KCAW

More than 400 Sitkans turned out Saturday (10-18-25) to speak out against what they call an escalating abuse of power by President Donald Trump. They joined thousands of others across the state and country, from Maine to Kotzebue.

In Sitka, the “No Kings” protest fell on Alaska Day — also known as Reconciliation Day — the anniversary of the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States.

On top of Noow Tlein, also known as Castle Hill — where on this day, in this spot more than 150 years ago, Alaska was transferred from Russia to the U.S. — Tory O’Connell reads a land acknowledgement. She recognizes Indigenous peoples for their stewardship, as hundreds of Sitkans mill about holding signs reading “Stand Up for Democracy” and “Hate Never Made America Great,” the Russian flag flying in the wind above their heads, marking the spot of the land sale. 

Sitkans chant in unison, “Sitka says no czars, no kings on Lingít Aaní,” as they pose for a photo.

Cindy Litman is with Sitkans for Peace and Democracy, a group of about 40 locals who, for about two years, have been holding weekly vigils, protesting the war in Gaza and, more recently, President Trump’s policies. Litman says she was struck by how many people beyond the weekly attendees showed up. 

“I think things have reached such a critical threshold now that people who normally participate by voting or participate in their communities in different ways, are concerned enough that our country and our way of life and the things that we value are in jeopardy now, and I think that’s why we have the 400 plus people who came out,” she says. 

Mariah Warren is one of the many Sitkans who braved the cold, wet weather to rally on Castle Hill. She carries her baby nephew in a carrier at her front. Her young niece stands by her side carrying a fish-shaped sign reading, “No Kings, Except King Salmon.” Warren says she brought the kids with her because she’s concerned about preserving democracy for the next generation. 

“I think that Alaska Day, Reconciliation Day, is an incredibly good reminder that there are so many of us coming from so many different backgrounds, that we’re an incredibly diverse city, state, country, and that we really need to all work together and make sure that we continue being a democracy by the people, for the people, and that everyone is represented, no one is left out, let alone excluded, let alone persecuted,” she says.

Every year in Sitka, Alaska Day is marked by a massive parade, a pie and quilt sale, and a historical reenactment of the transfer. 

For the last eight years, many have begun to recognize the day as “Reconciliation Day,” acknowledging the sale of stolen Lingít land from one colonial power to another. 

Litman sees a connection between what was happening in 1867 and what’s happening today. 

“People in power who were appropriating land, appropriating people who didn’t belong to them, without any respect or any consideration for including those people in any kind of decision making that was going on. And in that way, I see parallels,” Litman says. “People who are in power and who just make decisions that profoundly impact the lives of all the rest of us, without any consideration, without any understanding.”

That history wasn’t lost on 84-year-old Jerry Deppa, who came to Alaska at 20 years old as a wildlife biologist, and moved to Sitka five decades ago. Now, he sits on his lawn chair in the middle of the crowd, holding a sign that reads, “No Kings in America Since 1776.”

“We’re not going to tolerate anybody getting into a position of responsibility and authority undercutting our system,” Deppa says. “No, we are in charge as citizens, and that was our statement today. No czars, no kings, no. A big no.”

Deppa says people all over the country are sharing that message now, speaking out against what he calls an “undercutting of democracy by the current administration.” 

“It’s shameful what’s been done,” he says. “So many vital agencies have lost staff, have lost funding. It’s criminal, and we can’t tolerate it. This is a nation of citizens, where we are in charge. We put people in power and we take people out of power.”

Alaskans turned out for No Kings protests across more than a dozen communities on Saturday, with crowds of 2,000 in Anchorage, to about 17 in Port Alexander — more than half of the 31-person town.

As Halloween season continues, the Sitka Sound Science Center (SSSC) brings back their highly anticipated haunted aquarium event. Sarah Tobey and Brooke Rivera from the SSSC join KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss what sights and activities attendees can expect this year.

Alaska Day is this Saturday, and this weekend is peppered with events. Garry White, Executive Director of Sitka Economic Development Association (SEDA), joined KCAW for the Morning Interview about the upcoming Alaska Day Brew Fest and Chili Cook-Off. Brew Fest will feature beer from multiple breweries, and is a fundraiser for SEDA, which aims to create jobs and improve Sitka’s quality of life. Listen to their conversation here:

The event begins at 2 p.m. in the Harrigan Centennial Hall parking lot. Tickets are $25, with kids admitted for free.

Lloyd Davis is the former mayor of Kake. He remembers the day nearly two years ago that an 80-foot halibut schooner sank in the city’s harbor. 

“Nobody was watching it, apparently, and bailing it out or whatever. [It] sunk and kind of rolled underneath them, one of our end fingers on the main dock,” Davis said. “You could obviously see the oil spill, the slick on top of the water and whatnot.”

Davis said the vessel initially was brought to Kake a few years ago from Wrangell, and was exchanged in a handshake deal. Kake’s current mayor, Lolanda Cavanaugh, said the Coast Guard and locals worked together to clean up the fuel from the vessel when it first sank. In the years since then, she said that the boat continued to be a hazard for sailors. 

“The boat is sitting in our harbor at low tide. It sticks out. It’s kind of a safety hazard, because if boats don’t realize it’s there and they’re coming into the harbor, you know, they could easily run into it or get stuck,” said Cavanaugh. “It blocks some of our parking spaces for boats and other marine vessels. We need to get it out.”  

She said the sunken vessel not only poses a risk to the safety of boaters, but also the harbor’s environment. 

“That’s where a lot of the local people crab pot, sometimes fish and herring move into the harbor and you’ve got kids off fishing on the docks,” said Cavanaugh. “We don’t know exactly what kind of contaminants are still basically in the vessel. It was old, very old. It probably should have been moved out of the harbor years prior to its sinking.”

Cavanaugh said the boat’s owner has been “uncooperative and unresponsive,”  so the city is taking responsibility for its removal, a costly and logistically challenging endeavor.

Cavanaugh initially applied for assistance from a derelict vessel removal program with the State Department of Natural Resources, but the request for reimbursement was rejected because the city hadn’t yet spent any money to get the vessel out of the harbor, and the estimated removal cost was over $50,000. Reapplying is not on the table, as a bill passed earlier this year by the Alaska state legislature axed funding for the program.

Kake is not the only community that struggles with derelict vessels. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has documented over 400 abandoned and derelict vessels, over half of which are in Southeast. Petersburg Harbormaster Glo Wollen said that communities struggle to fund these removals themselves. 

“You have to demo them in a manner that ends up costing a considerable amount of money to the municipalities that you know are on the hook to to end up dealing with this,” said Wollen.

Wollen said it is important for coastal communities to work together and learn from each other to address the shared problem.  

“I talked to our neighbors quite often. And we approach a lot of things together, and many of us have ordinances that seem to work for our community,” Wollen said. “Maybe other communities can look at them and and blend whatever their uniqueness is with ours, and we can have kind of a cohesive approach to what we’ll tolerate in southeast Alaska.”

And that’s just what Mayor Cavanaugh did. Last fall, she learned at a city council meeting that the Borough of Wrangell applied for the Department of Defense’s Innovative Readiness Training Program to assist with a similar situation. 

“So we’ve been looking for the application to come out again. And so when it did, I have a gal who helped me with some grant writing, and she wrote the application for us,” said Cavanaugh.

Right now, Cavanaugh is waiting to hear whether their application will be accepted. If so, the Department of Defense will remove the sunk vessel from Kake sometime in the summer of 2027. She also applied for another federal grant program, to explore options. But with the current government shutdown, it is unclear how long the process will take. 

“We’re just in a waiting game,” said Cavanaugh.

While the City of Kake remains stuck in a sticky situation as they await federal aid, they are able to keep their hope afloat. 

The city is accepting feedback on their application for assistance from the Department of Defense until Oct. 30. 

One of Sitka’s biggest annual events, Whalefest, is returning for its 29th year! Arleigh Reynolds and Janet Clarke from the Sitka Sound Science Center join KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss this year’s theme, official programming, and special opportunities for students.

Monday, October 13 is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Rachel Moreno, the lead cultural instructor with Outer Coast, joined KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss the significance of the day and plans for a celebration at Harrigan Centennial Hall, with traditional food, dance performances. Listen to the conversation here:

Documentary filmmakers and directors of the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival joined the Morning Interview to discuss some of the films in the upcoming festival. Now in its 15th season, the festival will feature 20 films that organizers say were hightlights at their March event in Palm Springs, California, including a documentary about Alaska salmon troller and direct marketer Kat Murphy. The festival runs Oct. 10-12. Listen to their conversation here:

The Sitka Police Department has body cameras to equip its officers in its possession, but doesn’t yet have the funding to implement them. 

The city has been considering the issue since 2022, and after a donation they received this summer, funding the program is again a priority. 

Sitka is the fifth largest city in the state, but its police officers still don’t use body cameras. Body cameras are used by officers in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau, as well as in smaller communities in Southeast Alaska like Wrangell, Haines, Petersburg and Ketchikan.

Sitka’s Interim Police Chief Chad Goeden said the biggest barrier to implementing them in Sitka is the city’s budget cycle, which runs through June 30. When he started on July 1, the budget was already set. 

“Our biggest issue is the day I took over the job is the day I inherited the budget that was created before I got here,” Goeden said. “And I can’t change that.”

Sixty-two percent of local police departments nationwide used body cameras in 2020, a 43% increase from 2016, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice. 

The Sitka Assembly was set to consider the use of body cameras in early 2022, but ultimately, the issue never made it to the assembly table.  

“We did a little investigating. And at the time, we ended up not pushing for it,” said assembly member Kevin Mosher, who co-sponsored the discussion item with then-assembly member Rebecca Himschoot.

He said at the time, it was more about logistics than the cost of the cameras. Storing the data, preparing for public records requests, and redacting for privacy would likely require another position in an already strapped police department. 

“That extra work of trying to store it and prepare public records requests and stuff on a regular basis would not be able to be done by regular patrol officers,” Mosher said.

Goeden agreed. He said even now, the department still doesn’t have enough staff.  

“Our biggest problem as a police department right now is we are just too short handed,” Goeden said. “Not just at the officer level, but I’m supposed to have two lieutenants, I have one. I’m supposed to have four sergeants, I have one. I have one administrative assistant, and she’s spending most of her time in dispatch because we’re so short of dispatchers. So we just don’t have the administrative staff to do this.”

To be clear, Goeden said, he’s in favor of police body cameras. But he also sees the additional hurdles that come with them, not just in the form of cost, but in the form of administration.

“If it’s approved, we’ll do it, and we’ll find a way,” he said. “But then we have to stop doing something else. There’s only so many hours in the day, and it’s largely the administration that concerns me right now. In principle, I’m 100% in support.”

In July, the Sitka Police Department received 16 body cameras — a donation large enough for a fully-staffed police department — that originally came from Nome and then to Craig and finally to Sitka. So actually acquiring the cameras isn’t the issue right now. 

But, Goeden said, they still need to come up with the money to pay for the service, licenses and warrantees.  

“It’s not the physical hardware that’s the issue,” he said. “It’s the licensing of them and then turning them on so that we can use them.”

The camera manufacturer, Axon, estimates the cost to the city will be between $30,000 and $50,000 per year for the licensing and software, depending on what services they choose, according to Goeden.

Goeden said his officers already use dash cameras in their patrol vehicles, so all of their traffic stops and interactions that happen in the vehicles are recorded. Officers also capture audio recordings. And although video would be better, he said, “it’s not like this is going to totally change the way we’re doing law enforcement in Sitka.”

“I can tell you that in my 25 years in law enforcement experience, I never had a body camera, and it was never an issue,” Goeden said. “I’m not saying that they’re not good. They’re useful tools. But I don’t think it’s going to be the game changer that a lot of people think it is.”

Mosher said city staff are considering adding body camera funding to the budget this year, which would require assembly approval, and he’s on board.  

“I’m strongly in support of it. I think most assembly members will be,” he said. “I believe it’s something that the community would like. I think it will definitely help bring transparency, help with people who have interactions with officers, and I think it will actually protect the police officers in a great way.”

Goeden said the police department plans to apply for a federal grant through the Bureau of Justice Assistance that could pay for up to 50% of the body camera cost.

Sitka Tells Tales returns on October 16 with “Ripped from the Headlines.” Art Change director Ellen Frankenstein and Lisa Busch, a member of Friends of Sitka Sentinel, joined KCAW for the Morning Interview to discuss the upcoming event, which will feature local storytellers sharing their experiences in journalism and community impact. Listen to the conversation here:

The majority of Sitka High School’s classrooms sit vacant on a tranquil Sunday afternoon, making the excited rumblings emanating from its music room all the more noticeable. Over 70 Sitkans are spread out across the room, helping themselves to cough drops on the piano and sorting through their sheet music ahead of the day’s rehearsal. The pattering rain outside is drowned out by their elaborate vocal warmups, from lip trills to enunciation drills, lead by choir director Andrew Hames.

Sitting amongst the participants is Elle Campbell. Growing up in Juneau, singing in choir was a huge part of her life. She even sang in the Sitka Fine Arts Camp’s choir in high school. While there had been community choirs in Sitka back in the 1970s and ’80s, there were none by the time Campbell moved to Sitka in 2018.

“Everybody’s so creative, and there’s so many amazing musicians, and everybody’s really community minded, so I was really surprised to find that there hadn’t been a community choir here in many years,” said Campbell.

To fill that gap, Campbell made it her mission to establish a community choir in Sitka. Shortly after she began working with Sitka Parks and Recreation, she says she “pestered” Hames to lead the choir while she handled all the logistics. As a born-and-bred Sitkan, Hames has regularly encountered various familiar faces. In the community choir’s first month, Hames has spotted everyone from his current and former high school students (including Campbell), family members, even a renowned doo-wop quartet who performed at his grandmother’s memorial service. 

“I’ve had these crazy, full circle moments just in rehearsal, and I just look around and I marvel at the faces and the voices that I’m hearing, and you have this moment where we’re all just making music together, and that’s the dream, that’s that’s the vision, and it’s just been so exciting to see it happen,” said Hames.

When the community choir was getting established, Campbell and Hames were hopeful that they would get 30 to 40 regular attendees. Since then, over 100 community members have attended the rehearsals, and many of them have become regulars. 

To Campbell, the overwhelming love Sitkans are showing the community choir has been deeply touching.

“It’s really emotional, and it’s really validating too, to be able to build a space that clearly people have wanted for a really long time,” said Campbell. “I’ve been in town talking about community choir for years, and when I finally kind of got this first rehearsal on the books, I had everybody and their mom coming out of the woodwork going, ‘Hey, when’s your first rehearsal?’ ‘Hey, when is this starting?’ So I knew it would be successful.”

Like Campbell, Leah Mason is a long-time vocalist and a big supporter of bringing a community choir to Sitka. Mason loves the endorphin rush that comes from being in a room where everyone is singing together.

“One of my favorite things is just singing the same note with a bunch of other people and not being able to differentiate between us just having the whole thing be a single sound,” said Mason. “And that, for me, is an amazing way to be in community.”

Campbell seconds how a community choir can meaningfully help foster relationships, particularly intergenerational ones.

“Last I checked it was the age split was 10 to 80 but it might even be bigger than that,” said Campbell. “I think that’s a really special part about living in Sitka and interacting with folks who have been here for 30 years, folks who have been here for 10 years, folks who have been here for six months… That’s really where real community building happens.”

While he recalls seeing choirs come together for Christmas performances, Hames cannot remember a time when there was a secular choir that would gather purely for the purpose of creating a space to regularly sing together. Amidst the fast pace of life in the 21st century, Hames believes community choir offers a unique opportunity for participants to slow down and be present with one another. 

“That’s the nature of our lives these days, is we’re all more connected than we’ve ever been, but we also sometimes feel more isolated than we’ve ever felt, looking at our phones or interacting through technology on computers,” said Hames. “This is truly face to face, voice to voice, listening to one another and just being in the moment and making that music together. And I hope that people are really feeling, maybe a sense of community that can that we continue to build in a really great place like Sitka.”

The community choir will continue to rehearse every Sunday until late November. Campbell and Hames are planning a joint concert with Sitka’s community orchestra in March. Beyond that, they hope to see the choir continue to grow, inviting Sitkans of all ages  to join their collective voice. 

Community choir meets every Sunday at Sitka High School. To register, check out Sitka Parks and Recreation’s website.