On a Quest to start early, finish strong

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Eagle Summit got the best of Kasilof musher Jon Little three years ago in his rookie running of the Yukon Quest.

Little was leading the 1,000-mile sled dog race from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to Fairbanks when his team reached the base of Eagle Summit in between Central and Chena Hot Springs.

The dogs took one look at the climb from 935 feet up to 3,685 feet and decided that was a good time for a nap.

“They started basically pulling off and taking little naps in the snow,” Little said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like, ‘We’re done. We’re tired.’”

It took Little an hour to figure out how to get the dogs moving, by playing lead dog himself and getting out in front of the team. It took another hour to get them up and over the summit. By then, four teams had passed him, including former Kasilof musher Lance Mackey, now of Fairbanks, who went on to his first of four consecutive Quest wins. Little finished in fifth place.

In 2009, Little is going back to conquer the climb.

“I don’t want them to quit going up that hill this year,” he said. “I’m really working on building team unity and we’re gonna get a lot of practice. When we get to that point in the race it’s going to be no big deal. That’s my goal.”

Little and fellow Kasilof musher Colleen Robertia are the first two Kenai Peninsula mushers to sign up for this winter’s Quest, which begins in Whitehorse on Feb. 14.
Little said his decision to run this winter was a culmination of factors.

“Basically it’s kind of like the stars aligned. They’re not all perfectly aligned, but if I wait for that I’ll never run the Quest.,” he said.

The longer race format appeals to him, since there’s less stress, in a way, because you can immerse yourself in the race for the duration instead of needing everything to go perfectly in the mad dash of a shorter race.

“I love thousand-mile races. And I’m going to be 45 years old. You wonder how long you can wait as the years tick by,” he said.

Little took third in the 2007 Kuskokwim 300, and has placed 15th, fourth and 13th in the Iditarod in 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively. He hopes to cover the Iditarod as a journalist again this year, so the Quest was his only 1,000-mile option.

His dogs are ready for it, with many of them having performed well in the Iditarod and other races in the past three years — just not with Little.

“I’ve been leasing some of my dogs out the past couple years. It sort of gets under your skin a little bit. You want to use your own dogs. I want to be the captain.”

Building a cohesive team out of his 24-dog kennel is Little’s immediate challenge, especially since he doesn’t have a lead dog singled out yet.

“It’s too early to tell. They’re a good group of dogs. I have to see what I have for leaders. Every team looks great in September. The goal is always to do the very best that the dogs can do.”

Still, early is when a long-distance race can be won or lost. Even though it’ll be nearly five months before Little’s team faces Eagle Summit again, he’s starting the figurative climb now.

“It starts early. If you do well there it’s because things have gone well all year. If you do poorly there it’s probably because things have not gone well all year,” he said.

Robertia also has begun her Quest well in advance. After a first-place finish in the Chatanika Challenge 200, 11th-place finish in the Tustumena 200 and 16th-place finish in the Copper Basin 300 last winter, Robertia wants to move on to her first 1,000-mile race.

“You’re always looking for the personal challenge thing to take on with the team,” she said.

The Quest certainly provides that, as it winds through some of the coldest, darkest, most isolated conditions of any sled dog race in Alaska.

“I’m definitely worried. It’s not just the distance as the challenges that come along with the Quest,” she said.

“It’s just kind of the next progression when your dogs are ready for it. On the flip side of that there’s stresses to the thousand-mile race but there’s a lot of stresses to shorter races because you’re constantly looking over your shoulder.”

She plans to approach the Quest like she did the Copper Basin 300, where her only goal was to finish with a healthy team.

“I really just wanted to have a good experience and not hurt my dogs and get through something that tough, and we did it and it was such a blast,” she said. “I’m hoping it’ll be like a two-week camping trip with my buddies.”

Robertia, like Little, has a relatively small kennel with 30 dogs, so her challenge is going to be fielding a 14-dog team. She and her husband, Joseph, put ethical treatment of their dogs above anything else. Almost every dog in their kennel is a rescue, and if a dog is injured, too old or for some other reason can’t run anymore, they still keep the dog and take care of it.

It’s an animal care philosophy they’re devoted to, but it can make forming a competitive team a challenge.

“I think I can get 14 together,” she said. “I think as far as something that’s a thousand miles, I have a couple of dogs that can’t run 10 miles an hour all day long, but they can run 8 miles an hour forever. They’re straight out of the Kenai Animal Shelter. I don’t even know if they’re huskies. They’re furry.”

Two of their rescues, Ping and Pong, show promise as the possible 13th and 14th spots on the team.

“They’re amazing leaders. They gee and haw on a dime. … I used to have to run in front of the team, that’s how we’d teach them to lead is I’d run and they’d chase me with Joseph on the four-wheeler until I’d get tired, then Joseph would go. It’s amazing just to see what they’ve become as sled dogs.”

Other mushers have offered to lend her dogs if she needs them, but she’s hoping to make it to the start and finish lines with her dogs.

“There’s still something about getting your own small kennel to do it without having to borrow dogs,” she said.

“I just want to finish. It’s like I go back and forth from waves of nausea to waves of excitement.”

Editorial: Sign thefts a sad campaign reality

Mary Toutonghi is angry. She’s got a right to be.

She’s got a right to free speech, too, but that’s been stolen along with her yard signs promoting candidates in the upcoming general election. Which gets back to why she’s angry.

In all the years Toutonghi has lived on the central peninsula — it’s been many — and all the years she’s put up signs in support of candidates, she’s never had them outright stolen before.

Well, once. A tenant’s son didn’t agree with her politics and took down a sign from the yard. After a long chat about respecting one another’s views and the rights of property owners vs. renters, Toutonghi’s sign went back up, with the renter’s son putting one of his own in his apartment window.

But earlier this month, Toutonghi’s signs were stolen altogether. Others have gone missing, as well.

When asked about sign thefts and vandalism, perennial candidates and campaign workers had a similar take on the situation: It happens. It’s a disappointing, but expected, part of campaigning.

How sad.

It doesn’t matter who the signs were promoting. Or that they cost money, which they do. And it’s illegal to steal them, but that isn’t really the point, either. This is one of those situations where there shouldn’t have to be a law to keep something from happening, like kicking puppies or pulling up flowers at gravesites. You just don’t do it.

It is staggering to imagine the ignorance, intolerance and inability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes that goes into stealing a campaign sign, or any other form of stifling someone’s ability to support whatever politics or politicians they choose.

“Kids will be kids,” is one thing. That’s not a valid excuse for any kind of misbehavior, especially vandalism, but it’s much less disturbing than the alternative explanation — that adults stole the signs in a purposeful attempt to hinder someone else’s ability to express their views.

It’s senseless, stupid and, in this case, ultimately useless, since all it’s done is made Toutonghi even more dedicated to supporting her candidates and spreading their message.

As she has every right to.

Guest editorial — Research, restoration, education are Kenai Watershed Forum’s mission

What is, who is, where is the Kenai Watershed Forum? As a new employee of the Kenai Watershed Forum, commonly known as KWF, I have heard the aforementioned questions a lot in the past six months. Most people have heard of KWF, but don’t know much about who we are and what we do.

KWF is a nonprofit organization formed in 1997 by a group of people looking to ensure the wellness of our community’s greatest resource, the Kenai River. Headed up by Executive Director Robert Ruffner, KWF has expanded its original vision to encompass the current mission statement, “to work together for healthy watersheds on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.” The Kenai Watershed Forum seeks to accomplish this mission by focusing on three main components: research, restoration and education.

Research programs in our community have made a definite impact. In prior years, the hydrocarbon levels on the Kenai River were so high the river was placed on federal notice. As a result, limiting the use of two-stroke motors has shown significant improvement to the river’s hydrocarbon levels. The Kenai River and its tributaries are monitored year-round for flow and temperature as well as turbidity, dissolved oxygen, conductivity and pH, providing valuable information to public and governmental agencies.

Restoration projects have had a positive effect in our community through damaged culvert replacements, which make miles and miles of streams available to salmon for spawning. Restoring fish passage not only helps adult and juvenile salmon access the habitat they need, it also provides a safer passage on roads and trails for cars and people.

You may have seen some of our staff and community volunteers along roadsides this summer on weed pulls. Invasive weeds are not just a nuisance to deal with, they are potentially damaging to our wildlife stock. These weeds take over and choke out the naturally sustaining plants that moose and other wildlife use for food, leaving our wildlife searching other places for meals.

Education is equally important. In order for our research and restoration efforts to improve the quality and health of the watersheds on the peninsula, the public needs to be aware of the issues and what they can do to help in the pursuit of a quality watershed.

Adult education is served through summer and winter speaker series, offering community experts the opportunity to share their knowledge and concerns. Yearly teacher workshops increase the influence of living in a healthy environment to our young people.

The program you might already be familiar with, Adopt-A-Stream, has perhaps the greatest impact. Last school year, nine different classes at four different schools participated in water quality monitoring, data collection and instruction at nearby streams. This school year 11 classrooms have signed on for the program. Bringing tomorrow’s leaders alongside us as we work to inform and educate has been a highlight for KWF.

Often, KWF serves the mission statement by sponsoring community programs open to the public. Last spring the annual Kenai Birding Festival included a children’s juried art show, drawing hundreds of submissions from young budding artists with a focus on our winged wildlife. The Kenai River Festival, held annually in June, celebrates our famous river with food, music, Alaska arts and crafts, and many educational and creative booths for children. A special appearance by Shluka, KWF’s 20-foot-long salmon (modeled after a Chinese dragon) is always a crowd pleaser.

We value our supporter base, as well as the volunteers that turn out to help with each event we sponsor. We also hold high the relationships that have developed between KWF and governmental agencies, community groups and local merchants. Working together is the only way to improve the health of watersheds on the Kenai Peninsula, and we are proud to be part of that process.

Rhonda Orth is the accounting and office manager at the Kenai Watershed Forum.

Art Seen: Long lens — Photographer finds new uses for old medium

Joe Kashi has been taking photographs since he worked during high school in a photo store while growing up in the Pennsylvania coal fields. While at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during college and graduate school, he was news editor of the MIT newspaper and simultaneously worked for The New York Times, taking dozens of photographs each week with a 35 mm Pentax while covering Boston’s tumultuous events of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

He studied fine art photography for a time under Minor White at MIT. White was a prominent American photographer and photographic educator at MIT who founded the national fine arts photography journal Aperture and edited it until at least the mid-1970s. For about 40 years, Minor White had been a close friend and collaborator with Ansel Adams and other pioneers of the American photographic fine arts movement.

Later, while at Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C., Kashi started working mostly with large-format view cameras that made 4-by-5-inch through 11-by-14-inch negatives because of their inherently higher quality. He often spent Saturdays in those non-Internet days at the Library of Congress researching older but higher-quality photographic chemistry and processes. He still uses these large format cameras from time to time but now makes detailed scans of the negatives and prints them using digital printers rather than chemicals and darkrooms.

Kashi moved to Alaska in 1977 when he accepted a job offer to become one of the first attorneys for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. During that time, he did a good deal of large format photography and some of those photos were accepted into several statewide and Kenai Peninsula juried all-media fine art shows. He taught fine art photography and darkroom work at Kenai Peninsula College for a few years and also had a small, part-time custom photographic processing business in those chemical darkroom days.

The demands of a full-time private law practice were high and he put aside fine arts photography for more than 20 years. He had learned a great deal about aesthetics from his first wife, Michelle Corder, now deceased, who had quickly become a prominent fine arts painter in Alaska, with state commissions and work in various museum permanent collections. Corder was formally educated in painting at Carnegie-Mellon in the United States and also at the Italian State Art Academy in Florence, Italy.

Kashi started using digital photography for practical legal purposes in 2003 and found that digital photography, particularly when annotated or used as part of an interactive electronic brief made with Adobe Acrobat, could be an extremely powerful weapon for the trial lawyer.

By mid-2006, Kashi found that digital photography, even when using carefully chosen compact consumer cameras with good lenses, could produce results that were equal to or better than traditional 35 mm film and chemical photography. So he again tried his hand at fine arts photography in addition to family photos and the photo documentation he routinely used in legal practice.

His photos were accepted into a number of statewide juried shows since then, gaining an honorable mention in the 2007 Rarified Light show. His stepdaughter, Rachel Lee, also was accepted into the 2007 Rarified Light show. He and Rachel shared an Anchorage show in December 2007 through the Alaska Photographic Center, and both were accepted into the 2008 Rarified Light show. Kashi also has been invited to participate as one of 50 photographers statewide for next year’s invitational show commemorating the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood.

Many of Kashi’s works are contemplative and dynamic. Some of his more accessible work can be seen adorning the walls at Mykel’s Restaurant, including the 24-by-36-inch landscape photographs above the stairs near the front door. He and Rachel will share a show at Art Works in Soldotna for November and December, with Kashi exhibiting some of his more “artsy” stuff. An artist reception will be held Nov. 6. He is also hanging a series of photos documenting the passage of the seasons at Veronica’s Cafe at Old Town Kenai in October.

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Arts and Entertainment week of Sept. 24

Events:

Ongoing

• Art Works in Soldotna has photography by Bill Heath on display through September.
• Kaladi Brothers on the Sterling Highway in Soldotna has art by Kathy Matta on display through September.
• Kaladi Brothers Kobuk Street in Soldotna has paintings by Melinda Hershberger on display through September.
• The Kenai Fine Arts Center in Old Town Kenai has Peninsula Art Guild’s annual Harvest Art Exhibition on display through September.
• Already Read Books In Kenai has a display of artwork by local artists, curated by Natasha Ala, on display through September.
• The Funky Monkey coffee shop in Kenai has artwork by Metal Magic on display through September.

Wednesday

• The Soldotna public library will hold its monthly used book sale from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Call 262-4227.

Saturday

• Author James Barnett will discuss and sign copies of his recently published book, "Captain Cook in Alaska and the North Pacific," from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Kenai Municipal Library. Books will be available for purchase. Call Julie Niederhauser, 283-4378.
• An Evening of the Stars event with dancing, cocktails, appetizers, door prizes and a silent auction will be held at 6 p.m. at the Soldotna Sports Center to raise money for five local dental professionals at Central Peninsula Health Centers to travel to Honduras in November to provide dental services to children. Contact Jennifer or Lexi at jmcelroy@cphc-medical.org or 283-7759.
• The Kenai Art Guild’s annual Harvest Art Auction starts at 6 p.m. for viewing with the auction at 7 p.m. Photography, paintings and works in stone, ceramic and fiber will be auctioned. Music and refreshments will be served. Admission is $20. Proceeds support the Kenai Fine Arts Center. Call 283-7040.

Sunday

• A fundraiser for Braxton Peterson, who was injured in a car accident, will be held from noon to 4 p.m. at the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska in Kenai, with a spaghetti feed, silent auction, live music by The Goodkind and autograph signing by mushers Lance Mackey, Mitch Seavey and the Osmar family. An account has been set up at Wells Fargo in Braxton’s name for donations. Contact Mercy Medley-Graham at mercy.medley-graham@wellsfargo.com or 283 -7581.

Tuesday

• The Performing Arts Society will present Anchorage harpist Joanna Mayer in a free concert at 4 p.m. in the Mountain Tower area of Central Peninsula Hospital. Mayer also will perform at six central peninsula schools as a part of the society’s concerts-in-the-schools program.

Oct. 1

• Peninsula Take-A-Break for women will hold a brunch from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Solid Rock Conference Center on the Sterling Highway with music by Renee Rysdyk, information by Judith Reese about breast cancer screening and Anna Jarrett will share her story of “survival and the courage within us.” Contact Cindy at 260-6262 or Susan 335-6789 or e-mail tab-reservations@hotmail.com.

Oct. 4

• The Kenai Chamber of Commerce’s annual Beer and Wine Fundraiser will be held at 6 p.m. in the Old Carrs Mall in Kenai with live music, live and silent auctions, food and fun. The theme is Oktoberfest. Tickets are $50 per person, includes dinner plus beer and wine. Contact Tina Baldridge at tina@kenaichamber.org or 283-7989.

Oct. 25

• The Fraternal Order of Alaska State Troopers will hold a concert with Juice Newton (“Angel of the Morning,” “The Sweetest Thing” and “Break It To Me Gently”) and Gary Puckett (“Young Girl,” “Woman Woman” and “ Over You”) at 7:30 p.m. at the Renee C. Henderson Auditorium at Kenai Central High School. Tickets are $33, available at Whitey’s Music Shop. Funds raised benefit the Safety Bear, CSI Forensic Science Camp, Children’s DNA Identification Kits and youth sports on the Kenai Peninsula. Call 283-9302.

Coming up

• The Soldotna Senior Center will accept entries into its 12th annual juried amateur art show, held in conjunction with the center’s fall bazaar, Nov. 7-8. Entries can be dropped off from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 4 and 5. Categories are oils, pastels, watercolors, and drawings; needle arts, beading, quilting and sewing; and three-dimensional. The entry fee is $6, with a maximum three entries each person. Call Mary Lane, 262-8839.

Nightlife:

DJ

• The Riverside in Soldotna has live DJ music every Friday and Saturday at 10 p.m.

Live music

• The Funky Monkey in Kenai has bluegrass music by Them Other Shuckers on Tuesday night and folk music on Wednesday night.
• Hooligan’s Saloon in Soldotna has rock covers and originals by 9-Spine at 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday,
• Kaladi Brothers on Kobuk Street in Soldotna has acoustic music by Neil Gallagher on Friday night and Batter Brown on Saturday night.
• The Maverick in Soldotna has acoustic classic rock by the Free Beer Band at 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
• Moosequito’s in Sterling has acoustic music by Adam and Sonny on Wednesday night.
• Mykel's in Soldotna has acoustic music by Dave Unruh from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
• The Place in Nikiski has bluegrass music by Them Other Shuckers around 7 p.m. Friday.
• The Rainbow Bar in Kenai has rock covers by Tuff-e-Nuff at 10 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
• Veronica’s in Kenai has open mic music at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, and acoustic music by Sue Biggs and Jack Will at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

Karaoke

• 9 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays at the Duck Inn on Kalifornsky Beach Road.
• 9 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays at the .406 in Kenai.
• 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at Hooligan’s in Soldotna.
• 8:30 p.m. Friday at the J-Bar-B in Kasilof.
• 9:30 p.m. Monday at the Maverick in Soldotna.

Other

• BJ’s in Soldotna has free pool on Wednesdays.
• Hooligan’s in Soldotna has a nine-ball pool tournament at 9 p.m. Thursdays.
• The J-Bar-B has free pool on Sundays, a horseshoe pit in the beer garden, and a cash drawing at 6:30 p.m. Saturdays.
• The Maverick in Soldotna has a pool tournament at 8 p.m. Fridays.
• Moosequito’s in Sterling has a dart tournament at 8 p.m. Thursdays.

‘Mastre’ of the grill — Colorado family hopes hot business catches on after move to Soldotna

By Naomi Hagelund
For the Redoubt Reporter

There’s a new pig in town, but it’s not just the average bacon-bearing swine. The pink, pig-shaped grill has been grabbing attention for Glacier Distributing, a heater and grill vendor that recently opened in the new strip mall across from Alaska’s Auto Country in Soldotna.

Jeff Mastre, owner of the business, and his two sons, ages 14 and 17, arrived in June with a plan to sell Traeger wood pellet grills, including standard black barbecues and infrared zone heaters.

The Mastre family was lured to Alaska from Colorado with the idea of fishing and relaxing.

“We’ve been looking at Alaska for the last few years,” Mastre said. “We kind of dried out in Colorado and we were looking for something like the Northwest had to offer again, minus the population, so that kind of pointed north.”

Alaska has everything the family was looking for, Mastre said.

“We love the fishing and the outdoors, and everything Alaska has to offer,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.”

Mastre said he spent most of the summer setting up the business, so his sons hit the river as often as they could until the store was ready for them to help out with customers.

Mastre operated a flooring business in Colorado for 13 years and decided it was time for a change and looked for something a little easier on his body.

“I still had my knees and my back,” Mastre said. “I told myself I’ll be starting a new business one way or the other, so why not do the switch — one that you can do standing on your feet.”

The $1,599 pig-shaped grill is as functional as it is fashionable, and has been operating as an effective marketing tool for the family owned business.

“The public response to the pig out there has been great,” Mastre said. “It’s an attention-getter. It’s cheap advertising. I bought this one as a trial just to see what the response would be and it’s been great.”

Mastre said the pig-shaped grill is just as viable as the regular black grills in his shop, and due to public interest, he’s ordering in six more in the next few weeks.

The Traeger wood pellet grills are electric and work with wood pellets that come in a variety of flavors, such as maple, cherry and mesquite. The pellets are fed into a hopper then into the firepot, which provides the cooking heat and smoke that cooks and flavors the food. There is a heat deflector built into the grill so the flame never directly touches the food, which Mastre said can be a healthier way of cooking because charcoal doesn’t get on the food like it does with a regular barbecue grill.

Mastre said his family uses their own grill at least once a day, often using it to grill and smoke salmon he and his boys catch on the river.

The grills can also be used for baking bread, and garlic- and onion-flavored pellets are for sale to use for flavoring the bread. There are smaller models to take aboard boats or in small cabins, and a nonelectric table-top version can be used for the beach or camping.

On the heating end of the business, Glacier Distributing offers Sunheat portable infrared zone heaters that heat like the sun, and can save a heating bill about 50 percent, according to Mastre. The heaters are designed to heat up to 1,000 square feet from floor to ceiling.

“They piggyback on your existing heat system and carry your existing heat further,” Mastre said. “You can turn your thermostat down four or five degrees and it will pick up that degree drop. They’re good and efficient.”

We’ve got spirit — Metaphysical fair spreads positive message

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

The upper floor of the warehouse building at Kenai Landing was imbued with a sense of spirituality Saturday and Sunday, older than even the rafters graffitied with names of cannery workers who had inhabited the old Ward’s Cove fish packing plant nearly a century ago.

The smell of old wood and dampness mingled with incense and all-natural lotions. Uneven floorboards creaked underfoot, adding occasional percussion to the cadence of tarot card readings or the rattle of handmade beaded jewelry and healing gemstones clacking together. The cavernous, uninsulated expanse caused people attending the central peninsula’s second annual Spirit Fair to cinch colorful, hand-woven scarves a little tighter and snuggle deeper into cozy alpaca sweaters.

Overhead, bare light bulbs cast sparse yellow light on the fabric-draped booths below, offering arts and crafts, clothing, metaphysical supplies, guidance, healing and — most importantly — fellowship.

“It’s about being happy to be themselves, to follow their truth,” said Camille Moritz, an intuitive reader and spiritual healer who owns Something To Believe In metaphysical center in Homer. She and Rondell Gonzalez, owner of Pye’Wackets metaphysical gift shop in Soldotna, organized the Spirit Fair.

Moritz has been offering workshops and wares at metaphysical festivals around Alaska for eight years, and she and Gonzalez decided the Kenai needed to have its own fair.
“We felt we had to have one on the Kenai. We decided if it was going to happen, we should do it,” Moritz said.

The theme of this year’s fair was “healing the waters,” and included a water healing ceremony at 11:11 a.m. Saturday and a ceremony with the GrandMother Drum International Peace Project on Saturday night.

The 7-foot-diameter, crystal-inlaid drum took over a year to construct, starting in 2000, with more than 1,500 strips of wood, 200 crystals and a giant buffalo hide covering it. The project is the outreach arm of the Whirling Rainbow Foundation. The drum travels the world promoting peace and unity through the global language of music, dance, and cultural and healing arts, and serves as a symbol of the heartbeat of love that connects everyone, regardless of their race or nationality, according to the foundation.

Diana Thomas, of Soldotna, participated in the GrandMother Drum ceremony at last year’s Spirit Fair. Members of the audience are asked to circle the drum and play it as one.

“It’s awesome,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. That was pretty powerful.”

Thomas said she liked having a metaphysical festival in the Kenai area.

“It’s nice to have options, to be exposed to different things. And it brings people from different places in, too.”

Alice Sullivan came from Talkeetna for the Spirit Fair. It was her first time at Kenai Landing, and she said the space was a beautiful setting for the fair.

“I’ve been here (in Kenai) dipnetting. This was a reason to come to the Kenai without all the crazy dipnetters,” she said.

Elaine Elledge of Companion-Way, A Pathway to Healing, came to the fair from Wasilla to practice intuitive massage. She invited her friend, Joyce McNamara, an intuitive life coach, up from California to participate.

“The people like those that are selling their wares are genuinely sincere and have a sense of strong community and want to provide the community with alternative ways of viewing things,” Elledge said.

She saw the fair as promoting a heightened sense of awareness for anyone seeking it.
“It doesn’t matter what your religious persuasion is, the spiritual doesn’t have anything to do with religion,” she said. “Spirituality is a state of mind.”

A steady flow of fair patrons visited booths Saturday, and on Sunday a smaller, but thoughtful, crowd spent time working its way from booth to booth, Elledge said. Even in slow times, that gave vendors a chance to visit with each other and share what they had to offer. Elledge said she felt a welcoming, open-minded reception.

“It’s very refreshing in a small place that there is that lovely, lovely thing happening — a beautiful awakening for the people on the Kenai,” she said.

On Sunday afternoon, nearing the 6 p.m. close of this year’s Spirit Fair, Gonzalez said she was happy with the weekend.

“It’s been a great weekend. The turnout, the receptivity, everybody’s just been wonderful to be around,” she said.

Many of the vendors are friends, or at least associates in the metaphysical community of Alaska. For that matter, even the new faces of fair visitors were still tied together.

“We work to bring the light into the community, by connecting people. It’s both of our life’s passions,” Moritz said of she and Gonzalez.

The fair gave Moritz an opportunity to educate people about the intuitive abilities she says everyone has. Likewise, other vendors could present their specialties, many of which may be termed “New Age,” but more often have ancient roots.

“It’s a taste, a sampling of what different people do. It’s educational and informative,” Moritz said. “It’s a safe setting to have the opportunity to show we are all united as one human race.”