TIFTON — Never expected to dance with a woman whose day job is subsistence hunting in Alaska’s Tongass Forest, but I came close on a holiday in Sitka.

    At least I watched and applauded Stacey Woolsey doing intricate Russian folk dance steps as a hobby away from her hunting in this little southeast Alaska city with great big cultural traditions.

    Russia ran the town for 63 years and the lingering influences make a visit significantly different from trips to other American cities.

    So do brown bear and black-tailed deer, eagles and owls, salmon and deep-sea halibut, plus oh so many humpback whales – abundant and easy to see from Sitka. 

    Loving the wildlife is such a part of Sitka culture that everybody seems heading outdoors.  Even though I had just spent nine days on a small ship in Alaska’s Inside Passage up close to wildlife, I was astonished at the number of swooping and gliding bald eagles all over Sitka.

“Things pretty much shut down a few days in March for corking” I learned from Tribal Tour Guide Kathy Kitka. She says that’s when permits are tight to catch herring in seines, and everyone else watches.

    She’s a member of the Raven Coho clan, families with proud traditions for 50 centuries here as Tlingit people.

    Pronounced klink-it, these native people organize themselves as Eagles or Ravens with 27 sub-groups under each major clan.  Always did. Still do.

    Sensing continuing culture like theirs permeates a Sitka holiday.

    Sitka’s art is mightily influenced by the mostly black and red distinctive designs of Tlingit painters, stitchers, mask-makers, woodcarvers and dancers.

    Settling in to the Russian influences plus Tlingit and Haida Native traditions would shape up holiday enough but in Sitka it’s also all wrapped up in vast never-ending views of mountains and sea, forest and harbor, Sitka spruce trees and western hemlocks.

    This is a beautiful town for all those reasons: Russian Orthodox architecture, ancient Native art forms, busy harbor and old, old mountains.

     Mt. Edgecumbe, for instance. Erupted 8,000 years ago and is considered a dormant volcano, not extinct. Give it 2,000 more quiet years 13 miles from downtown and the category can change.

    Looks kind of like Mount Fuji in Japan — snow-capped year round, visible from downtown on clear days.  Descend a few hundred feet into the crater if you’re up to the seven-mile trek to the top.

    Rather than hike, I watched dancers and woodcarvers, priests and cooks, berry pickers and totem gazers.

    New Archangel is what the all-women folk dance group calls itself because that’s the name Russia declared for Sitka during their reign.

    Black boots they dance in, big ones making you believe winters are cold.  The 30 volunteers fill the parts of men and women with each dance telling a folk story.

    “All of us do many jobs,” says Angela McGraw. “Nursing student, fisheries biologist, expecting mom, subsistence hunter.

    “We want to share our pride in Alaska heritage.”

    Once a year, McGraw said, the New Archangel Dancers join with the Tlingit dance troupe, telling a white sail story of the meeting of cultures when the Russians arrived here.

    In the meantime, find the Russian dancing in Harrigan Centennial Hall near the cruise ship port and head to the Sheet’Ka Kwaan Kahidi Community Center for Native dancing.

    Doing both balanced my view of Sitka as I sought to immerse myself in each culture during my three days.  Why come to a place like this and not dive deep into heritage?

    The Naa Kahidi Dancers tell the story of how Raven created dance.  Quite a bird, this Raven.  I heard he was the one who sent light to the world when I was in Juneau.

    Clan crests emblazoned on their backs, these dancers of all ages move to the beat of a remarkable energetic drummer. Go to watch her even if you don’t care about the dance.

    Clan stories are shared only with permission of the elders, and so considered most special.

    “The stories open a container of wisdom left in our day,” says Kathy Kitka, my Tribal Tour guide one busy afternoon. 

Same permission to share the knowledge seems to be true of totem poles.

    Eighteen can be seen on a two-mile loop walk at Sitka National Historic Park and tour guides say only the carvers can truly interpret their meanings.

    Every symbol on a totem does relate back to the bottom figure I was told.

    Enjoyable even without knowing the full story, I thought, with their big eyes, tall top hats, big mouths and tongues (that means passing knowledge from elder to younger), colors on some, plain wood for others and always neck-bending tall.

    The trail with all the totems in this National Park Service temperate rainforest is wide and well-groomed, passing streams where salmon return to their birthplace, huckleberry, blueberry, salmonberry and more wild berry bushes than I could name and trees with roots on top of the ground since there’s no need to dig deep for water in here.

    Excellent documentary film and exhibits too, many from collections of local clans, plus often a Native artist-in-residence.  Tommy Joseph was carving Tlingit battle dress helmets when I was there in preparation for a national touring exhibition.

    I’d go out of my way to see that finished exhibit now that I’ve learned about him. Lots of excellence would pass me by if I didn’t travel.

    Walk 15 minutes or so and cross cultures again in the Sheldon Jackson State Museum and the Russian Bishop’s House. I kept feeling amazed at the closeness of Sitka special places.

     Learn a lot if you want to in the Museum because information is abundant.  I sort of absorbed a sense of the baskets, garments, canoes, masks, carvings, tools, dishes, utensils and more from Native groups all over Alaska.

    Jackson collected so many treasures that he raised funds to build Alaska’s first concrete building in 1897 to house them all.  No fires for him.

    First time for me to see an Eskimo whaling suit. Fifty masks from King Island, behind glass, made me yearn for an invitation to ancient ceremonies when they would have been used.  An 1888 black Argillite carving from Haida native traditions, intricately woven baskets and Chilkat textiles of mountain goat wool from the Tlingit traditions are but a few of the artifacts.

    I allowed only an hour and should have given this delightful place a day.

    Very pleasing to me when I can walk from place to place, exploring a city, and in Sitka that’s for certain. Population barely touches 9,000, hotels are in the city center, near the busy fishing harbor where my 32-passenger small ship the Island Spirit left me off, and also near a separate harbor where the cruise ships dock.

    The Russian Bishop’s House on Lincoln Street is in that walk from downtown shops or Totem Park. The Bishop’s not there any more but original fine furnishings are from the years of the Russian imperial government in Alaska.  The house was completed in 1843.

     First growth Sitka spruce trees were used to build this home and office suitable for Czarist Russia leadership, following Siberian construction styles to keep out the cold.

    Interior walls are covered with decorative papers and icons and the furnishings chosen by the first Bishop Innocent for what he called his “ecclesiastical palace” can still be seen today.

    Worship happens here too with 3:00 p.m. services on Tuesday and Thursday led by the priest at the downtown St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church.    

    Lucky for me to be visiting on a Thursday early afternoon because I participated. Standing is the worship style as the priest and a lay assistant chant the service, in this case recounting the entire life of Saint Jacco. Took 30 minutes.

    Connected me to lots about early and modern Sitka in a meaningful way.  Language was one of Bishop Innocent’s skills and he learned the Tlingit language.  No small feat since 27 sounds in this language do not exist in any other.

    Not routine for conquerors and missionaries either.

    Helped me appreciate St. Michael’s Cathedral in downtown as more than a repository of exquisite icons and religious items.  This represents a coming together of enormously different cultures it seemed, and many Tlingit people choose to worship here today.

    Philosophy’s fine when I travel but so is my appetite.  In Alaska I wanted fish. Walked right up to The Wild Spot across from St. Michael’s for a paper tray of caught-this-morning halibut.  Traveling partner G. W. Tibbetts ordered fish chowder every chance he got.

    Outdoor eating is popular in Sitka, walk up to the sidewalk counter, take it home or find a spot to sit if you’re a traveler.

    Rockfish tacos for lunch the next day at Two Chicks & A Kabob Stick, another outdoor place. Summers only.  Sisters Amyee Peeler and Darcie Owen run this one and their parents catch the salmon, halibut, and black cod.

    I sat for dinner: halibut with lemon buerre blanc sauce at the Channel Club and a chunky bouillabaisse at the Westmark Hotel with mussels, crab, halibut, prawns, clams and scallops plus fennel and blue cheese.

    Everybody serves halibut nuggets as appetizers: two-bite chunks of just-caught deep-sea halibut fried in a tender batter.

    Breakfast? Reindeer sausage.

    Sitka’s a grand destination to seek out distinctive experiences.