By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Lillian Hutzell is in graduate school studying historic preservation, in Kentucky.
Alaina Pribis came here after earning her art history degree from Middlebury College in Vermont.
Nia Douglas and Tasha Ake are architecture students from Savannah, Georgia.
These are just a few of the historic preservation students and professionals wrapping up four weeks of hands-on work today as part of the Historic Restoration Team on the Sheldon Jackson campus.
The program, now in its ninth year, invites students interested in historic architecture and preservation to come to Sitka as volunteers to work on the 1910-era wood buildings of the Sheldon Jackson School National Historic Landmark. In the process they learn about historic preservation and restoration, and the techniques of professional builders and carpenters who are skilled in that work.
The campus is owned by the nonprofit Alaska Arts Southeast, parent organization of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. SFAC provides room and board for the preservation interns.
The interns generally work four days a week, and spend the other days enjoying Sitka. Canoeing, hiking and swimming are among the recreational activities cited by the participants who spoke to the Sentinel this past week about their time here.
Over the years, the volunteer crews have restored facades of several buildings on the main quad and elsewhere on campus, and replaced an entire roof on the old heating plant. This year’s work was focused on a room in Fraser Hall, one of the old school dormitories.
Pete Weiland, director of the Historic Restoration Team and a professional building contractor, has been with the program all nine years.
He said the main goal of the program is to give the students a better understanding of what restoration is, and expose them to a number of different construction skills. Weiland said he believes they learned a lot.
“I think they do have a different awareness of what it is to put something back like it was 100 years ago,” he said. “They appreciate it more. ... Now they know what’s behind a finished wall.”
Weiland pointed to some of the students’ final work on Fraser Hall, stripping layers from the walls and then replastering, returning the walls to their original state. In the process, participants got a view of the restoration and related decisions made in the 1950s and 1970s, when SJ was a high school or a college.
“We’re putting it back now, piece by piece,” Weiland said.
The projects require using local knowledge, researching old photos and going back to the 1910 blueprints, which have been preserved. The campus was designed by the New York architectural firm Ludlow and Peabody as a Presbyterian boarding school for Native Alaska children.
Weiland said the work accomplished the past nine years has been extraordinary. This year was a bit of a landmark in that volunteers were taking aim at the interiors, he said.
“Most every year has been fixing the exteriors of the buildings,” he said. “This is the first time we’re starting to go inside. ... Before, it was triage.”
Sheldon Jackson School, founded in 1878, was the oldest continuing institution of higher learning in Alaska when it closed its doors in 2007. The SJ Board of Trustees sold some of the buildings to state and nonprofit organizations, but gave the majority of the campus to Alaska Arts Southeast. Its status as a National Historic Landmark indicates its importance in the history of the entire United States.
Weiland said taking care of the campus has been a learning process.
“Now we’re more in tune with the Secretary’s Standards,” he said.
He was referring to the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, the bible of procedures for proper preservation and renovation of historic structures in the United States.
“We have a good outline of what they (the standards) want us to do to keep things together,” Weiland said. “We were pretty naive in the beginning. We were trying to save the buildings. Now that the exteriors of the buildings are in good shape, we’re starting to put the insides back the way they were.”
In exchange for providing room, board and training, the Fine Arts Camp gets work done that’s worth tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars, Weiland says.
“We couldn’t do this without a pool of labor,” Weiland said. He cited the arduous process of mixing lime and sand to plaster walls as an example.
“I always tell them how much they’re worth,” he said. “That’s the amazing part ... they give their time.”
Weiland and crew leader Aaron Troyansky, who has experience in preservation carpentry and masonry, have also lent their time to the volunteers’ off-duty activities, guiding them up mountains and trails, and giving them tips on local attractions.
“They’re always doing something, and it goes by so fast,” Weiland said.
Hutzell, who is originally from Annapolis, Maryland, said she has learned hands-on skills that help in her work toward a graduate degree in historic preservation at the University of Kentucky.
“Absolutely ... How to work with plaster and lath, which is hard to find,” she said.
Hutzell, 23, thinks her future holds work with contractors in historic preservation, but she’s also concerned about the connection between gentrification and displacement that’s often tied to historic preservation.
“I want to be able to work with that,” she said. “To do historic preservation and not kick out long-term community residents.”
Pribis found the Sitka HRT on a website at Middlebury, and was drawn to a chance to be in Alaska.
“I came to realize I really enjoy this stuff,” the 22-year-old New Hampshire resident said. “The hands-on aspect of it and seeing the projects we made better, in terms of understanding and physical progress – and seeing it all come together.”
Pribus also enjoyed the problem-solving involved as the crew worked together.
As to a future in historic preservation work, she said, “I’m definitely more open to it. This wasn’t even on my radar. Now I’d be open to doing this for a living.”
Both Douglas, 20, and Ake, 19, signed up together as architecture students at Savannah College of Art and Design.
“I made her sign up,” Ake joked.
“Once I heard ‘Alaska’ I was interested,” Douglas said. “We like the hands-on experience because most of what we do is behind a desk.”
“And yeah, Alaska,” Ake said.
Swimming in the ocean, hiking, canoeing to the Japonski causeway and enjoying the landscape were some of their time-off experiences.
“One of the cool things,” said Fine Arts Camp operations director Rhiannon Guevin, “is that these are people interested specifically in historic preservation. They’re getting to work with Pete and Aaron, who have experience in historic preservation, and they’re helping continue the legacy of volunteerism on the campus, and helping us continuing to restore these important historic buildings.”
