The Sitka Maritime Heritage Society will host the presentation “Herring: Rakes, Reduction Plants and the Fisheries: A Night of History” during its annual meeting at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, at Harrigan Centennial Hall.

The program features a panel discussion about the importance of herring in Southeast Alaska, from the booming commercial sac roe herring fishery to traditional gathering of herring eggs on hemlock branches. Another panel topic includes the herring reduction plants that once were scattered throughout Southeast Alaska. There also have been recent community discussions about possibly starting a whole-fish herring fishery that won’t target roe. Members of the public will be invited to share their memories of herring fishing and roe harvests. Photos and artifacts will be on hand.

For more information, contact sitkamaritime@gmail.com.

The 2011-12 Sitka Local Foods Network Board of Directors at its winter board retreat on Dec. 3, 2011. From left are Lisa Sadleir-Hart, Doug Osborne, Maybelle Filler, Cathy Lieser, Robin Grewe, Linda Wilson and Kerry MacLane. Not pictured are Johanna Willingham-Guevin and Tom Crane.

The Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors will hold its monthly meeting from 6:30-8 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 6, at the Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Building, 408 Marine St. (parking lot is off Spruce Street).

Key topics for the meeting include planning for the Let’s Grow Sitka on March 11, a recap of the Jan. 21 Sitka Local Foods Network annual meeting and potluck, an update on the Sitka Community Greenhouse and Education Center, an update on the Sitka Food Co-op, an update on recent work by the Alaska Food Policy Council, an update on the Sitka Composting Project (Sick-a-Waste), our new logo and t-shirts, planning for spring planting at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm and other community gardens, planning for upcoming events such as the Sitka Farmers Markets on alternating Saturdays from July 7-Sept. 15, and more.

Board meetings are free and open to the general public, usually once a month (except summer). We always welcome new volunteers interested in helping out with our various projects. For more information, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654 or 747-7888.

Come celebrate Alaska’s bounty with friends and family. Bring a dish featuring food fished, foraged, hunted or cultivated in Southeast. If you don’t have any wild foods to share, just garnish your dish with a local plant. After dinner is served there will be a short presentation by SCS Community Sustainability Coordinator Tracy Gagnon about the Fish To Schools program.

There also will be presentation by Sitka High School musicians and booths from the Sitka Local Foods Network, the Slow Food Southeast Alaska group, the Sitka Sound Science Center, Sitka Trail Works, Recycle Sitka, Sitka Bicycle Friendly Community Coalition, Sitka 4H Club, Sitka Maritime Heritage Society, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Mt. Edgecumbe High School Youth for Environmental Action, Sitka Seafood Festival and more.

Prizes will be given for first place in the following categories: Best Entree, Best Side, Best Dessert, Most Creative, and Incorporation of the Most Local Ingredients. Entries should include a wild/local food. Pick up an entry form at the front table when you arrive at the potluck.

This event is open to the entire community; you do not need to be a Sitka Conservation Society member to attend. Non-alcoholic hot drinks will be provided.

For more information, contact Ashley Bolwerk at the Sitka Conservation Society office at 747-7509.

• Wild Foods Potluck flier (opens as PDF file)

Local fish lunches will be served every second and fourth Wednesday of the month at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary and Blatchley Middle School as a hot lunch option. This is a Sitka Health Summit project that got started last year with once-a-month fish meals at Blatchley, so this is a major expansion of the program. The goal is to get more wild, local fish into school lunches.

These fresh and tasty meals will be prepared with locally caught fish donated by Seafood Producers Cooperative and Sitka Sound Seafoods. Encourage your children to eat healthy and choose fish for lunch. It’s yummy and good for you.

Sitka Conservation Society Community Sustainability Organizer Tracy Gagnon was interviewed about the program on Aug. 22 on KCAW-Raven Radio, and you can listen to the interview at this link. For more information about the project, contact Tracy at 747-7509 or tracy@sitkawild.org.

The third annual Sitka Seafood Festival is tentatively planned for Aug 3-4, 2012, but there is a lot we need to figure out to make sure this can actually happen. If you are interested in any capacity, please either attend the meeting, or get ahold of Alicia Olson prior to the meeting.

Alicia will have specific job descriptions and tasks to try and delegate, and the steering committee will discuss the possibility of merging or piggybacking so this event can be sustainable in the future. If your organization would like to be involved, please send a rep or contact Alicia as well.

“I have heard nothing but positive, amazing comments regarding this festival, and I know we would all like to see it continue to grow, so spread the word,” Alicia said. “Thanks again to everyone for so much hard work and effort … and see you on Tuesday.”

For more information about the Sitka Seafood Festival, contact Alicia Olson at Alicia Olson at 1-928-607-4845 or sitkaseafoodfestival@gmail.com.

This special family friendly walking tour is a benefit for the Fish to Schools program, which provides local fish and stream to plate education in Sitka schools. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for children and available at Old Harbor Books. Space is limited to 20 participants.

For more information, contact Sitka Salmon Tours and/or the Sitka Conservation Society at 747-7509 (both can be reached at this number).

• Flier for Sitka Salmon Tour for Kids

According to the story, Nicolaas Mink, owner and tour guide for Sitka Salmon Tours, leads behind-the-scenes walking tours of the local salmon fishery from stream to dinner table.

“The tours are really seeking to raise awareness of among healthy forest, healthy ecosystems, healthy community and we’re really doing that through the lens of our salmon fishery here and to a lesser extent our commercial fishery,” says Mink.

“In many ways, it’s a big interpretive project, we’re taking two dozen sites in Sitka, and stringing them together through a walking tour that’s narrated generally by me.”

Mink said the tour is by foot, rather than by bus, because it’s an eco-friendly way to present the subject. It also follows the philosophy of the Sitka Conservation Society, which helps produce the tours. To learn more and watch an audio slideshow, click this link.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SITKA LOCAL FOODS NETWORK Sitka Local Foods Network Board Member Doug Osborne, left, and Sitka Farmers Market Co-Director Mandy Griffith, right, present the Table of the Day Award to Dave Nicholls, second from left, and Charlotte A. Vanchura Candelaria of Sitka Sea Salt during the first Sitka Farmers Market of the summer on Saturday, July 16, 2011, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall in Sitka, Alaska. Sitka Sea Salt is a new business that will manufacture sea salt for chefs and restaurant use. Dave and Charlotte received a tote bag full of bread, veggies and other prizes from the market. The next Sitka Farmers Market is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 30, 2011, at ANB Hall. To learn more about the Sitka Farmers Market, go to http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/.

The second Sitka Farmers Market of the summer takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 30, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall (235 Katlian St.), and this market promises to be bigger than the first one.

This will be the second of five full Sitka Farmers Markets this summer, with the schedule running on alternate Saturdays (July 16, 30, Aug. 13, 27 and Sept. 10). The markets feature local seafood (fresh, frozen, and cooked, ready to eat), locally grown and harvested fruits and vegetables, baked bread, locally picked berries, jams and jellies, cooking demonstrations, live entertainment, locally brewed and roasted coffee, music, local arts and crafts, and a variety of other items gathered or made in Sitka. We emphasize local products and lots of fun. We are the first farmers market in Southeast Alaska to accept WIC coupons. You also can vote for the Sitka Farmers Market in the America’s Favorite Farmers Markets contest by following the links at http://sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/2011/07/06/%E2%80%A2-don%E2%80%99t-forget-to-vote-for-the-sitka-farmers-market-in-this-year%E2%80%99s-america%E2%80%99s-favorite-farmers-markets-contest/.

According to Sitka Farmers Market Manager Linda Wilson, there will be a lot of new booths at this market who weren’t around for the first one. So far, the tentative vendor list looks like this:

INSIDE:

• Raven’s Peek Roasters – roast coffee, specialty nuts
• Food Demonstration
• Amanda Hershberg – cupcake bar
• Alaskans Own – frozen fish
• Gimbal Botanicals – teas, beach asparagus
• Down to Earth U-Pick Garden – produce, plants, flowers
• Sarah Williams – Athabascan handcrafts
• Syliva Falk – hand crafted jewelry
• Charlotte Candelaria – Sitka Sea Salt
• Dave Nichols – locally produced music on CD
• Kiki Norman – glass jewelry
• D.J. Robidou – graphic art
• Backbay Botanicals – wildcrafted herbal remedies and lotions
• Kelly Tidwell – jewelry made from wild gathered items
• Bobbie Daniels – angora rabbits, small animal feed
• Tamara Conaster – jewelry, produce, baked goods
• Episcopal Church Women – frozen black cod
• Big Brothers Big Sisters – non-profit
• Sitka Food Cooperative – new food co-op sign-up information
• Bonnie Bell Baker – home made aprons and sewn items
• Evening Star Grutter – produce, jam
• Teruvina – baked goods, bread
• Sandra Greba – art and crafts
• Joella Swanson – local beach stone and metal clay jewelry
• Charles Bower – local author
• Braveheart Volunteers – nonprofit
• Lisa Teas – art
• Jennifer Ihde – art, crafts
• Dianna Raymond – jam, jellies
• Bridget Kaufman – bread, baked goods

OUTSIDE:

• Sitka Local Foods Network/Sitka Farmers Market – produce, rhubarb jam, logo t-shirts
• Kerry MacLane – grilled black cod
• Grace Larsen – fry bread
• Kari Johnson – crepes
• Marivic Carbonez – Filipino food
• Marcelino Mabalot – prepared foods
• Judy Johnstone – produce
• Mandy Griffith – baked goods
• Baranof Island Brewing – root beer, logo items, baked goods from spent grain
• Mary Todd Anderson – coffee

For more information about the market or hosting a booth, contact Sitka Farmers Market Manager Linda Wilson at 747-3096 (evenings or weekends) or lawilson87@hotmail.com. By the way, we always need volunteers to help set up and take down the market before and after the event. Your help is greatly appreciated.

A Sitka black-tailed deer feeds on one of the barrier islands near Sitka

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is offering a two-day basic hunter education class July 22-23 in Sitka. The class takes place from 6-9 p.m. on Friday, July 22, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 23, at the Sitka Sportsman’s Association building toward the end of Halibut Point Road (by the shooting range next to the ferry terminal).

To register, students must purchase a $10 study packet that is available at the Sitka ADF&G office, 304 Lake St., Suite 103. The packet workbook must be completed before the start of the first class. The course is open to anyone, but it is designed for students ages 10 and older. A minimum of six students is needed for the class to take place.

For packet workbooks and additional information, contact the Sitka office of ADF&G at 747-5449. More information about the basic hunter education class also is available online at this link.

This class is required before hunters are allowed to get permits for some of Alaska’s game management areas. Successful completion of the class earns the hunter a certificate recognized by all other states, Canadian provinces and territories, and in Mexico.

The second annual Sitka Seafood Festival takes place on Friday and Saturday, May 20-21, at Harrigan Centennial Hall and Crescent Harbor.

The festival opens at 6 p.m. on Friday with the opening banquet dinner at Harrigan Centennial Hall. This event features a formal  atmosphere  with  various  local  chefs  collaborating,  each showcasing  a  separate  course. It also  introduces  our  guest  chefs —  Louisa  Chu,  chef  and writer  from  Chicago,  and  our  returning  guest  chef  Robert Kinneen  from  Anchorage.  There will be a live  music  performance  by  Ray  Troll  and  the  Rat  Fish  Wranglers  during  dinner,  as  well as  a  silent  auction  and  other entertainment. Tickets  are available  at  Old  Harbor  Books  for  $50.

The fun continues on Saturday, with a full schedule of events at Harrigan Centennial  Hall,  Crescent  Harbor  Shelter  and  back  parking  area. Events include:

• 11 AM: Maritime-themed  parade
• Vendor  booths  including  food,  educational  and  entertainment  booths,  kids  games  and prizes,  knot  tying  classes,  beer  garden,  live  music  by  many  local  bands,  or  anyone interested  in  showcasing  seafood/maritime-related  items  (for more  info,  contact Christi Wuerker at 738-9047)
• Kids  and  adult  art  workshop  with  Ray  Troll  (limited  number of openings,  to  sign  up,  call  Alicia Olson at 928-607-4845)
• GingerLee, Aerial  silk  dancer  performances by Jenn Perry
• USCG  Aids  to  Navigation  Team  vessel  tours
• Local  New Archangel Russian  dance  and  Naa  Kahídi  Tlingít dance  performances
• US Coast  Guard  helicopter  rescue  demonstration
• Cooking  demonstration  by  guest  chef  Louisa  Chu
• Fish-filleting  demos  on  the  hour,  every  hour  starting  at  noon,  as  well  as  rockfish  identifying contests
• Fish-head-tossing  contest,  tote  races,  crab  races  and  fish-head-bobbing  contests
• 5-6PM:  Fish  Poetry  at  Kettleson  Memorial Library (More  info:  Jeff  Budd at  the  Greater  Sitka  Arts  Council)
• 8-11PM:  Live  music  and  dance  with  Ray  Troll  and  the  Ratfish  Wranglers  opening  and  the headliner  band  Wicked  Tinkers  (Tickets  $20  at  Old  Harbor  Books:  more  info  available through  Sitka  Folk)

To learn more, go to  http://www.sitkaseafoodfestival.org/,  or  contact  Alicia  Olson at  928- 607-4845 or by e-mail  at sitkaseafoodfestival@gmail.com.