Unitarians Meet
At the Unitarian Fellowship meeting Sunday Gretchen Matiatos will present a program on the benefits and the power of prayer, a conversation about belief and quantum physics.
Fellowship begins at 10:30 a.m., with the program beginning at 10:45. Children’s religious education is provided. Soup and bread follow the program at noon. The Fellowship Hall is at 408 Marine Street, with parking behind off Spruce Street.
Benefit Dinner for
Herring Festival
Sitka Herring Festival will host a benefit dinner at the Sitka Elks Lodge 1662 5:30 p.m. Nov. 17.
A seafood dinner will be served and silent auction items presented. For more information contact Jessica, 747-7168,
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White E Shop
Meeting Slated
The White Elephant Shop monthly meeting will be 7 p.m. Nov. 13 at the Swan Lake Senior Center. Meetings are open to the public.
Holiday Craft
Party Dec. 1
The Greater Sitka Arts Council and University of Alaska Southeast announces the Annual Arts Council Holiday Craft Party at the University of Alaska Southeast 2-4 p.m. Dec. 1.
Activities will include silk screening, ornaments, gingerbread houses, stamp print cards and more.
The Sitka Studio of Dance will have performers and there will be live music and snacks. For more information email
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or Jeff at 747-4821.
Decoration Sale
At White E Shop
The White Elephant Shop will start its Christmas decoration sale noon-3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9. For sale will be different sizes of lights, tinsel, wreaths, stockings, a large variety of decorations, Christmas paper and cards. The decorations are in the main store.
A large selection of toys is still for sale in the children’s store.
Island Institute Talk
Set for Nov. 10
The Island Institute invites Sitkans to an evening with Marjorie Sa’adah as she offers notes and thanks for all she has learned from Sitka and its people during her two-month residency with the Island Institute. Everyone – youths to elders – is welcome for conversation and refreshments 7 p.m. Nov. 10 at the Pioneers Home Chapel.
During her residency, Sa’adah has worked on her book, ‘‘At Home in the Going,’’ about horse racing, racetracks and the people who work behind the scenes.
She has also dedicated much of her time and talent in service to the Sitka community. She worked weekly with students at Pacific and Mt. Edgecumbe high schools, trained staff at SAFV and Brave Heart Volunteers, and met with writers young and old.
Before she leaves Sitka next week, Sa’adah will introduce some of the high school writers she’s worked with at the 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 Writers Read when they will be featured on the program. The event will be at the Yaw Chapel on SJ Campus. All are welcome.
Sa’adah’s residency was one of four that inaugurated the Rasmuson Foundation’s new Artist Residency Program. The Island Institute was selected as one of the Alaskan organizations to host the new residencies. For more information, contact the Institute at 747-3794
Sitka Food Hub
Group to Meet
The working group for the Sitka Food Hub project from the 2013 Sitka Health Summit will meet 6-7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at Centennial Hall.
This is the third meeting of the group, which formed during the Sitka Health Summit in late September as one of the summit’s two community wellness projects for the upcoming year.
To learn more about the Sitka Food Hub and to get onto the group’s email list, contact Marjorie Hennessy, 747-7509, days,
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ANB Parking Lot
Closing ’til March
The ANB Harbor parking lot will be closed Nov. 18-March 15 for the float replacement project.
The Sitka Police Department said the city has arranged to provide several temporary parking stalls directly off of Katlian Street during the closure to accommodate neighboring businesses. The location of these spaces will be determined once the contractor arrives on site and installs the construction fencing, the department said.
Demolition work on site is set to begin Nov. 19. SPD said that the lot must be clear of vehicles effective 8 a.m. Nov. 18 to ensure that there are no obstructions.
Signage will be in place at the parking lot stating the tow-away zone will be enforced beginning 8 a.m. Nov. 18.
Those with questions or concerns can call the police department.
Cribbage Board
Artifact of Month
The November artifact of the month at the Sheldon Jackson Museum is a cribbage board (II.X.19) that is made of walrus ivory tusk and is finely carved and etched with the figures of a seal on an ice flow, a bear, and a walrus.
The board has threaded storage space for six delicately finished pegs with threaded plug closures and is missing the balancing peg from the bottom side. The game piece is visually appealing because of the expertly rendered pictorial engravings on its surface, and is historically fascinating for its connection to Ye Olde Curio Shop, a store that has been in operation in Seattle for nearly 115.
It was given to the Sheldon Jackson Museum by A.W. Hilkert in 1977. In his 1977 letter to then curator Alice Postell, he describes his visit to Sitka several years before and his great interest in the museum’s collection of cribbage boards.
He writes to Postell that he “was told that the museum was very interested in obtaining handmade boards (cribbage boards).” Hilkert, a passionate cribbage player, went on, “As you know, all crib players think they are the champions, and with this board, I have challenged many a good player, and many a dollar has passed over this board … Since I am elderly and can no longer see to play, I would be very happy to donate this beautiful piece of art to your museum as a token of good will and friendship.”
Hilkert had acquired the piece from Ye Olde Curio Shop in Seattle in 1915. The shop was founded in 1899 by Joseph E. “Daddy” Standley, a curio collector who was originally from Ohio and came to Seattle in the late 1890s after the Yukon gold rush. Standley sold exotic material from all over the world but quickly began to focus on Native American collectibles and art including whalebones, baskets, moccasins, Haida “jadeite” totem poles, masks, paddles, carved miniature totem poles made by Nuu-chah-nulth from British Columbia, full-size totem poles on commission, curios from Native Americans from the Plains, the Southwest, and California, and ivory carvings like this cribbage board.
The shop became an active participant in Seattle’s 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and became an important source of Northwest Coast and Arctic collections for the Royal Ontario Museum, the National Museum of the Native American Indian, the Newark Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and other collecting entities.
Inupiaq peoples were engraving representational images on ivory long before contact with Euro-Americans. Linear and circular designs have been found engraved on utilitarian tools at the earliest archaeological sites in the region and ivory featuring pictorial designs can be dated back to A.D.1200-1800 (the time of Thule culture), the museum said.
Northern Alaskans sold their belongings and engravings to occasional travelers and laborers on board ships for many years after arrival of Euro-Americans, but it was not until the gold rushes of the Klondike and Nome that permanent markets for Northern Alaskan art identified as “market art,” art described by Dorothy Ray Jean as art generally made for nonnative consumers, was established.
In the first two decades of the 20thcentury, the new market for Northern Alaskan art emerged. As gold-rush customers realized the local Native population was extremely adept at copying illustrations and objects in two and three-dimensional forms, the market became flooded with ivory objects such as gavels, umbrella heads, napkin rings, tableware, penholders, cigar holders, smoking pipes, long strings of beads, belt buckles, vases, toothpick holders, and many other objects, the museum said. The most popular item to appear among these goods was the cribbage board.
The ivory cribbage board originated in Cape Nome when a man named Angowazhuk, known as “Happy Jack, the ivory carver” carved a walrus tusk into the form. He often signed his work and became one of the first carvers in Nome to be identified as an individual artist as opposed to an anonymous one, which was often the case. Angowazhuk and several other men who signed their names and many who did not and remain anonymous began what Dorothy Ray Jean identifies as the western pictorial style of engraving subject matter.
This style was often copied from 20th century printed illustrations or photographs furnished by customers and was one of four engraving styles. The other styles include old engraving (usually reserved for drill bows and bag handles), modified engraving (used on large surfaces of a tusk or ivory pipe), and modified pictorial or contemporary, a modification of old western pictorial style generally depicting northern Alaskan subjects.
The cribbage board will be on display through Nov. 30. Winter hours at the museum re 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Discounted winter admission is $3. Visitors 18 years of age and younger, Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum and those with passes are admitted free of charge.
Wreath, Garland
Sale Set Nov. 30
Mt. Edgecumbe Preschool’s wreath and garland sale is in full swing. Wreaths cost $32 with a bow, or $30 without. Cedar garlands are $30 for 15 feet or $120 for 75 feet.Garlands can be draped around a door, or cut to length. Wreaths are made of noble fir, cedar and juniper berries.
They will be available for pickup 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Nov. 30 at the holiday bazaar at Centennial Hall.
To place an order, call 966-2675 or visit www.mtedgecumbepreschool.org and click on ‘‘special events.’’
Britton Perkins Winterrose and Danielle Marie Conine. (Photo provided to the Sentinel)
Conine, Winterrose
Rites Exchanged
Danielle Marie Conine and Britton Perkins Winterrose were married Oct. 19 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sitka. Bishop Hart performed the ceremony.
The bride is the daughter of Bruce and Rhonda Conine of Sitka, and the granddaughter of Robert and Lou Primacio of Sitka, Harold and Barb Conine of Wrangell and Nancy Conine of Gig Harbor, Wash. She is employed at the Bayview Pub.
The groom is the son of Martin and DeAnna Winterrose of Richland, Wash., and grandson of Gayle and Carolyn Winterrose of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Richard and Billie Perkins of Richland, Wash. The groom is employed at Samson Tug and Barge.
The newlyweds are planning a honeymoon to Oahu, Hawaii, and then to Washington state for a wedding reception in their honor.
‘‘We feel truly blessed to have the love and support of our friends and family,’’ the couple said. ‘‘We have gained so many new friends while starting our life together, and we are so thankful that our loved ones want to share in our happiness.’’
Christmas Bazaar
Slated Nov. 24
Sitka Counseling will hold its annual Christmas bazaar 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Nov. 24 at Centennial Hall. Admission is $1 for adults and free for those age 12 and younger.
Photos with Santa Claus are 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Park to Install New Wayside Exhibits; Public Meetings Planned
Sitka National Historical Park will host the first of two open houses this month 3-5 p.m. Nov. 16 in the visitor center to debut the Revised Wayside Exhibit Plan.
At 3 p.m., copies of the plan and life-sized examples will be available for review. At 4 p.m., a short presentation will debut all 17 of the waysides and provide an opportunity for community discussion. The meeting is open to the public.
The wayside planning effort, which began in January of 2011, is nearing its conclusion. The exhibit plan reflects public feedback that was received over the course of the past two years.
The newly revised plan contains current text that could be considered final, but many graphics are still low resolution or positioned as placeholders until final artwork or photography is received. Following the public meetings, the wayside exhibits will be fabricated this winter and installed during the summer of 2014.
Options for submitting feedback are: drop in during the open house and public review session Nov. 16; review the document online at: http://www.waysideexhibits.com/HFC/SITK/SITK-18WE-DP.zip and send written comments to Chief of Interpretation Becky Latanich, either by email (
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) or by mail: Sitka National Historical Park, 103 Monastery Street, Sitka, AK 99835; call Lantaich at 747-0132; or stop by the visitor center and review a hard copy of the plan 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
Comments will be accepted through Nov. 29.
Turkey Trot Run,
Walk Nov. 28
The annual Turkey Trot is planned 11 a.m. Nov. 28 at Centennial Hall.
All are invited to ‘‘strut their stuff’’ in the 1-mile walk or 2.5-mile run.
Registration is open at the Community Schools office at Blatchley Middle School. Cost is $2 a person with no T-shirt, $12 pre-registration with T-shirt, $15 day of event with T-shirt, and $30 family registration with three shirts.
Sign-Up Open for
Children’s Party
Sitka Tribe of Alaska will host its annual children’s Christmas party 5:30-7:30 p.m. Dec. 9 at the Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi.
To register a child, stop by the STA Healing House, 429 Katlian Street.
Brave Heart
Bowls Served
Brave Heart Volunteers will host its annual Bowls fundraising event 5:30-8 p.m. Dec. 4 at Centennial Hall.
More than 50 homemade soups, desserts and breads will be served, with a chance to purchase handmade ceramic bowls.
The evening will include the Chair-ity Live Auction featuring chairs restored by local artists, a silent auction, Alaska Airlines raffle, live music by the SitNiks and master of ceremonies Robert Woolsey.
Tickets are available at Old Harbor Books or the Brave Heart Volunteers office for $15 in advance and $5 for children under age 10. Tickets are $20 at the door. Call 747-4600 for more information.
Food Drive For
Salvation Army
The KIFW/Salvation Army food drive is set 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Nov. 16 at Sea Mart and AC Lakeside.
This year’s goal is to raise 12,500 pounds of food and $12,500.
KIFW’s Larry Snider will broadcast live all day from Sea Mart and Danny B from AC Lakeside. They will update totals throughout the day.
Sitka area Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts will go door-to-door that morning leaving food bags on doorknobs. Residents are being asking to fill the bags and place them back on their doorstep so they can be picked up and taken to the stores.
ANS to Meet
The Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 4 will meet 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12. at the ANB Founders Hall.
New President Betty Jo Moore, will be chairing the meeting. All members and anyone who would like to join us is being encouraged to attend. Those with questions may call Jean at 623-7355.
Author of ‘‘Lone Wolves’’