ever public pride celebration in June. Organizer Maia Mares has lived here for two years and notes she hasn’t been as ‘out in Sitka as other places she’s lived.

“I’ve found if I don’t raise the issue myself, it’s not raised or there isn’t space to raise it,” she said. “I wish queer life in Sitka were more vibrant and visible.”

Sitkans picnic at the town’s first LGBTQ+ Pride celebration on the lawn outside the Pioneer Home Manager’s House. Originally planned as a private event, organizers chose instead to go public in the hope of stimulating more gatherings in the future. (KCAW photo/Rachel Cassandra)

And later this summer, some of the LGBTQ community became even more visible, with Sitka’s first ever drag show held at the Mean Queen.

Sounds of Katy Perry and audience cheering 

Creating a queer space made an impact in Sitka this year. Here’s Aren Vastola, a lifetime resident who was in the audience:

“It’s really great to see this kind of gender nonconforming performance in Sitka,” Vastola said. “As a member of the LGBT community myself, it’s also kind of really comforting and reassuring to see people coming out both like not just to see a show but also in support of that.”

And performer Ann Poindexter had advice for young people who might be drawn to drag:

“Just experiment. Like just put on heels if you’ve always wondered what would it feel like to put on heels.”

Bailey Craig as “Greg,” the emcee of Sitka’s first drag show. (KCAW Photo/Katherine Rose)

Sitkans Behave Boldly

And when it came to challenging gender roles and expectations, some women tried their hand at the shooting range this year at the women’s pistol clinic, a training group that’s grown substantially over the last few years, teaching women to use firearms safely. Participant Andrea Turner said the environment challenged her in a way that helped inform future conversations about gun ownership and gun violence.

“My thing that I’m working on this year is confronting fear in all aspects of my life,” Turner said. “I’ve had very strong opinions about guns for forever. I got to thinking about it and realized that a lot of those opinions are based on fear, and a lot of that fear is based on the fact that I don’t know a lot about guns or gun safety.”

Participant Andrea Turner practices dry firing her pistol at the women’s pistol clinic, a 4-week course offered by the Sitka Sportsmen’s Association. (KCAW Photo/Katherine Rose)

And a woman’s bold fight for justice, moving across the world and risking imprisonment, with her congregation standing behind her.

Congregation of Grace Harbor Church sings

“We’re praying for Indea while she is in custody… and we look forward to the day when this family can be reunited,” Pastor Paul McArthur says from the pulpit. 

Indea Ford lived in Sitka for nearly three years after escaping an alleged abusive relationship in Great Britain with her two daughters.

“And it got to a point one day,” Ford said, “when he was being particularly abusive — and both Grace and Ava were there — and I sat there and looked at my girls and realized that the only thing I’m doing is letting them think it’s okay to be treated like this by someone.”

Ford was extradited in April and accepted a plea deal in the UK that could mean another 18 months incarceration. Her daughters, however, are safe in the US with her husband, a member of the Coast Guard, and her family and church are still  fighting for her to come back home.

Indea Ford in Sitka this past January, the day before she flew to Anchorage and surrendered to US Marshals. She had been under house arrest in Sitka since April 2017, when the US Department of State received an extradition petition from the UK. A year away from full citizenship, Ford had just taken her driver’s license exam and was celebrating with lunch at the Westmark with her husband and three children, when US Marshals arrested her on the street corner. “I thought I had failed the test!” she says. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

And for airport luggage handlers with injured backs who have a hard time standing up with everyone else, Sitkan Tim Fulton invented a device that could save his fellow rampers years of pain going forward. Called TISABAS — short for TimSAvesBAckS — it’s an ingenious folding conveyor belt that works inside planes. 

“I was impressed. This was the first time I’ve seen it in action and it worked a lot better than I expected, to be honest with you, Tim,” said fellow ramper Bob Weaver. “That guy at the door has got to throw the bag from here to there. I mean it’s hard. Especially on the floors. Some of the floors slide well. Some bags slide well. Other bags don’t slide well. People bring too much stuff. You don’t need high heels in Alaska!”

Maybe people packed too much in their suitcases but what about their backpacks? Some Sitkans scaled mountains this year with plans brighter and bolder than a typical campsite. Josh Joseph climbed Mt. Edgecumbe in March with an an inflatable unicorn, planning to throw a disco party with his friends when they reached the top.

“We decided we could light up the volcano with a strobe light. I could get some lasers and a little disco ball and make it look like a rave,” said Joseph. “It all sounded very doable, it didn’t weigh much to do that stuff.”

But conditions weren’t great, and after waiting out a blizzard overnight, listening to *Sandstorm*  in a makeshift snow cave, Josh and his friends were rescued by the coast guard. But Roman Sorokin says they haven’t given up their dream just yet.

“Josh and I are already talking about a comeback to the mountain,” said Sorokin. “Hey, you learn every single time. You become wiser. Smarter, you’re able to reflect on your fears and concerns. I think mother nature was testing us to see if we were worthy of the next adventure.”

If this year was testing us for the coming adventures, Sitkans proved they’re ready. Whether at a drag show, a mountain disco dance party, or fighting for a cause, we stood boldly in 2018.

Roman Sorokin waits as USCG rescue swimmer Keith Williams descends from a Jayhawk helicopter in the distance (Photo provided by Josh Joseph)

The Assembly approved an $8,500 appropriation to enhance security and ADA-accessibility at the front desk of the utility office. Staff have reported a few instances of feeling threatened by members of the public. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

The City of Sitka is preparing to negotiate with the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium over the potential sale of Sitka Community Hospital. Teams from the City and SEARHC will come to the table on December 6th and December 19th to begin joint negotiations. But first, they are carrying out a two-way due diligence process. Each hospital is requesting extensive amounts of information from the other to figure out what a deal might look like and eliminate any financial surprises.

Downloadable audio.

Consultant Sarah Cave described the due diligence process to the Assembly as a checklist. “SEARHC has requested a lot of information about Sitka Community, as Rob [CEO Rob Allen] has alluded to, but we have our own list of things that we think are critically important to learn about SEARHC,” Cave said.

Neither of these checklists have been released to the public. See the negotiation team’s timeline here: 11-27 CBS Assembly Update (FINAL 112018)

Aside from regular updates at the Sitka Assembly meetings, Cave said the negotiation team may offer brown bag lunches for community members to get more information. Their next update will be at the Assembly’s meetings on December 11th and December 20th.

Sitka Community Hospital CEO Rob Allen also gave a report, noting the strong financial performance of the hospital this year and heavy visitation. “Very busy month in October, after September kind of slowed down. Year to date, we’re at $1.35 million of income, which is $1 million ahead of budget. We’re having quite a few things hitting just right and this is due to changes we’ve made over the past couple years and being busy overall.

Allen added that hospital directors are absorbed in the due diligence process. The hospital has stopped the process of installing a new electronic health records system – called CERNER. The Sitka Community Hospital board voted to cancel that project last month.

On first reading, the Assembly also approved a permitting system for commercial boat work throughout Sitka’s Harbors. The hope is to create a more streamlined system at the Eliason Harbor Drive Down Ramp especially, which gets busy in summertime. An earlier version of the ordinance charged vessels $500 for the annual permit. This new version (Motion and Ord 2018-52S) has no fees.

The Assembly also supported a state application to rename the a new body of water at the head of Redoubt Lake. “Luna Lake” was created during a 2013 landslide, in which Assembly member Kevin Knox and Maggie Gallin escaped, but their dog Luna was never found.

In budget appropriations, the Assembly approved $150,000 to keep working with hospital consultants Sarah Cave and Steve Huebner. They also approved $8,500 on first reading for enhanced security measures at the front desk of the utility office. The money would closing off the open end of the counter, adding security to the employee door, and installing security cameras, while also making the desk more ADA-accessible.

A memo in the Assembly packet (Motion Memo and Ord 2018-54) said there have been instances where members of the public are expressing anger towards actions of the Sitka Assembly or city administration. The memo says staff have “reported multiple instances of feeling threatened by members of the public.’

Many on the Assembly were concerned for the safety of city staff and like Assembly member Kevin Knox, called for civility. “We have to be able to have conversations with each other that are reasoned, but at least civil. For me, what is the sad part about this, is that people are threatening other people in their place of work,” Knox said.

Assembly member Richard Wein mentioned how Sitka was recently named one of the most beautiful cities in America by Conde Nast Traveler. “We are one of 20 most beautiful cities in the United States, but as the song goes, is beauty only skin deep? I think we really need to examine what is happening here in our town and come together over this,” Wein said.

Towards the end of the meeting, the Assembly entered executive session from 7:30 p.m. until 9:15 p.m. to discuss lawsuits facing the Sitka Police Department with outside counsel Michael Gotti and Megan Sandone. The lawsuits were filed by officers Ryan Silva and Mary Ferguson. No public statements nor motions were made in regular session.

Prior to this executive session, Kevin Mosher made a motion for City Administrator Keith Brady to not be in the room for a portion. City Attorney Brian Hanson did not think his dismissal was necessary, but the motion nonetheless passed by a vote of 4-3, with Gary Paxton, Steven Eisenbeisz, and Kevin Knox voting against. Brady was invited into the room at 8:05 p.m.

Then, from 9:20 p.m. until 10:54, the Assembly was in executive session to discuss communications with city attorney Brian Hanson and city administrator Keith Brady about hospital negotiations between SEARHC and Sitka Community. Also in the room were consultants Sarah Cave and Steve Huebner, as well as outside legal counsel Sandy Johnson and Chief Finance and Administrative Officer Jay Sweeney.

City Administrator Keith Brady presents a plaque to Captain Ned Tutton, marking the first port of call by the Star Legend to Sitka. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

For the first time, Sitka’s deep water dock is able to accommodate two cruise ships at a time — allowing more passengers to come ashore. That happened today when the Silver Shadow and the 200-passenger Star Legend, making its first port of call, anchored. KCAW’s Emily Kwong reports on the blockbuster connection between the Star Legend and Sitka.

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(Photos being snapped)

Ned Tutton, captain of the Star Legend, and Sitka’s city administrator Keith Brady are shaking hands. Between them is a glass plaque, commemorating the luxury vessel’s maiden voyage to Sitka. But that’s not all that’s shared between them. I’m talking about Hollywood actress Sandra Bullock. 

(Movie trailer for the Proposal: Sweetie, honey. Some proposals change you. Why don’t you get married here tomorrow? Let’s see a kiss!)

Though set in Sitka, very little of the 2009 romcom was filmed on location. Not so with Bullock’s 1997 action film Speed 2, which was filmed aboard this very ship in Key West, Florida.

(Movie trailer for Speed 2: Now, they can’t change course. Seems odd. Yes, it is odd! They’re abandoning ship in the middle of the night)

Then the ship was called the Seabourn Legend. For the evacuation scene, the sprinkler system was used to simulate rainfall.

(Movie trailer: Who is running the ship? Oh yeah, I am)

Guenther Kopf, the hotel general manager aboard, says the boat crew collaborated closely with the film crew to pull it off and after production wrapped, the studio threw a party.

“Sandra Bullock was mixing cocktails, Mr. [Robert] Duvall was flipper burgers on the BBQ grill. We all were issued a t-shirt with Speed 2 on back with all the names of the film crew and all the names of the crew on board. So that was a fantastic event and definitely something you remember,” Kopf said.

The deck of the Star Legend, which caters to 200+ passengers. The ship will make Sitka a regular port of call during its summer travels. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Kopf spends three months at sea and the rest of the year in his native Austria, where he manages his family’s vineyard. After over a decade spent working on big ships, he decided last year it was time to downsize to a smaller, luxury line.

With 104 suites, the Star Legend was purchased and renamed by Windstar Cruises in 2013. Kopf calls it a home away from home, speaking glowingly about his 100-person crew.

The bridge of the Star Legend. Propped among the equipment are drawings of whales, which the captain will identify for passengers over the PA system. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“The crew is so friendly, so accommodating, remembers [guests] names,” Kopf said. “Every single cruise, I have guests coming and say, ‘Oh my goodness, I was three years ago on a cruise in Tahiti and I come into the dining room and Esther the waitress says, ‘Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, how are you? You remember me?’ And they say, ‘How is this possible.’”

Windstar Cruises is exactly the kind of boutique line Sitka hopes to draw to its shores. Rachel Roy with the Sitka Chamber of Commerce says the last time Windstar Cruises came to Sitka was in the 1980s.

“They were really happy to have a dock to dock to when they were in town. That was one thing they looked at. They will be in Sitka every itinerary they have this season,” Roy said.

That includes local excursions and a performance on board by the Naa Kahidi dancers. Roy adds that when visitors inevitably ask about the Proposals, she talks about how the character of the town portrayed in the film is spot on. But luckily, she adds, locals don’t get internet from a coin operated machine.

As the school year comes to a close in Sitka, student activities culminate in big events. There’s sports tournaments and final performances, award ceremonies and graduations. Monday night (05-07-18) was the final concert of the 5th grade band. Students played four full band pieces that took a year of musical study, which began in the fall with Part 1 of our series.

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Being a diligent band student pays off. That’s the message teacher Susan Brandt-Ferguson wants to send her 5th graders currently snacking with concentration on the floor. Most have ice cream mustaches. “We have crunch bars and rainbow Popsicles,” Brandt-Ferguson tells me.

This is the annual “No-Tardies Ice Cream Party.” About half the 5th grade band got a surprise invitation this morning as a reward for coming on time with their instruments throughout the year.

Brandt-Ferguson says her approach to classroom discipline is focused on positive reward rather than punishment. “If it’s about their effort rather than my effort to control them, then the balance is right,” she says with a laugh.

Susan Brandt-Ferguson with her fourth grade students. Towards the end of the school year, students get to try out all the instruments and list on paper their top choices for 5th grade band. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)(Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Balance is a key ingredient in the evolution a 5th grade band. You may remember KCAW’s story from the beginning of the year. Students in the fall were just learning how to produce a sound and hear themselves over 82 others. Eight months later, they’re still learning how to play their own part while also listening for each other.

(Sound of band playing together in April)

“Now they’re starting to learn enough control that they can maybe back off a little bit and listen for someone else,” Brandt-Ferguson said before their “Hello Summer” concert. “Like in “Pirates Parade,” there’s one part where everyone is playing except for the flutes. And then the flutes come in and if everyone else doesn’t back off a little bit, we will never hear the flutes.”

Students earn “band bucks” for practicing that can be cashed in at the music store in the back of the band room. Several parents volunteer throughout the year to support the band. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

But if they do, there will be that balance. This band’s rendition of “Pirates Parade” debuted on Monday with a unique solo from Tanner Steinson, playing a screaming high note on his French Horn.

(Sound of band playing Pirates Parade)

Each section also performs a solo. During instructor Mike Kernin’s arrangement of Louie Louie, the 5th graders enthusiastically popped on a pair of sunglasses. “Dun, dun, dun, it’s a great pep band tune,” Brandt-Ferguson said.

Bridget Ford practices her clarinet while her mother Heather Ford looks on. She plans to continue in middle school. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

The laid back look doesn’t fully convey just how much work Brandt-Ferguson and her students have put into this performance. Some of that practice happens at home. Heather Ford’s daughter Bridget practices the clarinet half an hour at at a time.

Heather: It’s usually 3 to 4 times a week that she’ll do that [practice].
KCAW: That’s really good for practicing.
Heather: Yeah. Sometimes I think she does it more because she likes to hear the dog howl. She says the dog is singing with her.

(Sound of Bridget playing clarinet)

Bridget has come a long way too. In the beginning, she says, I was squeaking every other note. “My dog would howl and howl and howl and I would keep playing and playing,” Ford said.

All that practicing eventually paid off. Brandt-Ferguson went so far as to prove that to her students. Mid-way through their concert, she plays them a recording of their very first song: Hot Cross Buns.

(Sound of band playing “Hot Cross Buns” in November)

The 5th graders are turning pink at the sound of themselves at the beginning of the year. A few are curled into their laps trying to stifle their laughter.

“On that day, those fifth graders – these fifth graders – were very proud of themselves,” Brandt-Ferguson tells the audience. “They should be because they were doing an awesome job for playing their instrument for four weeks. But boy, have we come a long way,” she adds.

Cooper Lewin practice his trumpet at home. He and his Coast Guard family are moving this summer to New Orleans, where he hopes his new school will have a music program like Sitka’s. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

After the concert, trumpet player Cooper Lewin said they sounded even better than they did in practice. “I think everybody was so nervous that they brought it all together,” he said.

Some of these students will carry on with their musical craft in middle school, under the direction of Sarah Frank. That’s when Brandt-Ferguson says she got hooked on her instrument, the saxophone. She wants her students to experience that love affair too, with an instrument that fits like a glove.

(Sound of Brandt-Ferguson playing the saxophone)

She recently played sax for a class of 4th graders, at the start of their band journey. Brandt-Ferguson goes above and beyond for these students too, letting them slowly try out every instrument in the band to see what they like best.

After a few deep breaths and false starts, a student manages to get the saxophone to play a single note. “There you go,” Brandt-Ferguson says, wiping off the mouthpiece so another student can try. “You got it figured out. Good for you.”

And so, another cycle of 5th grade band begins, not with trumpet fanfare but with a squeak.

Joe Pate of Sitka High School practices a humorous interpretation piece for the High School Alaska DDF State Championship this weekend. Pate also competes in debate and won first place in public forum debate with teammate Ella Lubin last year. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

While the Olympics come to a close in Pyeongchang this weekend, another competition is underway at East Anchorage High School. That’s where over 100 students and their coaches have gathered for the state’s annual “Drama, Debate, and Forensics” Championship.

DDF is an after-school activity grounded in public speaking. Sitka has two teams: one from the local high school and one from the all-Alaska boarding school. Despite the many rules, DDF offers kids an unusual amount of freedom.

Downloadable audio.

I attended DDF practice at Sitka High School a few days before the state competition. It was crunch time. Students were running lines, researching debate points, and fine tune their orations on laptops. DDF Coach Christian Litten laid down masking tape on the carpet, in a square.

“Joe’s too active, so we gotta bring it in a little bit,” Litten said.

His student, Joe Pate, rolled out the cricks in his neck before practicing his HI. That stands for humorous interpretation. The DDF judges will be looking for Pate to keep his performance inside of a 3′ x 3′  area. “It’s not my favorite exercise, but it keeps me in good shape for state,” Paid said.

Practicing at home, he’s broken a sweat. Pate’s HI is adapted from “World’s Best Teacher,” a play by Clint Snyder, and he’ll portray four characters in 10 minutes. At one point, his teacher character – Ms. Porschtov – hands back the results from her pop quiz to her three terrified students, all played by Pate.

Porschtov: You failed. (Paper sound) You failed. (Paper sound) You failed. (Paper sound)
Phil: Look guys, Morgan failed! Look at that. Big fat F. Dance party!
Morgan: Wait, I failed. I give up. (Sobs)

Pate doesn’t stay quite within the box, but he does hit all the bells and whistles of what it’s like to be a high schooler: to be the teacher’s pet, the class clown, the loner. He’s been polishing this piece for months.

“It was hard finding a piece that really fit me as an actor. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of variety. I’m absolutely terrible at doing a British accent,” he admits. I wasn’t quite convinced, so asked for proof. “Tea and crumpets. H’ello gov’na,” he recited, laughing at himself.

The Sitka High DDF team is a diverse group of fifteen, some with a knack for research and debate, others with a flair for the dramatic arts. As a coach, Litten’s job is match a student’s unique strengths with 16 unique events.

Unlike a sport or a particular school subject, there are three types of events – drama, debate, and forensics (“Not CSI, but competitive speech”)  – and so many ways to be good at DDF. Litten said that’s what drew him to this after-school activity in the first place. “When I was a high schooler, I was a kid that was not really into the academics of things. I was acting out, which is a funny term to use. I needed some way to do that in a healthy environment.”

Litten said the ability to explore his emotions within the safety of a character got him through high school. When the coaching job opened up in 2016, he applied.

The classroom is wallpapered with awards, a few from last year. Pate and Ella Lubin took first place in public forum debate, fending off fierce competition from Juneau and Anchorage. Sitka High won “Best in Drama,” “Best in Debate,” and “Best Sweepstakes” among small schools. While it’s a big legacy to uphold, Litten said what’s most important is cultivating an environment where students can act out – in a healthy way.

Mt. Edgecumbe students Aria Phillips, Esther Burdick, and Muriel Reid practice their reader’s theater, a Shakespearean parody of ghostbusters. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“The hardest part of being in high school is just trying to survive and just trying to figure out, ‘How do I be a person and be a good person?’ And then move on from high school and be a healthy adult. It’s tough. It’s a tough transitionary period for kids,’ he said.

Some students make that transition at a young age. Just across the bridge is Alaska’s only state-run boarding school, Mt. Edgecumbe High School. During one lunchtime practice, three students on Mt. Edgecumbe’s DDF team ran their “Reader to be ghostbusters, in the style of Shakespeare.

Esther Burdick: Be you serious, this catching of ghosts?

Muriel Reid: I, still serious.

Esther Burdick: From thenceforth, we shall be known as…

Aria Phillips, Esther Burdick and Muriel Reid: The Ministers of Grace!

Coach Marcia Drake chuckles, jotting down notes as the three Elizabethan ghostbusters aim pretend proton packs. Mt. Edgecumbe’s team this year is smaller than Sitka High’s, with six students instead of fifteen. Drake says her focus is less on winning awards and more on encouraging students to do their personal best.

English teacher Marcia Drake has been coaching DDF at Mt. Edgecumbe for nearly fifteen years. She was chosen by fellow coaches as Coach of the Year last year. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“T-ball is my favorite sport because everybody gets to hit the ball and go out there and play in the dirt. DDF is kind of like that: everybody gets a chance to do a thing. In light of this latest school shooting, there isn’t one solution to it but we all have to do what we can do. This is what I can do,” Drake said.

In 2017, Drake was chosen as DDF Coach of the Year. She’s pretty humble about it. An hour after getting her plaque, she told me, she was helping a student who had thrown up in her hotel room.

Her students are big fans of Mrs. Drake. When I ask them why she won Coach of the Year, as they passed around a box of Tootie Fruities cereal, Freida Nicori and Esther Burdick put it this way.

Nicori: If you have a mountain in front of you and you’re trying to get to the other side and you have no idea how to get there, I think she’d just be one of those people that would hold out her hand and help you every step of the way.

Burdick: Yeah. Or even, she’ll help you until you don’t need it anymore.

Drake has been coaching DDF for nearly 15 years and said one of her favorite moments came from Taylor Stumpf, a student who performed an original oratory in 2014 about transitioning from a woman to man. Before competition, Drake took him to a used clothing store to pick out men’s clothes. Taylor won first in state that year.

“It really was a validation of who he could allow himself to become,” Drake said. “Teenagers need adults in their lives who care about them and who perhaps see in them what they [the students] can’t see yet.

Both Sitka High and Mt. Edgecumbe boarded a plan this week bound for the state competition, taking their orations and dramatic interpretations, their debate notes and their nerves. They also took their coaches, who will be there if they win, if they puke, and as they do their very best.

Students at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School in Sitka sound their first note as a concert band. There are 81 students in the program this year, preparing for their concert in December. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

With the school year in full swing, so is the music education program in the Sitka School District. And there comes a moment of reckoning in the 5th grade where students pick up an instrument – sometimes for the first time – and learn how to play.

Downloadable audio.

Susan Brandt-Ferguson raises her arms expectantly. Eighty-one pairs of eyes are locked with hers.

“Eyes here,” she tells her students. “Check your posture. Move forward on your chair. Are your feet flat on the floor? Is your back tall? 1, 2, 3, deep breath here we go.”

Eighty-one students sound the same note in near unison, with occasional squeaks and squawks. This is the first time all band students are rehearsing in one room. After putting down their instruments, whether woodwinds, brass, or mallets for percussion, they look at each other kind of stunned.

In her 24 years of being a musical educator, Susan Brandt-Ferguson has spent 22 of them in the Sitka School District. “A lot of what fifth grade students have to learn how to do is start together and stop together,” she says. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“It’s so different right?,” Brandt-Ferguson tells them, amid nervous giggling. “But to be honest in the time we’ve had, you’ve made huge, amazing, and great progress.”

Brandt-Ferguson has been teaching concert band for 22 years in Sitka. She’s master at corralling elementary school energy into music and she knows this moment well: that wall of sound when everyone plays together for the first time.

Bridget Ford with her clarinet. Since picking it up, she’s learned several relatives and neighbors also know how to play – including her grandfather. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“Some of you are a little quieter instruments than others,” she tells the band. “So it’s going to be awhile before they learn to control their sound, but it will happen. And together we’re going to make great sounds together.”

One of those quieter instruments is Bridget Ford’s clarinet.  After sounding a C note, she talks about choosing this instrument after careful scrutiny. “It’s not high pitched like the flute. It’s not LAAAA. But it’s not deep like the trombone. It’s just natural and it feels right for me to be playing it,” Ford says.

One of the hallmarks of the music education program in Sitka is that every student who wants to play an instrument can. While half the students  are using a new or loaned instruments acquired by their families, the other half is borrowing instruments from the district’s inventory.

There are four music educators in the Sitka School District, where instruction begins in kindergarten with Kathi Jones. Using the Kodály method, students learn to distinguish between loud and soft, fast and slow. By the time they reach Brandt-Ferguson in the 4th grade, they start to answer the question of “Which instrument is right for me?” She gives students a chance to try out every instrument before stating their preferences for 5th grade band.

Cooper Lewin with his trumpet. He aspires to play the trumpet solo in the Bruno Mars song “Uptown Funk.” (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Some, like Cooper Lewin, got a jumpstart at home. His brother was playing the trumpet. “He let me try it. And I just absolutely fell in love with it,” Lewin remembers. ” I’m like, ‘This is so fun,’ and I just couldn’t’ wait until it started.”

After a few weeks of playing, Lewin has a good grasp now of how to hold his fingers on the valves and how to breathe. He plays the first few lines of the tune “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and says, “I can’t finish the end where it goes, ‘its fleece was white as snow.’ It’s like a High C. It’s weird.”

But he intends to figure it out, which is exactly the attitude Brandt-Ferguson cultivates with her students. Instead of telling students to “practice” their instrument, she tells them to “play” their instrument.

“They really have to play out to develop a good sound from the beginning. You have to kind of let it all hang out at first and then refine it over time,” Brandt-Ferguson says. The band also needs to learn rehearsal etiquette and how to listen to each other.

After two weeks, I come back to 5th grade band and there’s a noticeable difference in their ability to rest – or pause – between notes. Eighty one fifth graders are starting and stopping together.

“That was amazing,” Brandt-Ferguson tells them. “We had silence. It’s funny because a long time ago, you already knew how to not play your instrument. Right?” The group laughs. She adds, “Like a month ago, you knew how to not play your instrument. And then you were not playing your instrument. But now you’re figuring it out! I love it!”

The brass section of fifth grade band. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Brandt-Ferguson smiles hugely at her students. They have a long way to go, but with continued practice comes controlled playing and perhaps a love of music. She played piano as a kid, but turned to band when she picked up the clarinet in the 5th grade.

“It was in middle school that my heart started being in it,” Brandt-Ferguson recalls. “I had a middle school music teacher [Ginny Packer] that is the reason I’m a music teacher. And…she’s near and dear to my heart and is part of everything that I do, every time that I teach. I guess I hope that all of my students have experiences where they feel so much a part of a group and that they matter so much.

Each one of those voices will matter when the Keet Goshi Heen 5th graders take the stage for their first band performance on December 13th.

The Seattle Firefighters Pipes and Drums group has been traveling to Sitka for over a decade to take part in the Alaska Day celebrations. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

The Seattle Firefighters Pipes and Drums band lands in Sitka this weekend for Alaska Day events– and their first stop is the historic Cable House, home of Raven Radio! We’ll broadcast a live performance of their music from Beak Restaurant on Saturday, October 14th at 1:30 p.m.

After a 9-month search, with national outreach through the Prothman Company, the Sitka Assembly has hired Keith Brady to serve as the municipal administrator. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

The Sitka Assembly has chosen who they want as their next municipal administrator. The elected official from Utah will take the reins from interim city administrator Phillip Messina next month.

Downloadable audio.

Keith Brady is a 39-year-old motel owner and married father of four based in Green River, Utah.

He cut his teeth in local government as a Green River city council member from 2008 to 2011 and was then elected within Emery County as one of three County Commissioners in 2015.

In his cover letter (P. Keith Brady), said, “I believe experience should trump formal education.” At Collins College in Tempe, Arizona, Brady studied marketing – not city governance.

At a meet-and-greet in Sitka on Friday night (08-18-17), he said his biggest strength is communicating – both within City Hall and with the general public. He reached out to multiple department and researched Sitka in-depth prior to landing.

“There seems to be some mistrust with government. I think there is in general with government, but hopefully if there’s better communication there will be less mistrust and better input from both sides, so the Assembly can say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing and why,’ and also the people can say, ‘Hey, we don’t like,’ or, ‘We do like it,’ and why.

Brady praised recent efforts by the city to redesign their website and as County Commissioner, has maintained a website of his own.

He wasn’t looking for a new job. The Sitka position came across his desk through the Prothman Company, hired by the Assembly to recruit for a new administrator on the heels of Mark Gorman. Brady saw it as a chance to take a big career step and reconnect with his youth, when he lived briefly in Alaska.

“Coming here and having the rain and the smell of the salt air and the foliage brought back a lot of memories for me. It made me happy and I figured coming back to Alaska is just an opportunity for anybody,” Brady said.

Listen to Brady’s full interview here:

Downloadable audio.

In his public interview, the Assembly wanted to know how his approach to developing policy and budgets, leadership style, and the learning curve he faces as a newcomer to Sitka’s government. There’s no harbor system or city-owned electric utility in Emery County, nor any tribal government. Emery County’s budget is $15 million, while Sitka’s budget is $90 million.

The Assembly threw curveballs. Bob Potrzuski asked, “How would you respond to request from members of the community to have the statue of Alexander Baranof removed? Brady answered by saying he didn’t think “history should be whitewashed” and that the statue should remain.

“If we don’t have [the statue] there to remind us, like the phrase says, ‘We’re going to be doomed to repeat [history],’ and that would be a worser travesty than having the statue still up,” Brady said.

And then there was this question, which came from Sitkans researching Brady online: What are your thoughts on climate change? In June, Brady posted on Facebook praising President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Brady told the Assembly that he believes global temperatures are rising, but isn’t sure if mankind is to blame.

“You know, I’m open. I really am,” he said. “But in doing my own research and not listening to talking heads, I would like to find out more — and find out if human-caused climate change is the problem or it’s just a natural phenomenon in our world.”

Brady took down his Facebook page shortly before receiving the job offer from Sitka — for reasons he declined to specify.

In the end, after interviewing three other candidates and two hours deliberating in executive session with nearly a dozen city staff members, Brady rose to the top of the pile.

While he lacks municipal management experience, Assembly members Kevin Knox, Steven Eisenbeisz, and Matthew Hunter felt he had the right personality to learn on the job.

Knox: I am very excited about his approachability.
Eisenbeisz: He’s a very likeable person.
Hunter: He’s going to take direction well and be a team builder, not a micro-manager.

Eisenbeisz encouraged the Assembly to watch Brady’s performance closely. Part of the deal with Prothman is that if Brady leaves within a year, they’ll find a new administrator for free.

On the phone after he got the news, Brady said that visiting Sitka has made the job even more appealing.

“We’re excited to come and hopefully we can get all of us there at some point, as soon as possible,” Brady said. “I’m hoping to be there within the next two or three weeks, really starting the position.”

Less than a day after receiving an official offer letter from the City of Sitka, Brady took the job.