KCAW

Youth Advocates of Sitka (YAS) and Southeast Alaska Independent Living (SAIL) are holding a survival skills camp during Spring Break for students aged 14+. Camp will feature visits to the Sitka Fire Department and U.S. Coast Guard base, first aid and cold water safety training, trauma informed communication skills, as well as a trip to the Sheet’ká Treetop Adventures ropes course. The free camp takes place March 16-20 at the SAIL office. You can call SAIL or go to KCAW’s Community Calendar to register. Juliette Langley and Maria Beck to joined KCAW on the Morning Interview to discuss what to expect from the upcoming camp. Listen to their conversation here:

Tomorrow at Harrigan Centennial Hall (weather permitting), the Ocean Wave Quilter’s Guild will be hosting their 25th annual auction to support their scholarship fund. Ocean Wave Quilter’s Guild Secretary Sarah Jordan and President Megan Pasternak join KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss what quilts and other goodies attendees can expect at this year’s auction, how the event works, and how quilters are adapting to closing crafts stores around the Southeast.

After decades of development, the grand opening of Highmark Marine’s shipyard in Sitka is less than a week away. Sitka Economic Development Association Director Garry White and Highmark Marine’s Maggie Lilly and Jordan Young join KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss what services Sitkans can expect to be offered at the new marine haul out and how to access them, as well as what festivities Sitkans can expect at Highmark Marine’s first ever marine trades fair open house to celebrate the grand opening on March 3rd.

For more information or to schedule a boat hold out, call 907-217-2850 or email [email protected]

Anna Kislitsyna, an internationally renowned pianist and harpsichordist, will perform in Sitka this weekend. The program, “Echoes Through Time” includes works by Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and some jazz and contemporary pieces. Kislitsyna and Sitka Fine Arts Camp Executive Director Roger Schmidt joined KCAW for the morning interview to discuss the February 27 show at the Performing Arts Center, which was inspired by Kislitsyna’s experiences in Sitka. Listen to the conversation here:

There are few people who can say their lives have been heavily intertwined with the history of Mt. Edgecumbe High School like Sitkan CeeJay Johnson-Yellow Hawk. She is a 4th generation Mt. Edgecumbe student enrolled from 2001-2003, with her grandparents first meeting as members of the school’s first ever class. Today, she is a heavily involved alumni, offering beading lessons to all who are curious, and seeing the children of her former classmates now enrolled as students. When she read the news back in December about the mental health challenges many students have been facing, it sounded all too familiar.

“My family and communities have gone through basically childhood trauma, generational trauma,” said Johnson-Yellow Hawk. “I realized that we had some people here who needed community, and a lot of the times when something goes wrong in our communities, we go for our grandmothers and our aunties. And that’s what we kind of saw here. We were like, ‘Oh, maybe they need some Auntie support over there, some grandma support over there.'” 

So, Johnson-Yellow Hawk and her gaggle of “aunties” and “grandmother-figures” (many of whom are fellow Mt. Edgecumbe alumni) banded together to launch the Mt. Edgecumbe Arts Project. The project started in January. It aims to connect students with classes taught by artists from their home regions across Alaska, as well as helping raise money for activities and community items the students desire. When Johnson-Yellow Hawk spoke about the project to one of her friends, she volunteered to reach out to a friend of hers who she felt would be suited for the task. That led her to Golga ‘Quki’ Oscar, a well-renowned artist who is self-taught in skin-sewing and beading, and hails from the village Kasigluk in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Oscar was previously a visiting artist at the Sheldon Jackson Museum back in 2023. He’s now based in Bethel and works as the Native Arts Coordinator for the University of Alaska Kuskokwim Campus, providing Alaska Native cultural arts workshops. After being invited to come to Sitka he responded the next day asking “When do you want me there?”

“For me it’s special because I’m sharing that knowledge to them. I’m giving them this privilege to pass the knowledge to their future generations,” said Oscar. “I think that’s an important factor in today’s generation to learn… because spirituality is so strong in many other indigenous communities….whatever story is being shared, has a spiritual significance behind it, which makes it more intriguing.”

Flash forward to February 19, and Oscar is seated on one of two blue felt rolling chairs in Mt. Edgecumbe’s culture room, which was purchased from the MEHS Art Project’s Amazon wishlist after raising enough funds. New racks of fabric line up the walls besides him, alongside other donated arts supplies to keep students’ minds and hands busy. For the past three days, he has worked with students on how to sew baby boots, which Oscar says is a standard project for beginning skin-sewers. 

While the students are hard at work assembling their boots, Oscar is working on a different project, sewing the final details onto dance headdresses for Mt. Edgecumbe’s Yup’ik dance team, an extra gift he is leaving behind for the students. This creates an opportunity for students and staff alike to learn some Yup’ik vocabulary.

One of his students, upperclassman Jubilee Lewis, hails from Kwigillingok but grew up mainly in Anchorage. Having attended every one of Oscar’s sessions, she says she’s found it comforting to hear Yup’ik again, as well as being able to do cultural activities she hasn’t had access to. 

“I really enjoyed [the class],” said Lewis. “I grew up listening [to Yup’ik]. My family is fluent in Yup’ik and I’m just comfortable and I feel more connected to my culture as well, because I didn’t do this a lot, and this is a really great opportunity to start.”

As somebody who also attended school outside of home, Oscar can relate to students’ sense of homesickness. A key way that Oscar coped with that was through engaging in cultural arts, which also helped him move through mental health struggles like depression and anxiety he faced as a teenager. 

“That’s one of the things that I want the students to know is that cultural arts is one of the forms that can help one,” said Oscar. “Being connected with cultural arts is an important factor, because it’s helped us through hardships. It keeps our mind away from negative thoughts.”

Similarly, Johnson-Yellow Hawk found cultural arts to be a powerful healing tool for herself.

“Beading got me sober like six years ago. Culture and Art was a safe place for me before, until I can learn to be a safe place for myself,” said Johnson-Yellow Hawk. “You have to be very present while you’re doing it. And sometimes that helps take you away from some bad thoughts. And it helps a lot. So, it feels good to accomplish and complete something, and to kind of see your progress as you go along and as you get better.”

Since the MEHS Arts Project first launched, Johnson-Yellow Hawk has been deeply touched by the community support so far, both in Sitka and beyond, from donating to their Amazon wishlist to dropping off traditional foods like herring eggs.

“It’s been a real joy for me, because healing is community, and I’m getting the opportunity to watch communities come together, not just locally, but I’m watching it region wide,” said Johnson-Yellow Hawk. “I’m watching different regions start to show up and be like, ‘No, no, we want to be a part of this.’ And that’s been really exciting for me.”

The MEHS Arts Project team is currently reaching out to Inupiaq artists to bring their own unique wisdom and skillsets to the community, but they are open to working with artists from all Alaskan regions who wish to help however they can. However, Yellow-Hawk hopes that the future of the program is fully determined by student feedback, which they have continued to gather through surveys and in-person conversations. 

Editor’s Note (2-27-26): An earlier version of this story stated that CeeJay Johnson-Yellow Hawk graduated from MEHS in 2004. This story was updated in that she actually did not graduate from there, but was a student from 2001-2003.

Sitka’s cruise bus stop is staying put, at least for now. When the Sitka Assembly met Tuesday, it convened as the Board of Adjustment, and upheld a permit denial for a new bus depot in downtown Sitka. The appellant, a local cruise dock owner, can now reapply for a conditional use permit, or can make a judicial appeal with the superior court within 30 days.   

Sitka Dock Company owner Chris McGraw wants to relocate his downtown bus stop from Harrigan Centennial Hall to Oja Way, and build a pedestrian pathway with commercial spaces, food vendors, and housing nearby. But the Planning Commission denied his permit application, saying his plan doesn’t meet the land use objectives in the city’s comprehensive plan, and that it could introduce hazardous conditions at the site, like unhealthy levels of particulate pollution from bussing operations.  

McGraw appealed that decision. In his appeal, he said the total number of buses operating downtown would be reduced under the new plan, and said there’s no evidence that it would cause additional pollution. He also said a lack of standards prevented the Planning Commission from making a fair and consistent decision. 

“The new location would allow for a shorter route, reduce the number of buses needed on the road, and reduce congestion in downtown Sitka,” McGraw said. “I’m here asking the assembly to reverse the denial, or alternately, to remand the matter to the commission with instructions to apply the correct legal criteria.”

Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie was at the meeting to represent the Planning Commission’s decision. She said the role of the assembly is to consider whether the commission made a sound decision by “fairly and adequately” considering all factors and evidence.

“We have property owners that have a foundation less than a foot from the property line with windows that face a facility that will bus in 100, up to 150 large buses a day,” she said. “We have horticulture uses in the area. We have an office building with fresh air intake that faces this direction. These are reasonable conclusions that the planning commission drew. And again, the applicant bears the burden of proof to show that this will not be detrimental”

About a dozen people voiced opposition to the project at the meeting, but the board could only take into account comments from neighbors of the proposed development who received mailers, or those who testified at the planning commission level. 

Roy Anderson owns a property adjacent to the proposed bus depot. He said he’s concerned about the exhaust from idling buses getting into nearby homes, and increased vehicle congestion in the neighborhood.

“It’s 150 buses back to back coming out, making left turns, people trying to get in,” Anderson said. “What if I’m trying to make the left of my property and there’s buses three deep, somebody’s got to go somewhere. Do I stay there? Do I have the police officer give me a ticket? It’s just not feasible.”

Tess Hayburn has operated a vacation rental business near the proposed site for two decades. She said two repeat customers have told her they won’t stay there again if the bus depot is built. 

“Diesel exhaust will be pouring into the cottages,” Hayburn said. “It is estimated that there will be up to 150 trips to the site in a 12-hour period. That is approximately 12.5 trips per hour, or roughly one bus every five minutes. Even with no idling, there will be buses running non stop. This is no mere transport facility. It is an intensive industrial scale operation.”

In his rebuttal, McGraw said the commission based its decision largely on public testimony about possible impacts in the absence of objective evidence. 

“The commission’s findings rest on what the neighbors said they expect would happen: predicted odors, anticipated noise, speculated pollution, feared impacts on gardens and outdoor spaces,” he said. “Anticipated harm is not the same as actual harm. Predictions about what a use might do are not substantial evidence that it will”

Assembly Member Thor Christianson said he thinks the Planning Commission explored the issue thoroughly and came to a “legal and common sense solution” when issuing its decision.

“When we started tonight, I had a sheet of paper to write down anything new I heard. It’s essentially blank,” he said. “I have found [the Planning Commission] to be a thoughtful and thorough group. They don’t take their job lightly. They work very hard to look at all angles of problems and whether it’s something comparatively minor or something really big like this. They put the work in, and I believe that they made the right decision overall.”

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said McGraw had a hard and high burden of proof to meet and that the issue faces a higher level of scrutiny due to the nature of the project. But ultimately, he said he believes the commission was correct in the majority of its arguments.  

“I believe that there are facts that the appellant could gather and then submit along with a new application,” he said. “I think that if they referenced state and federal standards, that could satisfy the Planning Commission in this instance. So I think while it would appear that the denial will continue this evening, I believe that there is a framework for the applicant to continue to work forward to this and prove that there are mitigating efforts that can be had within the conditional use permit.”

The assembly ultimately denied the appeal in full, upholding the Planning Commission’s decision. 

Next month, Sitka Tribe of Alaska will host the 11th annual Heritage and Cultural Tourism Conference from March 17-19. The conference aims to enhance cultural tourism by offering business training, technology integration, and networking opportunities. This year’s theme is “Catalysts of Authenticity and Innovation.” Rachel Roy joined KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss the conference. Listen here.

Learn more and register here

February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, which aims to educate the public on the prevalence of the issue and how it can be addressed. As a branch of Sitkans Against Family Violence (i.e SAFV), the Sitka Youth Leadership Committee (i.e SYLC) is a cohort of Sitkan middle schoolers and high schoolers that contributes to a variety of education initiatives on how Sitkans can identify and receive/give support to those experiencing dating violence. SYLC members Devyn Sampson and Kate Plaisance and SAFV Peer Coordination Coordinator Colleen Murphy join KCAW for the Morning Interview on what projects SYLC members have been up to this past year, how interested students can join SYLC, and common misconceptions adults have on how to support the teens in their lives.

If you or somebody you know is experiencing dating violence, you are not alone. Visit loveisrespect.org or contact SAFV at 907-747-3370

At its meeting tonight (2-24-26), the Sitka Assembly will convene as the Board of Adjustment, a quasi-judicial body, to consider an appeal for a conditional use permit to operate a bus depot in downtown Sitka. 

The Planning Commission denied Sitka Dock Company owner Chris McGraw’s permit application in December. He wants to relocate his downtown bus stop from Harrigan Centennial Hall to Oja Way, and build a pedestrian pathway with commercial spaces, food vendors, and housing nearby. 

In his appeal, McGraw says the total number of buses operating downtown would be reduced under the new plan, and says there’s no evidence that it would cause additional pollution. He also says a lack of standards prevents the commission from making a fair and consistent decision.

In a memo, Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie said it’s the role of the assembly to consider whether the commission “fairly and adequately considered all factors and evidence in arriving at its decision.”

In other business, the assembly will consider allocating funds to initiate a five-year contract for body-worn cameras for the Sitka Police Department.

The Sitka Assembly meets at 6 p.m. tonight, overlapping with President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Raven News will broadcast the State of the Union starting at 5 p.m., and will rejoin the assembly meeting after NPR’s special coverage of the President’s address concludes. You can stream the assembly meeting on the city’s website here. KCAW will also post audio of the entire assembly meeting to our website.

Listen back here:
Hour 1:

Hour 2:

Hour 3:

The 10th annual Fishermen’s Expo, organized by the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust, will be held on Feb. 24, from 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the NSRAA Conference Room and via Zoom. The conference offers both in-person and virtual sessions covering topics like new fishing technology, management updates, and safety workshops. Emily Scott, outreach and program coordinator at ALFA, and Natalie Sattler, program director at ALFA, joined KCAW on the Morning Interview to discuss the upcoming event. Listen to the conversation here: