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This year’s Fur Rendezvous Festival is celebrated Feb. 26 through March 6. Some of the many events include the Amateur Photo Contest; Charlotte Jensen Native Arts Market; GCI Snow Sculpture Competition; the Rondy Grand Parade; fireworks show; Running of the Reindeer; Rondy Melodrama; Miner’s and Trapper’s Charity Ball; and the annual Pioneer Pancake Feed. The Anchorage Senior Activity Center has its own extensive Rondy activities schedule, including the art show and reception, and annual Fur Rendezvous Pioneer Stories Dinner Theater. For ticket...
"What do I like best about my job? That's easy. It's my customers! I love our customers." It's an early Monday morning and Janet Hickok is multi-tasking. She has been an owner of Doriola's on Tudor Road in Anchorage since she drove north from Oregon back in 2005. She opened the small restaurant and customers have been like family. "Here's the deal," she states firmly as she visits with me, plans the day's fresh soups, and handles the ordering of the week's food supplies with another visitor. "I...
Started 30 years ago in Yuma, Ariz., as an informal get together for Alaska snowbirds, the annual Alaska Picnic has grown into an enormous annual party. “We have people fly in from Alaska for the two days just for the picnic,” says Ruth Giles, who lives in Yuma and organizes the event with her husband, Rich. “People also come from Tucson, Oregon, Washington – from all over.” The event is held each year on Feb. 14. The location is Yuma’s Henry Park Pavilion, which can accommodate the large group and provide room for the food and live band....
Vicki Martin calls them the "Thursday people," and I had come specifically to meet one of them, "Grandpa John" Sterner. I'd heard that at age 94, John was among the most faithful, most staunch of the crew that gathers each Thursday at the Downtown Soup Kitchen to put together some 450 sandwiches, along with 60 gallons of fresh, homemade soups and several desserts. This happens daily, Monday through Friday at this Anchorage spot on the corner of Third Ave. and Cordova. Vicki is the program and vo...
“Seward Unleashed, Volume I,” was a literary success in 2014, and Volume II is underway to preserve the character, color and adventure of community members in the Seward and surrounding area. Writers of all ages, styles and stories are invited to reflect on the “How I got here and why I stayed” theme. Was it your spirit of adventure? Was it that you were born here and couldn’t leave? Did you join your long lost love and run away to Seward? Or did you receive the perfect job offer? Leave your legacy in print by contributing your personal...
Tired of forgetting to start your car before you head to work on a chilly morning? Looking for a stress-free way to make your daily commute more manageable? Look no further than ridesharing. The Fairbanks North Star Borough has partnered with Zimride by Enterprise to offer residents a social ridesharing network. The new network allows people to easily find carpools from others in the area that share similar commute origins and destinations. In addition to simply sharing cars with two or three commuters, Enterprise Rideshare will be conducting f...
How do we deal with our grief over loss of loved ones and all the madness in today's world? In 1988 a Pan American flight over Lockerbie, Scotland was bombed out of the sky. In the play, "Women of Lockerbie," the women of Lockerbie are fighting with the U.S. government for the right to obtain the clothing of the victims of flight 103, which crashed over their village. By washing the clothes found in the wreckage and returning them to the families of the victims of the crash the women believe the...
“Celebrate Senior Veterans Week” returns this year to the Anchorage Senior Activity Center, Nov. 9-13, featuring a week filled with information, recreation, companionship and remembrance. Here is the schedule: Monday, Nov. 9: Information Fair, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10: Presentations and guest speakers, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11: The center will close in observance of Veterans Day Thursday, Nov. 12: Veteran Luncheon, noon to 1:30 p.m. With keynote speaker Verdie Bowen, Director of the State of Alaska Dept. of Military and...
Sit three people together who have long-term relationships with the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, and stories begin to flow, randomly, bouncing off one another. That's what happened recently on a grey September morning. One of those gathered around the table in the Zoo's small coffee shop was Bob Pate. His association with the Zoo goes back to its very beginnings and includes over 20 years as a Zoo board member. Then there was Susie Voke, daughter of Sammye Seawell. Sammye started the Zoo, with its...
A Juneau resident and his brother have made a significant donation to Sealaska Heritage Institute that includes letters and essays penned by the late Native rights leader William L. Paul, Sr., for whom the institute's archives is named. The donation by Ray Peck of Juneau and Cy Peck, Jr., a former longtime Juneau resident who now lives in Hawaii, includes letters, papers, newspapers, newsletters and more than 200 color and black-and-white images collected by their father, the late Cyrus E....
"The community missed the event last year. We were sure of it." Penny Goodstein, president of the Anchorage Interfaith Council, is referring to the CROP Walk, a hunger walk with a long history in Anchorage and across the United States. "I think there had been 20 walks in Anchorage, with the last one here in 2013. When the possibility of resurrecting the Walk this fall was brought up at a council meeting a few months ago, the members were genuinely excited." This year's Walk will be held on...
Alaskan author (and Senior Voice contributing writer) Dianne Barske will receive a first place national award at this year's National Federation of Press Women Communications Conference, to be held Sept. 10-12 at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage. She is receiving the award for her non-fiction children's book, "Saving Katie, Pipeline Employees Rescue a Baby Musk Ox." She is both the writer and illustrator of the book, created as a contract with Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, whose...
Editor's note: This is the final story in a three-part series about Unalaska/Dutch harbor, based on Senior Voice contributing writer Dianne Barske's visit in May 2015. I was astonished. The Jesse Lee Home in Unalaska was there before me, fully intact – a modest, well-kept home standing on a broad, open lawn with mountains rising behind. I hadn't expected that. Knowing that I would be traveling to Unalaska and Dutch Harbor this past May, I'd been asked by staff at Alaska Child & Family in A...
Registration is underway for the 13th Annual Alaska International Senior Games, held Aug. 7-16 in Fairbanks. The annual event offers more than 20 sports and recreational events for participation, from distance running and tennis to horseshoes and pickle ball. Minimum age to compete is 50, with the exception of coed ice hockey, where women can be as young as 45. Registration ends July 25. For online registration and more information, including the events schedule, visit www.alaskaisg.org or call...
From a tent city in a U.S. territory, Anchorage has grown to an official All-American City and international hub in the 49th state. Cyrano's Off Center Playhouse is celebrating the phenomenal amount of change with an equally sweeping theater project: 10 plays, one per decade, over 10 weeks. The first show is in the first week of July. Local residents and their visitors will know the big stops on the timeline from 1915 to 2015 – statehood, the Good Friday earthquake, the Trans-Alaska pi...
Is it Dutch Harbor or Unalaska? Should it be written Unalaska/Dutch Harbor? I reflected upon this puzzle as our small plane landed on Amaknak Island in the heart of the Aleutian Islands chain. I soon got my answer from what might be considered the ultimate authority, the mayor of the city of Unalaska. "You don't want to say you've landed in Dutch Harbor," she clarified. "That would mean you landed in the water – and you don't want to do that. You landed in Unalaska." That was settled. And we lea...
With a guest list of 310 that included Governor Bill Walker and current and upcoming Anchorage mayors, Dan Sullivan and Ethan Berkowitz, the June 10 "Evening at the Atwood Estate" signature fundraiser dinner and auction was "a wonderful response to a great cause," says Becky Parker, Anchorage Senior Activity Center general manager. "The owners of the Atwood estate have been absolutely generous and thoughtful. Tons of volunteers and community members went into making this happen. We wanted...
Kenai Senior Center will continue its "Mystery Drives" through October, weather-permitting. The monthly excursions are organized by the center's driver, Steve Latz, and riders have no idea where they are going when they get on the vehicle. The May drive took them to the Kenai Refuge Visitors Center; this month's mystery drive is July 21. Call the center to save a seat at 283-8214....
Stories at the Cemetery will be an Official Anchorage Centennial Event this year, and to celebrate the year 2015, the theme will be “Fifteen for 2015… And A Leg!” says Audrey Kelly, along with her husband Bruce. “One of the character’s legs was the only part of him buried!” The self guided Anchorage Memorial Cemetery walking tour on July 12 will feature costumed actors portraying 15 of the notable founders, movers and shakers and early notorious residents of Anchorage. Audrey will play Tilly Reeves, wife of Rob Reeves, founder of Reeve Aleut...
I looked out the window of the small plane as we approached our short runway and saw nothing but olive-green cliffs. They filled the window and I was startled. The bumpy bluffs seemed so close I felt I could reach out and touch all that green, sailing by on my left. It was Mother's Day, a few weeks ago, and a long-held wish was becoming reality. My husband Elliott and I were flying into Unalaska and Dutch Harbor to spend a few days exploring this place, a place like no other. We arrived in a...
Honorary plaque in arms, retiring Skagway Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Carlin "Buckwheat" Donahue regaled a crowd of well-wishers at the Red Onion Saloon on May 1. After 16 years in the position, Donahue can look back at countless plaque presentations to cruise ship captains on their ship's first docking in Skagway, years of seeing hundreds of thousands of visitors using the visitor services the bureau provides, but most importantly, 29 years of the Buckwheat Ski Classic, a cross...
A once-in-a-century theater project is set to run in downtown Anchorage this July through September at Cyrano’s Off Center Playhouse, 4th Avenue and D Street. “Anchorage: The First 100 Years – A Theatrical Tour,” will feature a different team of director and actors each week for 10 weeks, with each week covering a decade in Anchorage’s history. Cyrano’s says its centennial celebration is a series of “living newspapers,” featuring the stories and colorful characters who helped shape Anchorage. The series will include authentic period music an...
