Commercial Blueberry Project
This is a placeholder for an upcoming blueberry project post. In the meantime, here is a link to the recently published report.
Finding Balance at the Speed of Trust
Written by Peter Forbes
Imagine a long-distance runner, without a watch, crossing mountain ranges, passing through villages, people occasionally cheering them along, but mostly alone confronting obstacles on the ground and in their mind, always running toward an important goal. I believe Sustainable Southeast Partnership is that runner, and I offer up this essay to help the world recognize the importance of your cross-country journey and the magnitude of your goal. This essay was supported by the Sustainable Southeast Partnership as a tool to help illustrate the significance and complexity of their work to share with practitioners, investors, community leaders, movers and shakers.
Kurt Hahn, the Scottish innovator who made popular outdoor education and who founded Outward Bound said, “If you’re lucky, once in your life you’ll be associated with a truly great idea.” My greatest hope is that this essay helps all the partners and community members working together within SSP to see that they are manifesting a truly great idea: a collaboration that heals and moves forward a very important place in this world.
Click here to download the full PDF
Food Businesses Encouraged to Apply to the Path to Prosperity Competition
The 2017 Path to Prosperity (P2P) sustainable business competition aims to identify and support innovative Southeast Alaska food businesses. Supporting local food businesses reduces Southeast Alaska’s dependence on imports, strengthens community resiliency, and promotes sustainable use of the region’s natural bounty.
Path To Prosperity is a collaboration between The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Spruce Root, Inc. Spruce Root and TNC are committed to strengthening local food systems by supporting food entrepreneurs from across the region. “We’re excited to try something a little different for the next round and connect with the growing local foods movement in Southeast Alaska,” says P2P competition administrator Paul Hackenmueller. “This year’s competition will provide resources to help local food entrepreneurs incorporate social, economic, and environmental sustainability techniques into their business models.”
Eligible businesses must operate primarily in Southeast Alaska and be involved in the growing, harvesting, processing, aggregation, preparation or distribution of food. “P2P applicants can be existing businesses or start-ups,” said Hackenmueller. “We want to encourage new entrepreneurs to apply, even if they haven’t started their business yet, so the Round 1 application doesn’t require a full business plan. We only ask for a basic description of the business concept.” P2P helps entrepreneurs identify ways to make their businesses profitable, while also having positive social and environmental impacts on their communities.
Twelve applicants will be selected as finalists to advance to Round 2 of the competition and attend P2P’s innovative Business Boot Camp weekend in Juneau. All twelve finalists receive one-on-one mentorship and consulting that they can use to help write their business plans and grow their businesses after they return to their communities. The Boot Camp experience is valuable for all finalists who attend, whether or not they win the competition. “Thanks to P2P, I have a clear vision of where I am headed and a solid business plan that I developed as the roadmap to the future of our company,” said Tina Steffen of Skya’ana Coffee Co. in Klawock, one of two winners of the 2016 competition.
Timeline for 2017 Path To Prosperity Competition
- April 1, 2017 – Application Period Opens
- May 9, 2017 – Webinar
- May 31, 2017 – Applications Due
- July 7, 2017 – Announce Finalists Advancing to Round 2
- September 29 – October 1, 2017 – Boot Camp Weekend in Juneau
- December 3, 2017 – Business Plan Submissions Deadline
- February 2018 –Two Winners Announced
The competition is open to all Southeast Alaska residents. This includes individuals, for-profit businesses and tribal entities.
Click here to apply and learn more!
Trip Report from July 2016 Hoonah Community Exchange
As a participating member of the “Emerald Edge” program that is supported by The Nature Conservancy in Washington, British Columbia and southeast Alaska, Community Exchanges are facilitated each year to support shared learning between coastal communities on how common challenges to sustainability are being addressed by people throughout this bioregion.
Bob Christensen: SSP Regional Catalyst for Community Forestry and Fisheries
I participated in an Emerald Edge community exchange to Hoonah along with SSP community catalysts from Kasaan (Carrie Sykes) and Kake (Loretta Gregory), as well as Dawn and her son Shawan Jackson from Kake, Hydaburg High School student Joe Hillaire and Huna Totem and Huna Heritage Foundation employees Joe Jacobson and Sarah Dybdahl. We organized this trip because the folks in Hydaburg, Kasaan and Kake are interested in both the Hoonah Community Forest project happening in Hoonah and the Icy Strait Point tourism destination.
The eight of us converged in Hoonah on July 12 and spent the first half of the day visiting with folks at the Hoonah Indian Association to learn about the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership. This project represents an all-hands, all-lands approach to natural resource management that is currently employing 5 community members to create a comprehensive and consistent inventory of forests, streams and roads in the watersheds that surround Hoonah; including specialized studies on salmon habitat productivity, deer habitat productivity and berry production.
The HNFP project area is approximately 150,000 acres covering all complete watersheds within which Sealaska and Huna Totem lands exist.
The jurisdictional patchwork and forest conditions are similar in most rural Southeast Alaskan communities. The watersheds that surround these communities have been logged very thoroughly and over a relatively short period of time. The logging road systems have become integral to both the subsistence and cash economies of these communities but the costs of maintenance currently far exceed the revenue production now that the first phase of logging is over. The question today for these communities is: Now What? Are there ways to generate revenue that are not currently in operation? Are there important habitat restoration needs that could benefit the local subsistence economies? If there is not enough funding to keep all the roads open, how do we prioritize which ones to invest in for ongoing use? Through the HNFP Community Forest initiative we are tackling these questions with a combination of cutting edge science, community engagement and collaboration for greater overall collective impact.
This photo was taken from the new cruise ship dock at the Icy Strait Point facility in Hoonah.
The second half of the day was led by Joe Jacobson of Huna Totem, the local ANCSA tribal village corporation. Joe works as one of the primary managers of their Icy Strait Point tourism facility, a premiere tourist destination that caters to the cruise ship industry. This facility is sited at an old salmon cannery (1912-1932) that Huna Totem restored and opened to its first ship in 2014. Icy Strait Point, or ISP as it is called locally, is at the heart of an economic growth period for the community that is providing revenue for the village corporation, its shareholders, as well as a number of local businesses that are popping up to take advantage of the seasonal influx of visitors that are brought in through ISP. In 2016, there were approximately 250,000 visitors that came through ISP to this small community of just 800!
The folks from Kake and Kasaan are particularly interested in ISP as a model of cultural and eco-tourism that they would like to replicate, though probably at a much smaller scale. Joe and the folks at Huna Totem were kind enough to participate in this SSP and Emerald Edge shared-learning field trip and share with the folks from other rural communities in Southeast what ISP is, how it operates, what has gone well, what has been challenging, and brainstorm ideas for how these lessons might be applied in their local communities.
One of the funnest outcomes of the ISP tour was “catalyzed” by the high school students that had joined us on this trip. ISP employs quite a few Hoonah High School students and of course Shawan and Joe spotted some that they knew from sports and other regional affairs. Before we knew it, Joe and Shawan had broken away from our group and held a quick meeting with one of their friends that resulted in a complimentary ride down the ISP zip line! Great example of social capital in action! Suffice it to say, we all learned a lot and had a great time doing it!
Next steps include the development of a workforce recruitment plan to help ISP find prospective employees from other villages in Southeast Alaska, exploration of youth programming opportunities that can dovetail with ISP and the HNFP project, and future trips for ISP managers to Kake and Kasaan for ongoing consultation on their interests in developing unique cultural tourism experiences like what is offered in Hoonah.
This is a photo of Shawan Jackson and Conor Reynolds about to launch at the ISP zip line in Hoonah.
And here is most of our group from left to right: Conor, Shawan, Carrie, Loretta and Dawn – flying down the zipline!
On the Road with Moby, Alaska’s First Traveling Greenhouse
Written by Lia Heifetz for Edible Alaska
Adam Davis drives the Mobile Greenhouse off the Alaska Marine Highway ferry to Kake.
Puzzled drivers look on as the greenhouse cruises down Egan Drive toward the Juneau ferry terminal. There it is delicately backed down the ramp and on to the Alaska Marine Highway ferry. After a seven-hour journey through fjords and around the numerous islands of the Inside Passage, it touches down at its new summer home in Kake, a small coastal community of about 400 residents. In Kake the greenhouse is towed off the ferry and to the school where the Organized Village of Kake, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, and students of Kake High School get to try out their green thumbs.
Meet Moby, Alaska’s first classroom greenhouse on wheels. Moby’s walls rise about ten feet high from an 18-foot long flatbed trailer. With clear polycarbonate walls and ceiling, a solar powered fan for ventilation, a water catchment system, sturdy wooden raised beds, and hanging baskets brimming with rich topsoil, the greenhouse is nearly an all-inclusive growing system. All Moby needs is now sun, water, seeds, and some TLC, and it comes to life.
The beauty of a traveling greenhouse is its mobility. Moby travels with a mission: to share knowledge and food production skills with schools, and to support healthy students while growing vibrant, sustainable, and food-secure Alaskan communities. It’s a steppingstone that helps communities whet their appetite for local foods by providing a space for students and community members to engage in hands-on cultivation and education.
Jaquelin Bennum, Simon Friday, Anthony Gastelum, Charles Duncan , and Loretta Gregory display fresh veggies produced in the greenhouse with pride.
Throughout the spring, summer, and fall, Kake residents will use the greenhouse to kickstart local food cultivation. “The availability of fruits and vegetables is a challenge, the stores are expensive. Additionally, energy is expensive and there are not many jobs,” says Jacquelin Bennum, a senior at Kake High School and the president of the newly formed Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter here.
Moby’s visit to Kake is what prompted the group’s formation. “FFA and the greenhouse have taught me a lot about responsibility,” says Jacquelin. The FFA students oversee the planning, watering, weeding, thinning, and harvesting to maintain the greenhouse crops. “We have the opportunity to learn how to run a business. The greenhouse is a place where we can go to unite with people our age, to get to know each other, and get to know a little more about our wonderful land around us and how we can grow where we live,” says Jacquelin.
Cucumbers crawl up the windows, while squash, tomatoes, and giant Swiss chard burst from the beds. By late summer, Moby is full of life. and expanding its reach beyond the indoor space. Raised beds have been built outside, and the students are gaining skills and inspiration to grow food in the open air. “I learned how much water things need and how often I need to be up here. The rainy days I can pass by a day or two and it will still be moist,” reports Charles Duncan.
Charles Duncan holds up his harvest.
Charles is a 10th grader and the treasurer of the FFA in Kake. He harvests a handful of chard from the raised beds to reveal a couple of smaller plants growing underneath. “The plant I have to pay attention to the most is the chard, which absorbs the most water,” he says. A raised bed dedicated to chard is harvested by Jacquelin and Charles, and brought to the senior center to be shared with the elders for lunch. It’s a tradition in Kake to share the first harvest of the season. The rest of the day’s harvest is sold to raise funds for the FFA club.
Education, community, and student engagement have been priorities from Moby’s inception. The greenhouse was designed by Kaden Phillips, a University of Alaska Southeast student in the Construction Technology department. It was then built by Juneau Douglas High School students in their Basic Construction class using local cedar sourced from Icy Straits Lumber & Milling, based out of the nearby town of Hoonah. Juneau start-up AKReUse, a local company offering high-quality repurposed materials, also provided materials to construct Moby.
Simon Friday gets to work in the Mobile Greenhouse learning hands-on skills in food cultivation in rural Alaska.
Kake is only the first stop for the traveling greenhouse. Each fall, rural communities in Southeast Alaska can apply to be Moby’s next home. Community partners are encouraged to submit applications and explain how using the greenhouse will help community food cultivation goals be realized.
The possibilities are endless – school gardening and farming allow the future leaders of Kake to recognize the potential for local food production. “It doesn’t mean we have to start big. Start small, slowly add on to it. Over time we could start an actual fresh business out of it,” says Jacquelin. Charles agrees, “What we planted has flourished and almost everything has grown. There is a giant possibility for something to happen. It is a great opportunity.”
Next spring Moby will be on the road again, with hopes of inspiring a new crop of Southeast Alaskan gardeners and farmers by planting seeds of awareness throughout the region.
Want Moby to visit your Southeast Alaskan school? Applications are Open, Click Here to Apply
Kake School was so inspired by Moby the Mobile Greenhouse that the students built raised garden beds to continue growing fresh veggies in.
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Náay í’Waans: A heritage restored
Haida apprentice carver St’igiinii (Harley Holter) works diligently on a totem pole that will be completed later this year. Photo by Quinn Aboudara
From left to right, restoration crew apprentice carver Wooshdeiteitxh (Justin Henricks), lead carver Gitajang (Glenn “Stormy” Hamar), apprentice carver Nang K’adangaas (Eric Hamar), and apprentice carver St’igiinii (Harley Holter) stand behind the plaques honoring their and past carvers’ contributions to the restoration of Náay í’Waans. Photo by Quinn Aboudara
As the morning of Sept. 3 broke warm and clear over the village of Kasaan, a small southeast Alaskan village of approximately 50 year-round residents, a sense of excitement and celebration — along with laughter, music, and the sound of carving tools on wood — filled the air. Carver Gitajang (Glenn “Stormy” Hamar) along with apprentice carvers St’igiinii (Harley Holter), Nang K’adangaas (Eric Hamar), and Wooshdeiteitxh (Justin Henricks) were in the carving shed, preparing for the rededication of Náay í’Waans (The Great House), better known as the Chief Son-i-Hat Whale House.
“It (Náay í’Waans) is our history and connects us to our heritage, our ancestors, and means everything to the people and to the village of Kasaan,” said Gitajang.
Prior to the past three years of reconstruction, the longhouse, built in 1880, was subject to insects, adverse weather and vandalism. Gitajang and his crew have replaced rotting and weakened poles, planks, and roofing, carefully restoring Náay í’Waans to its traditional beauty and strength. They’ve used as much of the original longhouse as possible.
As the day progressed, nearly 1,000 visitors began to make their way from Kasaan to Náay í’Waans, a leisurely stroll along a sun dappled trail, to meet canoes from Kasaan, Klawock, Ketchikan, and as far away as Juneau. St’igiinii ran briskly along the trail, calling out greetings to guests as he raced to meet the first of them.
St’igiinii has worked tirelessly on Náay í’Waans. Many who call him nephew or friend have heard his laughter in the carving shed or through the forest. On Sept. 3, however, he was serious when he spoke of what the longhouse means to him. “Náay í’Waans was a beacon of hope to the people of Old Kassan,” he said. (A century ago, many people moved from Old Kassan, on Skowl Arm, to Kasaan for jobs and the school.) “It was built to preserve and protect the Haida culture. And today it still serves as that beacon of hope to this community. It still preserves and protects the Haida culture and connects us to our ancestors.”
Náay í’Waans, The Great House in Kasaan, as seen from the beach. Photo Quinn Aboudara
That morning, a young voice announced the sighting of the first canoes as they rounded the point into the small bay in which Náay í’Waans sits, its main entrance facing the beach. People began to fill the beach as the canoes paddled closer to shore. Both those on water and on shore sang traditional songs as each canoe passed the beach, allowing the standing Chief Son-i-Hat, John McAllister, to recognize them before they gathered off shore and waited to be recognized. (Kóyongxung was the original Chief Son-i-Hat, a wealthy Haida chief and the man who commissioned Náay í’Waans; he died in 1912.)
Standing Chief Son-i-Hat’s voice sounded across the water as he identified each of the canoes and granted them permission to land upon the shore before Náay í’Waans. Those on land sang them in, and St’igiinii waded into the water to help the crews disembark and join those gathered on the gravelly beach. People sang songs of celebration and welcome as they walked the canoes up the shore with the rising tide; guests and locals filled the area around Náay í’Waans. As the grand entrance began, dance groups from Hydaburg, Klawock, Ketchikan, Juneau, and Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), circled the longhouse, singing and dancing as they entered. Their voices and drums filled the air and drifted through the trees.
Standing Chief Son-i-Hat, John McAllister, welcomes and grants permission to canoes to land on the beach before Naay i’Waans. Photo by Quinn Aboudara
Canoers from Juneau passthe shore to be recognized before requesting permission to land on the beach before Náay í’Waans. Photo by Quinn Aboudara
Haida elder from Kasaan Julie Coburn gave opening prayers and recognition to Taslaanas, the bear clan of Kasaan. Then Anthony “Tony” Christiansen, mayor of Hydaburg, and Chalyee Éesh (Richard Peterson), President of Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, who is from Kasaan, took over the duties of announcing the speakers for the event.
Speakers included Lt. Gov. Byron Mallot, Kavilco Incorporated president Louis Jones Sr., Organized Village of Kasaan tribal president Ronald Leighton, City of Kasaan mayor Della Coburn, Rasmuson Foundation representative Jason Smart, Skidegate Traditional Chief Russ Jones, and Chief Son-i-Hat descendant Clinton Cook Jr.
As the speeches ended guests began to make their way back toward Kasaan, where an evening of celebration awaited before the recently opened Totem Trail Café. Kasaan community members and volunteers had been preparing throughout the day, cooking and setting up seating for their guests. They filled long tables with traditional foods: salmon, halibut, venison, and more, along with endless pots of hot coffee and strong tea.
Lt. Governor Byron Mallot speaks before Naay i’Waans. Also standing, to the right, is Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (CCTHITA) President Richard Peterson (Chalyee Éesh), who is from Kasaan. Photo Quinn Aboudara
As dance groups from around Southeast Alaska and Haida Gwaii sang and danced, gifts of carved panels, woven cedar hats, headdresses, and regalia were given to honored guests while gifts of t-shirts, jams, honey, jarred salmon, jewelry, posters, clothing, and many other items were given in thanks to all that attended.
And as the sun set on Náay í’Waans and the village of Kasaan, the carvers had been honored, respect had been given to all who had made this historic event possible and Náay í’Waans, The Great House, often known as the Chief Son-i-Hat Whale House stood, restored, in the brilliant glow of the setting sun, a continued beacon of hope for the preservation and protection of the Haida culture and a testament of strength and unity.
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The traditional Haida longhouse restoration project was made possible through the partnership of the Organized Village of Kasaan (OVK), Kavilco Non-Profit, and the Kasaan Haida Heritage Foundation. The efforts were also aided through funding from the Rasmuson Foundation as well as donations of timber from Sealaska Corporation, The U.S. Forest Service, and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.
Whale house carvers dance before guests at the Discovery Center/Totem Trail Café in Kasaan during the rededication of Naay i’Waans. Photo by Quinn Aboudara