Brian McNitt with the Salty Spoke Bike Co-op and KCAW’s Robert Woolsey describe the backstory behind this Sunday’s Bill Foster Tribute Ride (beginning 11 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at the Salty Spoke behind Raven Radio, and concluding at Harbor Mt. Brewing Co.). The event will feature both a bike ride to Medvejie Hatchery (all or part optional!) followed by a slideshow at the Brewery of Bill’s 1959 bike ride from Hannibal, Missouri, to Havana, Cuba, a few months after Fidel Castro seized power.

Downloadable audio.

Downloadable audio.

The Greater Sitka Arts Council hosts their annual Wearable Arts Show on Saturday, March 10th. The theme is “Forecast.” The deadline to register is Sunday, February 25. Volunteer coordinator Jeff Budd talks about the origins of the Wearable Arts event in Ketchikan, his favorite garments over the years, and showstoppers for this year. Model and artist Bill Foster offers advice on generating ideas. “I tend to go to disco, because I miss the disco era.”

Applications and show information are available at sitkaartscouncil.org.

Downloadable audio.

Bill Foster and Doug Osborne with the  Bicycle Friendly Community Coalition discuss tomorrow’s (09-17-16) Kidical Mass Bike Ride, which begins at 2 PM at Sitka National Historical Park and ends at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School.

This family friendly bike ride includes a skills course, safety checks, and pedal powered smoothies. For more information call Doug Osborne at 747-0373.

“Consumed” by artist Alexandra Dailey and model Coral Pendell at the 2015 Wearable Arts Show. Pendell performed a ballet down the runaway, modeling pages from books burned slightly at the edges. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Downloadable audio.

Jeff Budd and Sarah Lawrie with the Greater Sitka Arts Council (GSAC) talk about the 8th Annual Wearable Arts Show, alongside frequent artist/model Bill Foster. The show features 28 different art pieces and about a third of the artists are new this year.

The Wearable Art show will be held 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, March 26, at the Performing Arts Center. Sponsor Alaska Airlines will offer a raffle for two round-trip tickets to evening ticket holders. Eight of their customer service agents are in the show.

Matinee tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for kids. The evening show is $25 for adults and $10 for kids. The Wearable Arts Show is one of the hallmarks of Arti-Gras, a two-week celebration of art events in Sitka.

Library commissioner Jane Eidler explores the stacks of the soon-to-be-filled Sitka Public Library. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

It’s official: the contractor handed off the keys to the newly-renovated Sitka Public Library, this week and the Sitka Library Commission moved right in.

Commissioners held their first public meeting in the new facility Wednesday night (1-6-16). They listened to plans for moving the entire contents of the Kettleson Library into the much larger building — the 14th time Sitkans have moved their library in modern history.

Downloadable audio.

Bill Foster is working on a display for the grand opening of the Sitka Public Library. He wants to enlarge a map of Sitka, and mark the 13 previous locations of the library.

It turns out you just can’t Google this information.

“I went all over town to the city building trying to get a map, and guess where the map was that we needed? In the library! (Laughter).”

Commissioners Madeline Guhl, Jan Love, Alice Johnstone, and Jane Eidler look over photos of Sitka’s last 13 libraries. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

Library commissioners hoped that this would be the last library move in their lifetimes, and some of them had seen plenty.

Former assembly member Alice Johnstone has been on the commission for nine years, but her history in Sitka goes back to the mid-20th Century.

Johnstone – The library was in the federal building when I came to town.
KCAW – Where our city hall is now?
Johnstone – Yes, that’s right. Then it was in the new high school, which is the building on Baranof Street.

And that building has since been remodeled into the new Pacific High. (Note: Since publication of this story, KCAW has learned that the ‘new high school’ was the term given to the original Etolin Street School, which now houses condominiums.)

This project should serve Sitka for some time to come. It’s actually the second expansion of the old Kettleson Library. This time, contractors increased the size of the structure by 60-percent, or about 4,600 square feet, and remodeled the entire building from top-to-bottom: There’s WiFi, expanded meeting space, a larger children’s room, bathrooms worthy of a public building, better offices and work areas for the librarians.

Sitka library director Robb Farmer inherited this project from Sarah Bell. To people who question the value of the library he says “Use it.” (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

And it came in under budget.

“Sitka got a fantastic facility for a very bargain rate.”

That’s library director Robb Farmer. He replaced Sarah Bell, who spearheaded much of the fundraising for the $6-million in renovations. Between state grants and private donations, Sitka spent $500,000 of its own money on the project. Farmer interviewed for the job the day Kettleson Library opened in its temporary quarters on the Sheldon Jackson campus, almost two years ago.

Although there’s not a single book in the new Sitka Public Library yet, Farmer finally has his reality check.

“It’s a fabulous facility. It took a while for me to figure out exactly how it was going to be, because I don’t understand plans very well, and I wasn’t involved in the planning stages at all. But seeing it live shows me how much we have to offer and how fortunate I am to be here, and how fortunate Sitka is to have this fantastic place.”

Farmer wasn’t in on the relocation of the library to Stratton, but he’ll be overseeing the move back. Volunteers will start transporting books back this week. Soon, they’ll ramp up to two trips a day in a panel van. The library will be closed for a full month to get things into shape, including the installation of new computers and other information technology systems. A grand opening is planned for sometime around February 1.

Summer cruise visitors often crowded the entrance of the former Kettleson Library, uncertain what the building was. Commissioners believe this sign will help. (KCAW photo/Bill Foster)

With a huge, orange sign outside, commissioners agree that there will be no mistaking the purpose of the renovated building. Traffic flow, in summertime especially, sometimes grew congested in the entryway of the old Kettleson. That problem has been eliminated, along with the old name.

Bill Foster says ‘Sitka Public Library’ reaches far deeper into the community’s history, than the name Kettleson. And Kettleson will not be forgotten.

“There will be books in this library with ‘Sitka Public Library.’ Anything pre-196 7. It’s not hard to find them. I looked the other day. Those will fit right in, and we’re not re-marking the newer books. The name Kettleson will live on for a long, long time.”

Bill Foster demonstrates for Alice Johnstone a special feature of the children’s room — as only he can. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

As the meeting wraps up and we head to the entrance, Foster points out a red plastic tube — it looks a little like playground equipment — that is a special feature of the children’s room. It’s going to be an alcove, but right now it looks a little like a dog door — for kids.

“And in fact in Kodiak they sometimes lock the door for children’s programs and the parents have to go around and the kids all have to crawl through,” says Foster.

But after four years of planning and construction, no locked door for adults is going to keep Sitka’s hearty library commissioners out of any part of their new building.

KCAW – Do you want to crawl through there and let me take your picture?
Foster – Sure. (Laughter).

And with that, history is made twice in the same day at Sitka’s Public Library: First public meeting in our newest public space, and first child-at-heart in the children’s room.

The expansion project for Sitka Public Library (formally Kettleson Memorial) broke ground last fall. Framing is complete. Now, the contractor is focusing on the interior. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Last week, the construction site for Sitka’s new library was opened to the public for tours. Most who visited were staff and members of the library commission, who have decided to change the name from Kettleson Memorial Library to Sitka Public Library.

After a year of work, framing on the new building is complete and Dawson Construction, along with a variety of subcontractors, is  focusing on interior work. Most of it will be glass.

Downloadable audio.

Turns out, it’s pretty difficult to conduct interviews in an active construction site.

KCAW: It’s a little loud for radio.

But amid the pounding of nails and the sanding of surfaces is the skeleton of the Sitka Public Library. I was joined by Scott Eastwood, the Superintendent of Dawson Construction, and Bill Foster, a member of Friends of the Library, which is a booster association.

Foster said throughout the tours, one question seems on the tip of every citizens’ tongue. “Everytime I talk about the library and how excited I am about getting into it, invariable the roof comes up.”

That’s because, from the front, the roof looks flat and in danger of pooling water.

“It will not leak. I think that’s guaranteed,” Foster said. “And it’s actually sloped from the middle down, so the water goes either way. The water is not going to stand in that area. We went over that with the architects when that building was being designed and they assured us that this will work. What I like about it: it gives kind of a flair to this building. A little old, a little new.

Scott Eastwood, the Superintendent for Dawson Construction, showcases the men’s restroom. There is one for each gender, located towards the front of the building. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

In fact, the rock corners, which match the original, came from the demolition of the nearby Centennial Building. Eastwood didn’t plan for that, but was happy with the coincidence. “Two thirds of the stone that was put up on the walls, on the exterior, is recycled from the Centennial Building.”

As for the design? It closely matches the plan from MRV Architects (click here to see those plans), with some critical improvements to the structural integrity. Construction on the library was halted in January when the steel parts were discovered to be too small to hold the building up.

Eastwood says those issues are behind them. “I would say that all structural issues have been resolved with. They were resolved and dealt with quite some time ago.”

He’s excited for the public to walk into the building and notice the same difference he did, the first time he walked through the old library. “It was a dark tone and dark look of the building, where this is just really light,” said Eastwood. “The exposed ceiling is all nice and light colored. The exposed beams are offset with another light brown color.”

The circulation desk is crescent shaped and will allow librarians to see the public space in full. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

The bathrooms are at the front. The circulation desk is crescent shaped. Librarian Greg Mandel, who was on the tour, asked if there will be shelves behind the desk – turns out, there would not be – but Mandel is already thinking about the working realities of the building. And he’s particularly excited that, with 4,800 extra square feet to play with, there will be more specialized rooms for patrons.

“Before, whenever we wanted to offer a program, it’s just out in the library so it’s competing… if people wanted to study privately, they had the noise going on with that. And now we’ll be able to offer the public multi-purpose use,” Mandel said. “That is really going to be fantastic.”

That includes individual study rooms, a teen section, and a media room to house all the computers. It can blend in with the stacks, or be cordoned off for events with a glass wall. According to Matt Christner, the Project Manager, this keeps computers visible, but outside of the main traffic area.

Eastwood stands in the new media room, where computers will be available for public use, and motions to a sliding glass partition that separates it from the general stacks. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Christner adds that, so far, construction costs are on budget, which is $6.1 million. The project received $5.7 million from a state grant and half a million in donations from community members. I asked Eastwood if there’s anything in the original design he had to do away with and there was: a fireplace. Kodiak has one. Petersburgh has one. But that might not such a bad thing for Sitka. “The swing side of that is by losing a fireplace you’ve gained larger windows and more space and view of the water.”

And it is quite the view. The glass partitions will be installed next month and if a reader were to stand in the middle, it’s a scene straight out of Gulliver’s Travels. Through the panoramic windows, the building appears to float off the surface of the water. 

One year ago, the entire library collection was moved to the Stratton building on the Sheldon Jackson Campus. The new library is slated to open in 2016, though the name is up for debate. (Robert Woolsey/KCAW photo)

Downloadable audio.

Curt Ledford, chair of the Library Commission, was joined by library supporter Bill Foster to discuss an upcoming decision by the Commission to rename Kettleson Memorial Library. Foster suggested renaming it, simply, Sitka Public Library. The commission is conducting an informal survey, which can be found here on the library’s website and should be completed by this Friday (07-31-15).

The Library Commission will present the survey results at next Wednesday’s meeting (08-05-15) at 7 p.m. on the second floor of at the library.

A former biologist, Bill Foster says a stuffed red squirrel would convey an important message in Rep. Kreiss-Tomkins’ office. “I’d put a red squirrel against a polar bear anytime,” says Foster. (Flickr photos/Borderslass, ruby blossom)

Sitka Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins’ office may soon be home to some historic Alaskana — and much more — if he can come to terms with a local collector.

“You could say there’s the memorabilia equivalent of earnest money, in that we have been the grateful and fortunate recipients of a few priceless items of Bill Foster political memorabilia, including a 1977 legislative license plate with the number 49.”

That plate reportedly belonged to former Alaska Speaker of the House and Senate President Jay Kerttula, whose daughter Beth represented Juneau until last year. 49 remains the most coveted license plate number in the legislature.

And if that were not enough, Kreiss-Tomkins says Foster has offered one final touch — a stuffed red squirrel.

“You know, any upstanding legislator needs at least one dead animal on their wall — or that’s the argument that Bill has advanced to me. Rep. Neal Foster, two doors down from me, from Nome, has a polar bear. Of course, Congressman Young has pretty much every furry creature that has walked this earth on his wall.”

Reached for further explanation at his Sitka residence, Bill Foster is dead serious. The only question is how to bag one.

“Well I think a road kill would be the best way. But they’re pretty fast at scurrying across the road. I would have to drive pretty fast to get one.”

Red squirrels were introduced on Baranof Island in 1922 at the suggestion of Ted Kettleson — of Kettleson Memorial Library Fame — who was secretary of the Sitka Fish & Game Club. The intention was to provide prey for marten, and support trapping. It didn’t work. Now red squirrels inhabit all of the island, where they’re known to feast on bird eggs.

One idea for a squirrel mount. Bill Foster, however, would prefer something more fierce. (Flickr photo/Peter Turvey).

Foster thinks the squirrel should be mounted in a fierce pose with its teeth bared.

KCAW’s Robert Woolsey asked him if a squirrel — in any pose — would be sufficiently fierce.

KCAW – Rep. Kreiss-Tomkins told me that he’s got a neighbor just down the hall who’s got a polar bear in his office. And I just wonder if people who might be visiting these offices on the same day might come away with the wrong message?
Foster – If you’ve ever trapped a red squirrel, they’re ferocious. You don’t want to deal with one. And I would put that red squirrel up against that polar bear anytime.

Foster says he has in fact trapped red squirrels on his own island property in Sitka — at least a half dozen. He says all are now safe in the Federal Witness Relocation Program.

The lower falls at the Herring Cove trailhead. Upstream, several sections of the trail are under fast-flowing water. (Bill Foster photo)

Three days of heavy rainfall has generated serious runoff problems, even in areas outside of Sitka. The Herring Cove Trail was first damaged by runoff during an unusual rain/snowmelt situation about five weeks ago, when water carved a new channel in the trail just below the log bridge at the upper falls. Now, water has filled that channel again, as local naturalist Bill Foster discovered this morning (Tue 1-14-14, see photo below).

This picturesque waterfall is actually the trail. Note the stepping stones at right. (Bill Foster photo)

At Beaver Lake, the site of a major landslide two years ago, the trail is weathering the storm quite well. But Bill Foster reports 72 of the stepping stones on the north side of the lake are under water — some up to the top of his XTRATUFF boots!

This section of the trail, just below the upper bridge, washed out five weeks ago, during a snowmelt event. Today, it’s whitewater. (Bill Foster photo)