Seated at right just before the July 4th parade, artist Ceona Koch tops a float along with this year's Bearfest bear, which she decorated earlier this year with a combination of acrylic and house paints, and a Sharpie marker.
events next week, the ninth Wrangell has hosted.
The five-day series of events has been organized each year by Sylvia Ettefagh, an outfitter with Alaska Vistas whose work frequently conveys visitors southward to the Anan Wildlife Observatory, a mainland enclosure overlooking the Anan Creek lower falls and its robust bear population. As Alaskan a sight as the salmon they come to feed upon, the festival highlights these black and brown bears inhabiting the area surrounding Wrangell.
Chock full of information about them and the ecosystems they rely upon, a series of symposia will be held throughout the festival inside the Nolan Center. The first takes place Wednesday at 7 p.m, where noted conservation biologist Lance Craighead will report on the impacts of mining activity on bears.
"He is actually instrumental in helping find new people for the symposium itself,'' Ettefagh said. The seasonal Wrangell resident and director of the Craighead Institute in Montana has been a supporter of the festival since its inception.
A film screening of "Irreparable Harm,'' a video documentary covering the effects of industrial mining on humans' quality of life, will follow his talk at 8 p.m. The film will be presented by Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, which produced it.
On Thursday, director John Neary of the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau will present methods Forest Service personnel there handle local black bears. The talk starts at 6 p.m.
Ross Dorendorf, a wildlife biologist with the Department of Fish and Game, will on Saturday at 5 p.m. be holding a talk overviewing management and research methods of Alaska's brown and black bear populations.
The educational opportunities won't be restricted to the lecture hall, either, with different demonstrations and exercises planned in the great outdoors. Starting Wednesday at 10 a.m. a bear preparedness course will be led by photographer Robert Johnson at the shooting range off Spur Road. Directly afterward, Doug McCloskey of the Wrangell Police Department will hold a gun safety course at noon, which may be useful as local hunters start preparing for the upcoming seasons.
A plant walk on the Volunteer Park nature trail hosted by Forest Service botanist Joni Johnson will take place the following day at 11 a.m. Then John Martin will lead a session of Tlingit storytelling at the Chief Shakes clan house Saturday at 2 p.m.
Among new activities to be featured this year, Michael Bania will be holding a drawing workshop focused on bears Wednesday at 2:30 p.m., inside the Nolan Center.
"Michael Bania is a successful Alaskan children's book writer,'' Ettefagh explained, as well as an illustrator. Her award-winning Kumak story series has introduced many young readers to the life and perspective of the Inupiaq villages, where she worked as a teacher.
Bania also designed the cheerful logo for this year's festival, and had previously led a workshop for prospective writers at Wrangell's public library last year.
Every festival features a uniquely designed bear, with the collection making appearances around town in the run-up to the festival. A different artist gets a crack at capturing a different aspect of the locality in paints, and this year Alaska Vistas staffer Ceona Koch designed this year's bear at Ettefagh's invitation.
"It's really just a hobby,'' Koch said of her skills. "I studied environmental science in school, and I've never taken any art classes. I think I got it from my mother, she's an artist.''
Featured on a Bearfest float in this year's parade, her bear design involves a white-on-black rendering of assorted plants. Having an interest in botany, Koch focused on ubiquitous specimens like the area's bushes, herbs and shrubbery.
"We've had bears with fish, we've had Native bears and all that, but we didn't have anything with flora and fauna, so I decided to do something with local, native plants,'' she explained.
Applying a design to a fiberglass bear is not the easiest task, though the curvaceous nature of plants was of help. Still, the project was very time consuming, Koch recalled.
"I think it took somewhere between 30 and 50 hours, probably. I had it in my kitchen in Bellingham for a couple of months, working on it,'' she said.
Other craft-related courses at the Nolan Center will include photo workshops, taking place throughout the week. One on digital photography for beginners will be led by James Edens Thursday at noon, while Johnson will take participants into the new directions of digital photography Friday at 10 a.m. A photo slideshow featuring some of his recent portfolio will be shown Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
A hands-on musical demonstration led by Matt Koerner and his band will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday. The group will be raising roofs all weekend, starting at the Nolan Friday at 7 p.m., and the Totem Bar the next night at 8.
The festival will feature plenty of family-centered fun throughout, such as various bear-related films showing at 1 and 4 p.m. at the Nolan's small theater Wednesday through Saturday.
On Friday Corree Delabrue and her Forest Service friend Smokey the Bear will be at the library, reading several books at 10:30 a.m. Local teddy bears can also be brought in for their annual checkups directly afterward at 11. A "cub plunge'' geared toward kids of all ages will be hosted at the community pool, with inflatable creature Nessie blown up for the occasion.
More kids games will be held on the Nolan Center's front lawn Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, coinciding with the monthly community market inside.
Always a big draw at Bearfest, its annual marathon, half-marathon and 5K kicks off Sunday morning at 8 a.m., outside the Nolan Center. Guiding them along their routes this year will be aluminum markers produced by Svendsen Marine and Wolf Fabrications, the latter a venture run by students at the high school.
Registration begins at 7, though pre-registration will be available at a pre-race pasta feed Saturday evening just inside. The first marathon finisher will have the honor of drawing the winning ticket in an Alaska Airlines ticket raffle, with two round-trip passes on offer.
Looking beyond the coming weekend, Ettefagh intends to use Bearfest's resources for additional projects of benefit to the community. Its committee already lends support to Wolf Fabrications and other programs, but this year she has workshops for the schools and wider public in mind.
"This year we are sponsoring a guitar and ukulele performer in September,'' Ettefagh said. The musician will be brought up for a week to get aspiring strummers started. Dates are being hammered out yet, but keep an eye out for notices as the month approaches.
For other information on Bearfest and an updated schedule, visit http://www.alaskabearfest.org or its Facebook page.
Reader Comments(0)