A Sneak Peek at StoryCorps Alaska

As a preface to the official kick-off date of StoryCorps Alaska, our team in New York set out to get the ball rolling a little early. Elise Pepple, the Coordinator of Outreach and Public Programs at the Public Library in Gustavus, Alaska, signed on-board to help us gather some initial interviews. Using StoryCorps recording equipment, designed for interviews much like those that take place in our booths, Elise created her very own StoryCorps “booth” to record the stories of Gustavus residents.

Gustavus is a city of 429 people set on the shore of Icy Strait, 36 air miles from Juneau, Alaska’s capital city. Gustavus is a unique community of individuals with a wide array of lifestyle choices and accommodations, from one room cabins with no plumbing to five star homes. With geologic and geographic changes to Gustavus over the years have also come social and demographic changes. The gateway community to Glacier Bay National Park, Gustavus is unique in its landscape and in its people.

In the planning stages of Elise’s endeavor, she showed a picture of the StoryCorps MobileBooth to a friend who commented that the Gustavus Public Library didn’t feel quite as “hip,” so they set out to find and make their own Gustavus StoryCorps booth. “If Gustavus is rich in something, it seems we are rich in ex-lodge buses,” Pepple remarks. She quickly came across a 21-year-old resident named Elm, who had recently bought a bus to live in. Pepple explains, “He said we could borrow the bus if we could move out the 20,000 pounds of scrap metal that were living inside and get it started. A couple of hours later, the bus was sitting in front of the library.”

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