By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Camping, hunting and fishing equipment is generally the main attraction, but firearm-themed artwork has also made an appearance at the Sitka Sportsman’s Association annual Gun and Outdoor Swap.
This year’s event will run 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Sportsman’s Association clubhouse at 5211 Halibut Point Road. Those renting tables should arrive at 8 a.m. to set up.
Organizer and board member Chad Goeden said a large variety of items will be on sale at the event, which he described both as an “indoor garage sale” as well as a “treasure hunt.”
“It’s a lot of things you don’t know you need until you see it on the tables,” Goeden said. “Then you don’t know how you lived without it before. ... It’s like a treasure hunt.”
Goeden organizes the swap twice a year as a fundraiser for the Sitka Sportsman’s Association. The nonprofit organization is the sponsor of the annual Sitka Salmon Derby, and throughout the year offers gun safety classes and runs a skeet and trap shooting range at its waterfront location near the end of Halibut Point Road. It also has an outdoor archery range and an indoor gun range.
SSA sponsors the high school Sitka Shore Shots skeet and trap team, and organizes several indoor shooting leagues. The organization also has a youth scholarship program.
The swap meet helps with expenses, Goeden said. “We need to make enough to keep the lights on.”
The fee to operate a table is $10 for an SSA member and $20 for a nonmember, with the operators keeping all of their sales proceeds.
“My profits sometimes go right back into buying other stuff at the show,” Goeden said.
The items for sale are generally hunting-, fishing- and camping-related, although artwork such as a recent piece made of empty cartridge shells has been in the mix, he said.
“We would like to broaden it,” he said of the range of sale offerings at the swap meet.
Goeden is the commander at the Alaska Public Safety Academy and has lived in Sitka for six years. He has a sideline business, Premier Training of Alaska, in which he offers concealed-carry classes at the sportsman’s association.
Those who want to reserve a table may call him at 623-0908, or email him at premiertrainingak@gmail.com.
