Do you care about the future of the Tongass National Forest? Do you want to learn more about tiny houses? Or ocean acidification?

Join the staff and board of the Sitka Conservation Society for an evening filled with great food, conversation, and idea sharing. The We Love the Tongass Gathering will take place on Sunday, February 15 from 4-6 pm at Swan Lake Senior Center (402 Lake Street). Staff and board of the Sitka Conservation Society will discuss tiny homes, local wood, climate change, 4-H programming, and Tongass timber sales. Bring your ideas about how to promote sustainable communities in Southeast Alaska. Let your voice be heard!

This annual meeting is free and open to the public.  For more information call SCS at 747-7509 or sophie@sitkawild.org

We are surrounded by a natural pantry here in Sitka. From beach asparagus to salmonberries to rockfish, the woods and waters in Sitka Sound teem with edible organisms. Nearly everyone here has a favorite way to prepare salmon or a secret recipe using local plants. The annual Sitka Conservation Society wild foods potluck celebrates our local knowledge about available natural foods and showcases their abundance. Additionally, it gives the community a chance to share an incredible variety of dishes, as well as the stories that came with them. This year over 200 people joined us for our 2014 potluck, bringing dishes from herring egg salad to stir-fried fiddleheads. Become an SCS member to stay abreast of our 2015 potluck plans. Stay in touch with the wild and keep cooking!

Two weeks ago, youth volunteers from 4-H harvested apples that were grown as a result of one of the initiatives from the 2010 Sitka Health Summit. Volunteers and their parents came together once again to decorate fabric for mason jars and to cook applesauce. The aptly-named event, Applooza, was hosted by the Sitka Kitch at the First Presbyterian Church. Sitka Conservation Society, in conjunction with the Sitka Food Co-Op and the Sitka Local Foods Network, supported and promoted this event. SCS staff members Mary Wood and Sarah Komisar encouraged the engagement of youth volunteers, providing the 4H participants with an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to our community while educating them about the importance of local food production and consumption. The beautifully-decorated jars of applesauce were donated to the Swan Lake Senior Center and the Salvation Army.

To increase the future capacity for successful food projects like Applooza, SCS will be sponsoring the planting of additional apple trees in Sitka. Please join us for our ‘Apple a Day’ apple tree workshop next week. Our Yale Fellow, Michelle Huang, has been working with Jud Kirkness to plan the event. Jud will be on hand to present everything you need to know about apple trees. We will have ordering instructions on hand and encourage everyone to order a tree. We have a goal of increasing the number of apple trees in Sitka by 15 this year! SCS will also be ordering an apple tree for the Pacific High school campus.

This is something SCS, Sitka Kitch, Sitka Local Foods Network and the Sitka Food Co-op would like to see become an annual event. Special thanks to all the Sitkans who supported this event through donations of jars, time, knowledge and offered up their apple trees for harvesting, including the trees at KCAW.

Do you have some extra huckleberries lying around? Or perhaps a bit of venison you’re not quite sure what to do with? Well, we’ve got a solution for you: Prepare a dish for the Sitka Conservation Society’s Wild Foods Potluck!

What is the Wild Foods Potluck?

The Wild Foods Potluck is an annual event that celebrates the wild foods of Southeast Alaska. Each person or family is asked to bring a dish that incorporates a wild or local food. The event is hosted by the Sitka Conservation Society, an organization that has worked to protect Southeastern Alaska and the Tongass National Forest since 1967.

When / where is it?

The Wild Foods Potluck will take place on Sunday, November 2 at Centennial Hall. Doors will open at 5 p.m. and we ask that people arrive no later than 5:30 p.m. with a dish to share.

What should I bring to the potluck?

Bring a dish featuring food that was fished, foraged, picked, hunted, or cultivated in Southeast. If you don’t have any wild food to share, simply garnish your dish with some local flowers or garden plants. Prizes will be awarded for first place in the following categories: Best Entree, Best Side Dish, Best Dessert, Most Creative, and Best Kids Entry.

Here’s just a few examples of local and wild foods you can incorporate into a dish: wild berries, fish, cabbage, kale, bull kelp, beach asparagus, mushrooms….the possibilities are endless!

What else can I expect?

Food isn’t the only highlight of the evening. Members of the Sitka Conservation Society will share more information about the organization and its mission to protect the Tongass while supporting sustainable community development. Also expect to hear a bit about 4H and how the Sitka Conservation Society is working with young leaders to ensure the long-term sustainability of Sitka and the Tongass National Forest.

This is a family-friendly event open to the entire community. Join us for an evening filled with great food, company, and conversation.

Interested in volunteering at the potluck or want more information? Please contact Sophie Nethercut at sophie@sitkawild.org or call 747-7509.

On Wednesday, Sept. 2, all schools in the Sitka public school system will be serving locally-caught fish! The school district will be serving fish every Wednesday this school year.

Sitka School District schools have been serving locally-caught fish in their school lunches for three years. But starting today, kids will be eating coho caught right in their own backyard every Wednesday!

Fish to Schools was a brainchild of the fall 2010 Sitka Health Summit and a pilot program began in the spring of 2011 with Blatchley Middle School serving fish in school lunches once a month. Since that time, the program has expanded to become a state-funded initiative that brings locally caught fish into public school lunches all across Alaska.

The Sitka Conservation Society has been an instrumental part of the program development, with Tracy Gagnon leading the charge.

"It's a viable way to connect the fishing fleet to young people," Gagnon said. "It connects fishermen to the classroom."

Gagnon said that they did not advertise as much for donations this year, but the support that came in was overwhelming. They received double of what they asked for in this year's donation drive - 1,000 pounds of fish.

With state funding, the Sitka School District will be able to start paying fishermen to have their catches served in school lunches.

"Donating actual coho is so much more meaningful than writing a check," Beth Short-Rhoads said. She is one of the coordinators of the Fish to Schools program. "It's like giving time on the ocean, the excitement of landing a gorgeous fish, and the satisfaction of working hard for a way of life they love," she said.

Today, Wednesday Sept. 2, marks the first day of a fully year of fish lunches on Wednesdays. Lunches will be offered at Baranof Elementary, Keet Gooshi Heen, Blatchley Middle School, Sitka High School, Pacific High Schools, Mount Edgecumbe High School, SEER School, & Head Start.

"There's a certain poetry that people eat food from the lands and waters around them. In Alaska, that means fish caught fresh from the Pacific and not fried chicken from Kentucky," Alaska House Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins said.

The fish head throwing competition was just one of the many games and competitions at the Sitka Seafood Festival on Saturday, August 5.

The last marathoner in the Sitka Cross Trail Classic ran confidently across the finish line as the Sitka Seafood Festival parade started to get underway on Saturday. Floats spewing bubbles and candy made their way down Lincoln Street towards the Sheldon Jackson campus just before noon on August 5 as just one part of a weekend-long celebration of successful wild fisheries in the Tongass National Forest.

Floats traveled down Lincoln Street on a sunny and clear Saturday morning, just before the marketplace opened at the fourth annual Sitka Seafood Festival.

"It's a celebration of how lucky we are," Cherie Creek, a regular volunteer at the festival, said. "We are a seaport and have tons of fisheries and fresh food."

On Aug. 1 and 2, the community gathered for the fourth annual Sitka Seafood Festival. The festival included a marathon, kids' races, cooking demonstrations, food booths, festival games, a fish head toss and the parade.

While it is a community event, Creek said she enjoys having people from out of town join in the festival activities. Her favorite event of the festival is the children's crab races.

Food booths like this one, which served King salmon and crab legs, filled the marketplace. Hundreds filed into the marketplace after the parade to try different seafood treats.

The Sitka Seafood Festival is a great way to "show off to visitors how important seafood is to the Sitka community," Lon Garrison, president of the Sitka School Board said. He said he enjoys celebrating the well-managed and sustainable resource of the Tongass every year.

Garrison also participated in a new event at the festival this year: the Fish to Schools recipe contest. He helped judge 8 different recipes provided by locals to find the new recipe to be used in local schools this fall. The Fish to Schools program, initiated by the Sitka Conservation Society, brings locally caught fish into school cafeterias twice a month.

At an event new to the Sitka Seafood Festival this year, judges gathered to decide which local, kid-friendly recipe would be a part of the Fish to Schools program this fall. The Fish to Schools program brings locally caught fish to school lunches twice a month in Sitka and is now a state-funded program.

One in ten jobs in Sitka is related to the fishing industry and theTongass National Forest provides 28 percent of all salmon produced in the state of Alaska,so the festival really does rejoice in local endeavors. It's something outsiders can't help but take notice of.

"Everyone I've met has some kind of tie to fishing," Ali Banks, a visiting Chicago chef said. "It really drives everything."

Banks teaches in a recreational cooking school in Chicago and uses salmon from Sitka Salmon Shares in her classes. She said she encourages her students to buy wild rather than farmed fish because there really is a difference in quality. She also writes basic and fun recipes for the Sitka Salmon Shares website, which distributes mostly in the Midwest.

Chicago chef Ali Banks taught a small crowd how to make homemade pesto for seared coho. She said many were surprised by her choice of recipe, but she wanted to bring a creative flair to a dish that people in Sitka eat all the time. In Chicago, eating fresh fish is a novelty, she said, so Chicagoans like to dress up their fish perhaps more than Sitkans would.

Traveling to Sitka for the seafood festival was a real treat for Banks. She spent a few days in Sitka out on a boat fishing. "I got the best Alaska has to offer," she said. "I love knowing where my food comes from."

Sitka, a community of 9,000, will continue to celebrate the success of the wild fisheries in the Tongass National Forest all summer long.

Join the Sitka Conservation Society on their last boat cruise of the season!

On Tuesday, Aug. 19, SCS will set sail with Allen Marine tours to explore the salmon of Sitka Sound. Lon Garrison, aquaculture director at the Sitka Sound Science Center will be on board as a guide and to answer questions. Come learn about the importance of salmon to the Tongass National Forest and have some fun on a Tuesday night!

Tickets are on sale at Old Harbor Books beginning Aug. 5. The cost is $40 per person.

The boat cruise will depart Crescent Harbor at 5 p.m. and return at 8 p.m., boarding begins at 4:45 p.m.

Don't miss the last chance to take a SCS cruise this summer!

The Sitka Conservation Society sponsored a boat cruise through Sitka Sound and Nakwasina Sound on Sunday afternoon, bring visitors from Florida, Columbia, New York, Ireland and even some native Sitkans around the waterways and salmon habitats of the area. Led by SCS director Andrew Thoms and SCS board member Kitty LaBounty, guests on the Allen MarineSea Otter Express, enjoyed gorgeous vistas, a bear siting, watching salmon jump and bald eagles soar and just before heading back to Crescent Harbor, a humpback whale gave everyone a close up flick of his tail as it descended to the deep.

But, while aboard the Sea Otter Express, guests also learned the southeast Alaska sea otter story, a tale fraught with controversy that acts as a simple reminder of the importance of any one species to The Tongass National Forest ecosystem.

Sea otters in Sitka Sound

Sea otters are the smallest marine mammals and are members of the weasel family. They spend almost their entire lives in water, often only going on land to give birth. Sea otters usually stay in groups called rafts of all males or females with their pups. These furry creatures are often seen floating and grooming around kelp beds and the rocky islands of Sitka Sound.

With no natural predators, sea otters have free reign over their territory. They eat shell fish and sea urchins and spend their days playing and grooming their fur. Because they do not have a blubber layer to keep them warm in the ocean, their fur is vital for their survival. Otters have the densest fur of any animal in the world with 300,000 hairs per square inch. And that is what has gotten them into trouble in the past.

A mom and pup in Sitka Sound

During the late 1700's and early 1800's Russian fur traders almost completely wiped out the population of sea otters in Alaska. What some researchers believe was a population of 150,000 to 300,000 had been reduced to a mere 2,000 sea otters along the Pacific Northwest Coast by 1911. And it wasn't just the fur industry thriving. Without the sea otters to eat them, clam and other shell fish populations grew and so did a whole system of fisheries that became very profitable in the region.

As you can tell from the pictures, the sea otters have returned. Hunting restrictions and reintroduction programs have restored the sea otter population along the Alaskan coast. Now, an estimated 12,000 live in Southeast Alaska.

But, the story is not without controversy. Those profitable shell fish fisheries I mentioned are now struggling to compete with the renewed sea otter population. Some argue that those fisheries became profitable in a time when the natural environment had been altered. There is also the topic of kelp to consider. Sea otters also eat sea urchins that kill off bulk kelp populations. The kelp is a great place for fish, particularly herring, to spawn and now with the sea otters back eating sea urchins, the kelp populations can thrive again.

Removing a species from its natural habitat can have profound effects on an ecosystem, as the story of the sea otters has shown. Even without natural predators, the sea otters play an important role in The Tongass National Forest ecosystem and help keep the environment in balance.