Daily Sitka Sentinel

July 29, 2015 Community Happenings

Food Preservation

Classes Aug. 6-8

Leslie Shallcross from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service’s Anchorage District Office will be in Sitka to offer a series of food preservation classes on Aug. 6-8 as part of the Sitka Seafood Festival.

The classes on Thursday and Friday, Aug. 6-7, will be at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen at the First Presbyterian Church, and the Saturday, Aug. 8, classes will be at Sweetland Hall on the SJ Campus. 

Each of the classes will cost $15, but jars and other materials will be provided by the Sitka Seafood Festival.

The class schedule is:

–Thursday, Aug. 6, 2-4:30 p.m., at Sitka Kitch, low-sugar jams and jellies. Learn how to use a boiling water bath canner for preserving fruit by making low-sugar jams and jellies.

–Thursday, Aug. 6, 6-8 p.m., at Sitka Kitch, local garden greens. Learn how to cook with and preserve garden greens.

–Friday, Aug. 7, 10 a.m. to noon, at Sitka Kitch, kelp pickles and sauerkraut — Learn how to make kelp pickles. You will “start” some sauerkraut as well as learn some of the science of fermentation.

–Friday, Aug. 7, 3-5 p.m., at Sitka Kitch, canning salmon. Participants will learn how to use a pressure canner for preserving fresh, frozen or smoked fish.

–Saturday, Aug. 8, 10 a.m. to noon, at Sweetland Hall, canning salmon. Students will learn how to use a pressure canner for preserving fresh, frozen or smoked fish.

–Saturday, Aug. 8, 1-2:30 p.m., at Sweetland Hall, process of smoking salmon.

For those who miss the classes but still want to learn more about home canning, the UAF Cooperative Extension Service has a series of online tutorials on its website called“Preserving Alaska’s Bounty.”

Jasmine Shaw from the Sitka District Office of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service has a pressure canner gauge tester in her office. Call 747-9440 to schedule a test.

To register for classes, contact Shaw at 747-9440 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

T’ai Chi Chih

Practice Listed

T’ai Chi Chih Practice by the Sea will be 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 1, on the lawn of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

Visiting Musicians to Help

Sitkans Connect VoicesNate Barnett grew up in Rochester, N.Y., singing show-tunes, learning instruments, and developing a refined sense of pitch which has served him well in choirs and a capella groups ever since.

Though his personal connection to music has always been apparent, Barnett believes everyone has a deep connection to music. 

“This most obvious instrument of ours is, I think, underutilized. I’d like to work on that, encouraging people to get more involved in singing,” Barnett said. 

In town this summer through the Sitka Fellows Program, Barnett will lead a workshop 7 p.m. Thursday, July 30, in Fraser Hall on the SJ Campus.

Barnett said he “will attempt to break down music into very understandable parts, mostly by just looking at its obvious structures and engaging people in reconstructing those structures. People will feel more capable of creating music themselves by seeing the ways it can be very simple and accessible.”

Though the workshop will involve singing, no previous experience is required. People of all ages are welcome at the workshop, which Barnett believes could spark compositional aspirations for kids.

While in Sitka, Barnett is composing a sacred cantata, which will feature a small chamber orchestra, a small choir which will double as soloists, and passages which require the participation of the audience.

Though spiritual, Barnett said he’s deliberately writing music that doesn’t belong to any particular religion, instead crafting “music where people can come together and feel a sense of worship and praise without feeling divided along religious lines.”

This is the second piece he has composed with the aim of crafting unifying spiritual music – his first, “A Peace Prayer,” was debuted at Yale this past winter. 

The Sitka Fellows Program, now in its fourth year, is a multidisciplinary group residency program which offers time and space to six emergent artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs from across the country and around the world to develop their personal projects.

Each week features a workshop by one of Fellows, and the program will culminate in an open studio event on Aug. 22 where the fellows will demonstrate their work.

The program is coordinated by the Island Institute in partnership with the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, and is made possible through donations from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Art Works program, David and Marge Steward, Sea Mart Quality Foods, and many individual donors.

For more information, visit www.iialaska.org or call 747-3794.