Tammi Meissner stands astride "Rupert," which she decorated for Bearfest 2017. Attired in regalia, the bear took five coats of acrylic paint and a protective coating to complete, and features a wooden paddle and beaded moccasins.
A full complement of events is being arranged for next week's Bearfest, the eighth held since the festival's inception.
It was started in 2010 by Alaska Vistas operator Sylvia Ettefagh, in order to highlight Wrangell's robust bear population. One of the prime places to see the area's brown and black bears together in one place is at Anan Wildlife Observatory, a short jump south of the island on the mainland. Several thousand visitors come to the island each summer in order to visit the Forest Service-maintained site, where ursines of all size are drawn to the returning run of salmon congregating at Anan Creek's lower falls.
The spectacle is important to the local economy, contributing around $1.5 million each summer, and the bears an important part of local life. Bearfest has become an opportunity to highlight and celebrate this tie. There are ample opportunities for kid-friendly fun throughout the five-day festival, which begins July 26. Bear-related films will be showing at the Nolan Center Wednesday through Saturday, and various crafts workshops, games, competitions, storytelling, cooking demos and music are scheduled throughout.
The festival is also an opportunity for the arts. One of its distinguishing features is its decorative bear, which each year gives a different artist the opportunity to add some color to Bearfest through their skills and perspectives. This year Tammi Meissner was tapped to design the 2017 bear, which was paid for by her employer, Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium. Wrangell Cooperative Association, of which she is a member, had paid for its transport and paints.
Active in a number of activities and groups, Meissner admitted painting was never one of her areas of expertise.
"My grandma paints, but I've never ventured into that realm," she said. "I never painted anything other than a wall."
But when local elder Lovey Brock asked her to paint the bear, Meissner accepted the commission. Looking over past bear sculptures, she noticed that of the many themes there had not yet been a truly Tlingit or Haida bear, which gave her an idea for her design. Dubbing it the noble-sounding name "Rupert," she set about painting the bear to wear regalia in a traditional but striking black and red.
The crest on Rupert's back is a lovebird, she explained, an inclusive symbol in the Tlingit-Haida tradition. "It represents everyone," Meissner said.
On the bear's feet she painted moccasins, complete with beaded forget-me-nots, which reminded Meissner of her late mother-in-law. "Her favorite flowers were forget-me-nots, so it means something to me."
The project was a bit of a group effort, Meissner said, picking the brains of her workplace neighbors in the Kadin Building throughout the process. Brock supplied the paddle Rupert "holds" by two chains, which had been carved by Bill Churchill. Meissner said the hardest part for her had been one of patience, waiting between the five coats of paint needed to finish the bear. Taking three weeks to finish, the bear on Tuesday could be seen standing outside Brock's shop down by the city dock.
"It was challenging but it was fun. It was a lot of fun," said Meissner.
The festival is also an opportunity for music. This year, brothers Thano and Demitri Sahnas have been invited for Bearfest's music. Visiting artists each year hold several shows during their stay, and also impart some of their skills in a music workshop on Saturdays. Hailing from Phoenix, the Sahnas Brothers will be bringing to Wrangell their unique blend of Mediterranean music, which fuses their own Greek cultural heritage with the strum of classical Spanish guitar.
In such a photogenic environment as Southeast Alaska, prospective shutterbugs have the opportunity to improve their photography skills with workshops hosted by Robert Johnson and James Edens. Aspects on making the most of one's smartphone or framing outdoor shots are covered, increasing to more intermediate skills like operating drone-mounted video equipment and GoPro devices.
Bearfest is also educational, with a gun safety course and bear safety session featured among this year's presentations. The festivals' yearly symposiums are another opportunity to learn, bringing a broader perspective of bear populations found elsewhere in Alaska and the world over as guest specialists and researchers delivering presentations on their work to the public.
Lance Craighead of Montana's Craighead Institute has been a longtime contributor to Wrangell's festival, and will be leading the Wednesday's symposium at 6 p.m. with a talk on threats to bear populations posed by reduction of habitat and shifting climatic conditions. Following that, Glacier National Park research biologist Kate Kendall will be delivering a presentation on "the Secret Life of Bears," based on her observations.
Several more presentations are scheduled for Thursday evening, beginning at 6 p.m. Authors Rick Bass and Matthias Breiter will each be speaking on their work, with protecting small grizzly populations and the behavioral links between bears and humans, respectively. Evolutionary biologist David Mindell is scheduled to appear afterward, to explain the gradual development of bears as we now know them, and what the future might hold for the species.
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