Anchorage Alaska Airport Post Office

Beyond art, Two Spirits offers genuine touch of Alaska

It's harder to find a gallery actually owned by a Native Alaskan. And it's really hard to find the artists themselves, busily at their work.

Located in the 4th Avenue Marketplace -- the old Post Office Mall at 333 W. Fourth Ave. -- Two Spirits Gallery and Carving Studio fills a unique niche in the local art market. At the height of tourist season, it should be packed.

But the place "seems to be a well kept secret," according to Ruth Quinlan of the Anchorage Downtown Partnership, who regularly blogs about downtown businesses on the partnership's website.

Even the gallery's owner, Karen Tocktoo, admits that there are days when she should bring her beading to stay busy during the day.

Two Spirits opened in the summer of 2005 with a grant from Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Tocktoo, who had recently moved to Anchorage from her hometown of Shishmaref, on the Bering Strait, was hired as the store's retail manager.

"When the funding ran out, they let me go," she said. "Then they brought me back on contract last summer."

Two Spirits was intended, in part, "to foster creativity and economic opportunity to artists affected by mental illness, substance abuse or homelessness." Some of that mission remains, though it also showcases work by professional artists.

It had never been a profitable business, though it managed to stay open while numerous other stores in the mall -- including several art outlets -- opened and folded.

Last year, CITC decided to hand over both the gallery and the studio to private owners. The council arranged to sell the gallery to Tocktoo and the studio to Robert Raphael, originally from Nunam Iqua at the mouth of the Yukon River.

As winter kicked in, Tocktoo wondered if she'd done the right thing.

"After the Iditarod, it was totally dead," she said. "I thought, 'Oh my God, what did I get myself into?"

TREASURE TROVE

Tourist season has helped, she said. The address includes several visitor-specific businesses -- the Alaska Experience Theatre, a bike tour company, the new Alaska Veterans Museum. But the tour ship traffic tends to drop off just about a block away from the mall's main doors.

Alaska Pride 2.0: U.S. Postal Service To Relocate Its Western Area ...

The main postal facility located at Anchorage International Airport also serves as the official processing and distribution center for all postal mail entering the state of Alaska. In addition, intra-Alaska mail is also processed through this facility. Consequently, it has come as a shock to some people when the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported on May 25th, 2011 that the U.S. Postal Service plans to relocate its Western Area Distribution Networks office in Anchorage to Denver. Steve Deaton, who currently heads up this office, is retiring effective May 31st, 2011, and his duties will be transferred to another person in Denver. USPS provides no information in their Newsroom about how this will impact mail distribution in Alaska. Tomorrow - it will go from North Pole, to Fairbanks, to Anchorage, off to Denver, Spend a day or two or three in Denver, back to Anchorage, truck to Fairbanks, then to North Pole. The Post Office will charge $.45 cent stamp and their actual cost for the letter will be more like $1.50......... they will lose money, then ask for a giant rate hike. In 2-3 years Alaskans will be forced to 'pay' for the privilege of putting 3,000 miles on a letter and allowing the Post Office to store it for the 9-11 days of transit time. As a result, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski has gotten involved. She sent a letter to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe , warning him that the impending restructuring and relocation of the Western Area Distribution Networks office from Anchorage to Denver without a transition period is short-sighted, noting that because so much of Alaska is off the road network, Alaska’s mail service is more complicated than the majority of systems nationwide. In part, Murkowski wrote, “I am extremely concerned to learn that there does not appear to be any transition or training plan for transferring this knowledge and experience to the Denver operation...Placing the responsibility for intra-Alaska mail and bypass mail service in the hands of untrained personnel two thousand miles and two time zones away without a clear sense of our Alaska’s routes and challenges may help the Postal Service’s bottom line but will impact our vast state’s economy and connectedness.