Wed, April 20, 2016
Rick Metzger shared this poem, which he found in the Pacific American Fisheries archive in Bellingham. There is no author attribution. (Note: In an email received on May 22, 2022 from Robert Magnus Thorstenson Jr. of Juneau, Alaska, he wrote that his father had a copy of this poem in his archives and had the author identified on it as the late Dennis Sperl from Petersburg.) Crumbling Cannery An old weathered cannery lay silent in death, No signs of...
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Thu, April 14, 2016
The Tanana Yukon Historical Society presents The 7th program of the 2015-2016 Season Wednesday, 20 April 2016 7 p.m. Pioneer Hall at Pioneer Park, Fairbanks "Armed and Alert: Living and Working at Nike Missile Sites in Alaska" Presenter: Karen Brewster [caption id="attachment_4444" align="alignright" width="332"] Site Summit above Anchorage. U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Laura Turner)[/caption] Alaska's location made it a key strategic player during the Cold War. Missile sites and radar stations were established around the state to help protect American...
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Sat, April 09, 2016
Cannery work is often monotonous. Standing in one place for hours, repeating the same hand motions over and over, attempting to keep alert as the predictable hums and clangs lull the worker towards dozing. However, Alice Ryser enjoyed her time at the New England Fishing Company's Orca plant outside of Cordova. Remembering mug-up and her fellow NEFCO cannery workers brings a smile to her face, fifty years after she left the cannery. But one incident in particular sticks out in...
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Thu, March 24, 2016
by Rebecca Poulson From Russian American times to the present, boats have been built in Sitka because people needed them, and could not afford to buy them; it was not an industry producing boats for selling outside the immediate area. Another factor throughout the centuries, from canoes to aluminum skiffs, is the pure joy of building a boat, and the pride in creating a beautiful, quality vessel. Boat and shipbuilding in Sitka, and the builders and their backgrounds and...
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Mon, March 21, 2016
by Anjuli Grantham Spring arrived in Kodiak along with the first real snow fall of the year. Here is a quick run-down on recent Alaska Historic Canneries Initiative activities. Grant Program We received 16 applications for our small grant program, and we awarded seven grants. The recipients are: - Deanna Baier of Dillingham, for an oral history project with 4-H - Rick Metzger and Woody Knebel, for researching the Alitak Cannery on Kodiak Island - Sitka History Museum,...
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