SITKA – When Brighton Coggins landed in Sitka on June 28, his name was Elizabeth.
Coggins was flying from Bethel to Baranof Island to attend the intensive two-week Sitka Fine Arts Camp. This was his first year, and he wasn't sure what to expect.
"When I got there, a counselor asked me if my nametag was right. I had never been out before I came to Sitka. But this was an arts camp. I was like, everyone is weird."
Over the next two weeks, in his vocal and writing classes, faculty switched to using male pronouns. Coggins received a new nametag, this one with the name Brighton. "It was awesome and validating," Coggins said. "This camp is like no other place I've ever been." It's also a place I've taught for several years.
'Like a nirvana'
Situated at the mouth of a river, the bucolic campus sits on a promontory with views of ocean islands tufted with spruce and hemlock, and a range of mountains with names like The Belltower and Pyramid. A boat harbor, basketball courts, a fish hatchery and a science center are visible from the central quad, which is squared off by chocolate-and-white shingled arts and crafts buildings with bungalow porticos. Hemlock trees shade paths through the grass, where kids play Frisbee, practice stage combat, sing opera and recite Shakespeare.
"This place is like a nirvana for a certain kind of student," said Selma "Fish" Houck, 15, who has been coming to Sitka from Juneau the past three years. "At the end of the regular school year, there's a buzz about it. People start talking, like, 'Are you going to camp this summer?' "
The camp occupies what was formerly Sheldon Jackson College. Founded in 1882, the college functioned as a trade school for local Tlingit children before offering a college education. In 1973 faculty banded together to create the Sitka Fine Arts Camp (formally called Alaska Arts Southeast Inc.) with a goal of exposing Alaska youths to the arts. Students from around the state -- including villages where arts programs were less available or nonexistent -- spent part of their summers playing instruments and focusing on visual arts.
By 2000, the camp dwindled to fewer than a hundred students.
"It was extinguishing itself," said Roger Schmidt, who took over as executive director that same year. "It was smoldering embers. We just tried to breathe life back into it."
In 2007, due to financial difficulties, the college closed. Then, in 2011, the Sheldon Jackson College Board of Trustees voted to give the campus to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. Volunteers contributed thousands of hours to working on moss-covered roofs, broken windows and crumbling, water-damaged interiors. A capital campaign was launched, raising more than $4 million.
Exposing small communities to art
Today, the Sitka Fine Arts Camp hosts close to 800 students from three countries, 20 states and 458 Alaska towns. About a quarter of them came from Anchorage. Camp features four sessions: mini camp for fifth-graders and below; middle school camp; high school camp; and a musical theater camp for high school and college students. More than 60 classes are offered, from theater and Native jazz to clowning, orchestra, visual artists, acrobatics, creative writing and improv.
Schmidt said this is all part of a concerted effort to hew to the camp's founding principles.
"In Alaska, access is a huge issue, and arts are really dependent on larger population centers. In our small communities, kids don't get to see what a professional actor looks like. So camp opens up a world to them."
Schmidt connection to the camp is longstanding. He attended as a student in the 1980s, and recalled arriving at camp as a teenager to play trombone.
"And it was like, I found my people, a group of students who were passionate about expression. So camp is personal for me. I wanted to replicate what I had."
Camper Alexandria Ivanoff, 13, lives in Unalakleet, population 730 and about 150 miles from Nome as the bird flies. Back home, Ivanoff has a hoodie that says, "Normal people scare me."
In her third year at camp, Ivanoff plays the flute and sings. "At home nobody understands how music can make me so sad and so happy. Then I came here, and people are like, 'Oh, me too.' I'm in love with it, especially the people."
'Hide behind a mask'
Ivanoff was first introduced to the flute by her father, who is part Inupiat and Yupik.
"We were putting away fish, and my dad was cutting wood for the wood stove. And I said, 'Dad, this one looks like a flute!' It had two holes in it. I didn't know what a flute really looked like. So he painted it and drilled two holes in it. And then they gave me a real flute when I was 6. I've been playing since."
Schmidt said: "Kids often have to hide behind a mask of who they are. And here, through a process of exploring, they can become somebody else. That's important."
The new campus, with its dormitories, classrooms, cafeteria and chapel, has allowed the camp to expand. In 2012, the Sitka Fine Arts Camp launched five new programs, including clowning and native mask design. Each evening counselors, students and faculty have the opportunity to showcase their work in "artshares." Oftentimes, Schmidt says, this is the first time students are exposed to professional artists.
"Seeing these people, and their commitment -- it gives kids momentum for the rest of the year. They know where they're aiming … If you provide the right environment, where learning is infectious, then you allow that idea to just get stronger year after year. Other students get caught up in the momentum."
Benton Campbell, 18, has spent five years at Sitka Fine Arts. "It's a way of life," he said. "People that go to camp are different. And that's kind of cool."
Coggins says he'll be back.
"My whole life is art, and I want it always to be art. So for me, these two weeks have been a dream come true."
Brendan Jones of Sitka is a teacher at Sitka Fine Arts. He's also a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University and the author of the novel "The Alaskan Laundry," due from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt later this year.