Daily Sitka Sentinel

Mystery Leak Plagues St. Michael's Cathedral

By BRIELLE SCHAEFFER

Sentinel Staff Writer

Ana Dittmar listened closely to the droplets of water falling from the high domed ceiling of St. Michael’s Cathedral.

She had spread a tarp on the floor and was adjusting buckets to collect the water.

Ana Dittmar moves buckets to catch water from a leaky roof recently at St. Michael's Cathedral. (Sentinel Photo)

The cupola is leaking. And nobody can figure out why.

“It’s kind of a mystery exactly what’s causing it,” said Dittmar, a St. Michael’s parishioner and church historian. “We’ve had a lot of guesses by professionals but we don’t know for sure. It’s tricky because it’s such an unusual roof.”

A roofer from Juneau rented a cherry picker and replaced a missing wooden strip on the dome, Dittmar said. For a while that kept the water out. But then it started leaking again.

That is not the only place the cathedral is leaking. Rain water runs down the inside walls from the bell tower and pools in the basement. It has kept the congregation from using it for social gatherings such as the Easter bread sale last spring.

Dittmar has developed her own way of gauging how wet the floor will be when she steps off the stairs in the basement.

“I come here and put my foot down, and if it’s splashing then I know,” she said.

“It rains really hard and there’s no flood, and then another day it’s not raining very hard and it’s all flooded.”

Sometimes there is as much as two inches of water on the floor. The church had to pull up all the tile flooring. The wetness has caused mold to grow, creating health concerns and another reason the basement is unusable.

“Five years ago I talked about putting a museum in the basement,” said Dittmar, who is a member of the Sitka Historic Preservation Commission. “Thank goodness we didn’t.”

Recently one religious art work in the main part of the cathedral – the Nativity of the Christ – got wet from the leaks, Father Michael Oleksa said. It has been removed and is being dried out. 

“There’s a significant collection of oil paintings in the cathedral,” Oleksa said. “More than most museums. The dampness doesn’t do any favors.”

The original St. Michael’s Cathedral was built between 1844 and 1848, and stood where it is today with few modifications until it burned down in the great Sitka fire of 1966. The cathedral was rebuilt with a concrete core and reopened in 1977.

Oleksa said the original cathedral leaked, too. That’s not surprising, he said, as an old, wooden building in a rainforest is expected to leak.

But it’s still a concern, he said.

This summer, the Alaska Association for Historic Preservation placed St. Michael’s Cathedral on a list of the 10 most endangered historic properties in the state. The list is intended to raise awareness and financial support for the identified sites.

St. Michael’s needs money to make the repairs, and the problem is members don’t know how much.

“We don’t know exactly what work needs to be done,” Dittmar said. “It’s difficult to apply for grants because we don’t know what the work is going to entail. It’s overwhelming sometimes.”

Just inside the cathedral doorway is a donation box with a paper sign marked “Roof Repairs.”

“Maybe we overlooked a funding possibility,” Dittmar quipped, “selling holy water from the buckets.”

A contractor has recommended installing a sump pump in the basement, and the target of the current drive is to raise the necessary $10,000 to $15,000. The next step will be to continue to try and quell the roof leaks, Dittmar said.

“The way I’m approaching it is to start with some of the repairs to see what difference that makes,” she said. “The last cathedral was destroyed by fire. It’s kind of ironic this one is being destroyed by water.”