What's in an ugly word? One filled with heartache. A bursting of a thin glass vase, water spilling over, waves racing its rim. When it finally breaks, gushing out, shards strewn, everything's ruined. Everything is liberated. Clever, sneaky Raven releasing the sun, moon, and stars to the earth. A protagonist hero, born from the darkness, Raven has always played a creative part in this world. Geographically, ravens can be found across the northern hemisphere, yet it is here, in Lingít Aaní, where Raven's legend is the foundation of life. Conversely, in Scandinavia, Rave ..read more

The most notable section at Rainy Retreat Books is the Alaskana section. Filled with some of Alaska’s best treasures! Wicked stories, historical recollections, photography from the turn of the 18th Century and beyond. A favorite found in this section is a compilation of stories centered around the women who built Alaska during the Gold Rush. Alaska allowed women to vote 6 years prior to the US since they played such a vital roll in infrastructure. Orchestrating development, these female entrepreneurs were responsible for laundry facilities, school houses, exceptional entertainme ..read more

Just like in sailing, you get hit with a southeasterly that fills your sails and blows you in a new direction up the rocky coast of life. It's been brewing for awhile, and in hindsight shoulda been from the beginning. Just didn't have the guts to draw anchor, then was confined by my own limits and couldn't see through the fog.  The Resolute was a famous explorer ship back in the 1850's, desperately searching for the lost Franklin Voyage and hoping to simultaneously chart the illusive Northwest Passage. Abandoned in ice, found by a lucky bastard, sold, dismantled, refurbished into one of t ..read more

This black sanded State Owned Beach is peculiar because it just about has to be mine tailings, extremely shallow to a point where I'm pretty sure it drops in depth substantially. There are at least half a dozen of old piling that were no doubt docks, a hundred years ago. Now, there are floating rafts with gold dredging equipment on them. They're either on a tag line or anchored out and accessible at a low tide. But given this beach's location, there's easily 3/4 a mile tide flux that exposes the beach. It appears whoever is dredging has limited time left on their posted permit. There's an old ..read more

  Still nursing a hole in my heart from the recent passing of my favorite dog, Boots. He knew all the trails, kept all the secrets, moved through different chapters of my life. My constant companion, an every day bud for nearly 12 years. The goodest boy. I felt his last heart beat under my palm this past August and buried him under a cherry tree. My life hasn't been the same without those morning adventures and the trails are a lot more lonelier without him to guide.  This last week we had exceptional weather, the snow is due to cap the mountain tops any day now, so to ha ..read more

I've lived in a different place every other year for the last few decades it seems, and while the real estate market everywhere seems to be tough, in Juneau, it's pretty limited. A half a million might get you a fixer upper. We've spent years battling it out for homes all over the city only to get outbid or not have our paperwork done in time. That is, until this home came available. My husband was on a routine call for a boiler that wouldn't stop pumping the heat. In a casual conversation, he found out that the mother had passed a few years back, and the father had advanced dementia and would ..read more

Instead of taking a tour of a select spirit around the globe like in past years, this year we collaborated with Anchorage Distillery for a personal tasting by CEO, John Blasco, who talked us through different variations of their delicious canned cocktails at the Griz Bar in Downtown Juneau. When the first round of Bees Knees came around in mini cups we laughed, not knowing those little stingers packed a punch! Each cocktail has a completely different flavor palette so it was great to taste around each of their liquors, cocktail style.  Halfway through, a Designer Preview by Alpaca Interna ..read more

A welcome party is always a must when gathering from across city lines and international boarders. For this year's Launch Party we secured a beautiful vacant building in the heart of Downtown Juneau. The historic site was a series of retail shops and at the time of this writing, is currently for Sale. Since the ground floor served as our space for Designer collections, the second story made for the perfect space to entertain. Not to mention an excellent space to showcase our in-house Vintage Collection. Port Chilkoot, a long standing sponsor of Alaska Fashion Week gave us their preciously ..read more

Took the gang to a favorite spot in Southeast! First float plane ride for a few, and first time to the Warm Springs for even more! Might have to make this an annual thing ;) Baranof Warm Springs is about a 45min flight south of Juneau. I like to fly with Ward Air, they’re my fav. Your choice of getting dropped off or having the plane standby. For this trip the plane stood by for weather purposes (awesome pilot). If they left there was a chance we could have gotten stuck out there for an overnight. We probably would have had to sleep in the bath houses ? Luckily we evaded the storm and got to e ..read more

The witchiest thing I can say in relation to current events, is that your disposable face mask is a symbol of environmental death and self destruct. While society is fixated on a biological pathogen, any progress we made in plastic reduction on a global scale has been thrown out the window in the name of "better health." When specifically looking at disposable face masks, (never mind the sheer amount of plastics produced to wrap everything for sanitation purposes both in the medical industry and on down the supply chain) the amount of plastics generated to create these masks is now o ..read more