Lakeidra Chavis, KTOO

If you’ve visited Juneau, you’ve probably heard of Tracy’s King Crab Shack — the waterfront restaurant famous for its crab bisque. It’s become the subject of another skirmish in Juneau’s local restaurant wars.

The shack has been around for more than a decade and garnered increased popularity after appearing on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef” in 2013.

This will be the famous crab shack’s final season at its current waterfront location.

Michael Tripp is the majority owner of the business that leases the property to the restaurant. He said in an email that their businesses couldn’t reach an agreement on a new lease. It won’t be renewed next year.

Tripp said the property is under contract with another local business, but he wouldn’t say with whom. Tripp said the business relationship with LaBarge was professional and respectful.

LaBarge said in an email that the situation is unfortunate and saddening.

“It was always our intent to purchase the building, and in my last conversation with the current owner, I made a verbal offer to purchase or to renegotiate the current lease. I did not hear back from the building owners regarding my offer, and was surprised to get an email stating they had chosen to deal with another restaurant group.”

In an interview with the Juneau Empire in December, LaBarge recounted how she started the restaurant from scratch after more than 10 years of consideration.

LaBarge said the crab shack will be back “stronger than ever” in a new location next summer. The lease will expire in March 2017.

Tripp and LaBarge agreed to comment only in writing. Their comments were edited for grammar. 

Tuesday evening, first responders showed up to 18 block parties in the capital city. Although they wore their badges, they were there to take part in the fun. The event was part of National Night Out, a national program focused on raising awareness about public safety.

In a large meeting room inside the Juneau Police Department, things are a bit busy.

Police officers are rationing out the cool vehicles they’ll ride in for National Night Out. Dozens of law enforcement officers, members of the Coast Guard, and the National Guard, among other groups, are preparing to attend 18 different parties across the city.

In order to attend them all, they’ve split into five teams. Sgt. Chris Gifford led one of them.

“So this is good for them to see us in a positive way and for us to see the community in a positive way,” Gifford says. “We’re just here eating hot dogs and showing off police cars.”

Gifford and his team, which includes a firetruck, two police cars and two members of the Coast Guard, visited four parties spread out across the Mendenhall Valley, Lemon Creek and a neighborhood near the airport.

At a cul-de-sac in the valley, Dee Ojard is chatting with neighbors. She also works for the police department. Ojard says events like this are a nice opportunity for community bonding, especially for the officers.

“These are people that they don’t ever see unless they’re in distress,” she said. “So, it’s nice to see them when they’re not in distress.”

Ojard’s worked for the department for 11 years, and helped organize Juneau’s first National Night Out nearly a decade ago.

“There are a lot more parties; there’s a lot more involvement, so I think it’s a good thing,” she said.

Throughout the two-hour event families chatted with law enforcement and safety officials, kids took photos, learned how to find fingerprints on a soda can and checked out the police cars.

Outside the First Church of God near the airport, Elwin Blackwell is celebrating the event with his family. His parents are sitting outside the church’s doors, while his brothers, nieces and nephews, and children chat and run around.

His church has participated in the National Night Out before, and he helped organize the event this year.

“I think it’s a good thing for neighbors to build that sense of community, to keep an eye out for each other,” he said.

Not every police department in the state took part in the event, but the Anchorage Police Department hosted a large party in the Mountain View neighborhood.

A national animal rights organization is recognizing Juneau’s Gastineau Guiding Co. for rescuing a drowning deer last week. PETA, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, is sending the tour company a framed Compassionate Business Award.

Marissa Price works with PETA’s college outreach team in California, and she says the organization’s corporate affairs department hands out about 30 of these awards each year.

Price says she’s not sure how the organization heard of the rescue, but PETA generally keeps its finger on the pulse of animal-focused issues.

“Luckily, there are constantly things like this happening that we can award,” Price says, “and we just look at if a company has really gone out of their way to show compassion toward animals.”

The tour company says they found out about the award Wednesday morning, and were surprised and happy about the amount of attention the rescue’s received.

PETA is sending them a framed certificate and vegan chocolate bars.

A Seattle-based company is one step closer to building a 49-unit senior housing facility in Juneau. If successful, it would cater to a region’s housing market that’s been historically difficult for everyone, especially Southeast’s aging population.

Earlier this week, the Juneau Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit for GMD Development, LLC. The majority of the beds in the proposed housing unit will be low-income affordable housing.

Assemblyman Loren Jones thinks it’s a positive step for the community.

“Where it’s at, it’s going to be next to the assisted-living facility,” Jones said, “so there’d be a senior complex there in the valley, and I think it’s very important for Juneau for that to take place.”

The location of the site is off Clinton Drive, near Safeway. The non-profit Senior Citizens Support Services Inc. plans to build a 90-apartment, assisted-living facility in the same area.

Jones said the proposed housing project would help a market that really needs it.

“I have every anticipation there may yet be some construction work this fall, but I would suspect construction would hopefully start next spring,” he said.

Earlier this year, KTOO reported on the shortage of senior housing in for Southeast’s aging community. A 2014 market study estimated that over the next 30 years, Juneau will need more than 300 additional beds to meet demand, given the city’s limited space.

A nearly 400-year-old book is on display in the Alaska State Library in Juneau. And it’s not just any old book, it’s the First Folio—the first printed collection of Shakespeare’s plays that brought his work to the world even after his death.

In the backroom of the Rockwell bar downtown, above the music and among glasses of amber ale and wine, a dozen actors are reading “Cymbeline,” one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays.

There’s an evil queen, forbidden love, epic battles and long-lost relatives. Local Shakespeare company, Theatre in the Rough, is reading all 36 of the bard’s plays within the next month. It’s because the book that brought the world Shakespeare’s work—including this play–is here in Juneau.

The First Folio is a collection of all of Shakespeare’s work. Two of Shakespeare’s buddies created it seven years after he died. The nearly 400-year-old book provides a written record of half of Shakespeare’s plays that would’ve otherwise disappeared–such as “Macbeth” and “The Tempest.”

Freya Anderson is the state librarian who helped get the book here, and a proud Shakespeare geek.

“A lot of what we know today is because of the First Folio,” she said.

Inside Alaska State Library that room that holds the First Folio, a thin veil of light casts on the book, which visitors can view in its glass encasement. For Shakespeare fans, this is their Holy Grail.

“I mentioned before it’s not quite a religious experience,” she said, “but I’d put it in the top three library-related experiences in my life.”

She said the process of getting it to Juneau has been years in the making, and on Tuesday the book went on display.

The library applied for a grant ahead of the First Folio’s visit, before the library even finished construction.

That’s because the First Folio belongs to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and the one in Juneau isn’t the only copy. Of the 253 remaining in the world, the library has 82. This year, they’re touring six copies of the First Folio to reach every state and some territories, to celebrate the playwright’s 400^th birthday.

Just outside the library, Jim Hale is beginning to prepare for an upcoming lecture on the First Folio. The Shakespeare scholar said seeing the collection is seeing a piece of history.

“Shakespeare’s informed western culture over the last 400 years and this is an artifact of that. It preserves some of our greatest literature, some of our greatest plays,” Hale said. “We wouldn’t have ‘The Tempest’ without this book. I couldn’t imagine a world without ‘The Tempest.’”

The First Folio will be on display until Aug. 24.

For a list of all the Shakespeare events happening in Juneau, visit the state library and museum website.

 

 

While passing the west side of Juneau’s Shelter Island on Wednesday, an 18-passenger tour vessel saw more than just whales.

Audrey Benson, a naturalist with Gastineau Guiding Co., was on the tour when the crew got some news over the radio.

“We heard that there were two deer that were swimming across in the water,” Benson said. “So after we watched the whales for a bit our passengers were curious and wanted to see the deer, and so we motored over to them and it turns out there was only one.”

And it was struggling to stay above water. After a larger tour boat tried to rescue the animal a few times, it gave up. But Benson, along with the passengers and crew, decided to keep trying. They were eventually able to lasso the deer and pull it onto the boat.

“The deer was immediately bewildered and disoriented and it was shaking a lot, it was shivering a lot,” she said. “Its teeth were chattering. It tried to stand up but collapsed because it was so weak.”

The crew was able to drop the deer off at Shelter Island—but not before it tried to swim back into the water again.

“It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on any of my tours,” Benson said. “I mean, you never know what’s going to happen but for a deer rescue—I’ve never even been that close to a deer, I’ve never touched one—and to have an opportunity to assist this struggling animal, it was very intense.”

The other deer disappeared before the group reached it, and is presumed to have drowned.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said it’s very uncommon for deer to drown, adding that deer regularly swim from island to island.