Stories from Alaska Folk Fest 2026
[Folk Fest] is not an intellectual experience, it’s an emotional experience. Visiting Alaska gives me the feeling that people are chasing after when they travel: a little taste of what it’s like to be a part of another world. To live another version of life. Not just looking at it or fantasizing about it (which are fun too), but getting to live it for a little while. I’m lucky enough to have visited Juneau a number of times. My friend Justin Shoman lives there. President of the radio. His deep connection with the community makes the trip more fun than it might be otherwise, as I get to sidecar all that community goodness. Last year, I came up for the 50th annual Folk Fest , and it was a no-brainer to come back for the 51st. The 50th was such a milestone that documentarian Paige Sparks took the opportunity to make a literal movie about it, “50 Years of Folk Fest”. I caught a screening of it at KTOO and got to briefly meet Paige, who did a wonderful job. The documentary was a brisk 50 minutes and managed to explain the history without being boring, like how the original bylaws of the organization require the event to be free. It spotlighted some long-timers with zinger quotes, like the one at the top of this blog post, then focused on some of the new faces of folk fest, like Taylor Dallas and Annie Bartholomew , giving it modern relevance and freshness. A great thread in the documentary featured an awkward fella struggling with his own musical abilities and belonging. He blossomed into performing a really lovely original folk song that couldn’t have fit in anywhere better than Folk Fest. OH, I’M ALSO IN IT. There is a quick moment from an old-time jam at Amalga Distillery where you can see the back of my head. I loved that jam dearly last year and was sad that Amalga didn’t do it this year. They had make-your-own peanut butter and jam sandwiches (get it). C’mon that could have been a whole thing. When I landed in Juneau and walked out of security, I was relieved to see that my favorite plaque is still there. Thanks, plaque. I can’t wait to check out those additional displays throughout the terminal. I had some anxiety arriving. I didn’t get there until Thursday, DAYS LATE, so I had some FOMO — like I had already missed amazing opportunities. That feeling wore off quickly. I b-lined it to Devil’s Club , where I had tons of great jams last year. There was a great jam going on as I got there with Chaz from Ketchikan/Dude Mtn, Evan from Astoria/The Strongbacks, Rosemary from Fairbanks/Writing, and several others. Comradery was immediate. My friends Amy, Roger, Dave, Dennis, and Laura were there, all from various cities in Oregon. I think it was a first for most of them. I haven’t talked to them since leaving, but Amy was dreaming of getting two hotel suites next year instead of just one. One morning, I jammed with them in their hotel suite. It was a weird jam in the key of E, with the fiddles in calico tuning, which is fairly unusual for Old Time. I was on guitar and loving it. Heidi from Fairbanks is there, whom I love because of her unabashed love of banjos. The more banjos the better in her world (there are plenty of situations where people like to keep it to one banjo). She’s also very good, so I learn a lot. The book I read during the trip was an Alaska book I’ve been waiting to savor: Of Bears and Ballots . It delivers. It’s Heather Lende, of If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name fame. I’ve read a lot of Alaska books, but nobody evokes the feeling you get there like Heather, even as a mere visitor like me. I also picked up The Tao of Raven , which I’ve only just started, but it starts with a lavishly wordy version of the fable where the Raven frees the sun, which I’m fond of. I have a version of the raven story that I typeset and letter-pressed myself, and my mom watercolored over, in my guest bathroom at home. Speaking of my banjo, I checked it on Alaska Airlines on the way up. I love my banjo, and it’s nice, but I’m not precious about it and don’t love schlepping things through airports. Some people gasp at the thought of checking an instrument. Well, here are some more points for them. The peg for my 5th string must have loosened and straightened out, causing a buzz as it went over the little mini nut on that string. That’s not an acceptable state to leave the banjo in for Folk Fest, so I had Justin swing by a shop to grab some wood glue, then did emergency surgery on it. I yanked out the peg with a channel lock, rotated it back correctly, then glued it up and hammered it back in. Not pretty, but it’s held up just fine since then. A bar that doesn’t seem to officially participate in Folk Fest (but is at the heart of it anyway) is The Triangle. It ends up being kind of a home base or where to go sit in lieu of any better idea. It’s a place that ends up generating memories for me. A drunk local buying us shots for listening to his life story. Two mandolin players trading fascinating chord transition licks. A beautiful woman frantically trying to find her friends, only to be calmly distracted by the historical photos on the wall. I promised to tell her what I know of them when she comes back, but alas. One of the many cool things KTOO does, in addition to the studio-audience shows, documentary screening, and all that, is to put every main stage performance on the radio. Every second of it! Plus they stream it so people around the world can listen. Driving around, or if we happen to be at Justin’s spot, we’d usually have it on. One thing we caught that way was Sea of Heartbreak (feat. Katy Harris, Caroline Oakley, Reeb Willms, Ava Honey, Pharis Romero). Kind of a supergroup of old-time ladies. I only know exactly who it is now, because it was so good on the air, I looked it up on the official website. One day, sitting at the Alaskan, I was chatting with the bartender, Morgan, who used to run the place. It seems people, bartenders especially, live in this palpable daze of excitement and exhaustion during Folk Fest. The next day, after a nice beach walk “up the road”, as they say, at Eagle Beach , we stopped into Squirez, a cozy little bar that overlooks Auke Bay. It was Morgan bartending again. There was an awful lot of bartender overlap like that. Just the night before, the day bartender at The Alaskan was working the door bar in the evening at The Crystal Saloon. Morgan is extra fun, though, as she travels a lot to interesting places and seems to be doing interesting things with her life, like starting a new gig at Uncruise. She also works at the Lucky Lady, although I didn’t see her there. At Squirez, she did a little rave about what’s so great about Folk Fest. It’s the end of winter (this was a rough one up there), and it’s before the cruise ships come. So it’s a week that feels like a special treat just for the locals. A beautiful gift. Morgan was on the same flight out on Tuesday morning as I was. It was nice to high five out along with another friend (a board member of KTOO) I met at the corndog brunch who had a daughter the same age as Ruby running around. That made me miss Ruby and think of my hope that Ruby and I get to share a love of music and community events one day. One particularly fun live show was Raisin’ Holy Hell at The Crystal Saloon. There were a bunch of rowdy old-timers in the band (some faces I recognized from the documentary) who really got after it and made a ruckus of a show. They played classics like Angeline the Baker and Stickin’ to the Union, mixed with Sublime covers and modern shit like that to switch it up. They had a drummer and a solid bass player holding it all together and making it more than worthy of the killer night slot it had. The whole audience was super into it, and I was having a great time. This feels weird to write, but one of the things that fed into the fun and the feeling of living a different life for a moment is that I’m essentially single now and approaching the point I’d be ready to date (long story, private). Chatting with single strangers can have that hey, is this… something? feeling that can be exciting if a little emotionally dangerous. In my real life, I’m a dad and a co-founder of a busy tech company, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But once in a while, I can LARP as a freewheelin’ banjo-playin’ Alaskan. Another day, I popped into The Alaskan only to be perfectly on time to catch The Strongbacks , a sea-shanty group of five dudes that I quite like, hosting a “vocal jam”. I was surprised at how many sea shanty enthusiasts showed up. Half the people in the audience were mouthing along to the songs. An Irish session in the back of the bar didn’t stop playing for them, which made me furious. I considered saying something, but ultimately chose not to, as somehow nobody else seemed to care. Not even the bartender? Perhaps, as this wasn’t an official show and the jam had just as much right to make sound, asking them to stop would have been an injustice in its own right. Whatever, I’m still mad about it. The beauty of unamplified harmonizing voices should always take precedence over a mediocre Irish session. Just move! There is so much going on at Folk Fest, you’re definitely going to miss more than you do, even if you shortlist stuff you’re especially interested in. Here’s my list of things I would have liked to do but just… didn’t get to: That’s a big list. And yet: no regrets. Bocca al Lupo hosts a Corndog Bruch at 11am on Saturday. I missed it last year so I was glad to catch it this year. Arriving at 10:40am, there were already a few dozen people in line ahead of us. They passed out paper fliers detailing the gourmet corndogs that would be available. You were supposed to pass the paper back, but you could tell nobody wanted to actually be the one holding the paper. Way too much responsibility for a hungover Saturday morning. I had the elote and the honeybutter, both extraordinary, but I eyed up pickle-style with envy. The cashier was drinking a Bush NA. It sounded good at the time, so I ordered one. She had brought it from home. The band playing at the corndog brunch was The Heists , the last name of the lead couple, fleshed out by a great fiddler and bassist. Importantly: they replaced words in the songs with corndogs and corndog puns. Will the circle be a corndog and the like. I would have liked to be consulted on this endeavor, as I like to think I could have gotten the corndog integration density even higher. I recognized [Andrew] Heist from previous visits as I think he played in the band Taking Care of Bluegrass, which I’d seen a couple times, and saw again on this trip, but he didn’t seem to be in anymore. Possibly because he was in EVERY OTHER BAND . I saw them together again in The Boyfriend Girlfriend Bluegrass Band at the Alaskan. I saw him play with Raisin’ Holy Hell at The Crystal Saloon. I saw them in some very endearing moments in the documentary. I saw them play the main stage. I saw him out jamming. It’s a good thing they kick ass. There were so many times I was doubled over with laughter on this trip. Maybe that, all things considered, was the best part. I’ve come to think that laughing is my #1 bucket filler. One night at dinner, there was an appetizer called “Bread and Bones” (which turned out to be a bone marrow thing), but we weren’t sure, so we just made silly guesses about what it might be, and I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. One day, sitting at Amalga (and I have absolutely no memory of how this came up), we opened up the Claude app on my phone and vibe-coded different trivia-style games. It competently crafted an “alive or dead” game with random celebrities, and we kept adding features and making variations. The new bar game is making your own. Justin is seeing someone. It was lovely to meet her. We spent a lot of time all together as a group of three (plus dogs!). She was kind, endearing, funny, and up for anything. I’m glad to have made another friend. I think three can be a magic number. There are more personalities and things going on to play off of. I need to remember this more specifically for friend trips: 3-5 is a good number range. Last year, for the 50th, the weather was shit. It was cold and rainy the entire time. That’s how it always is. I’m sure months of dark, wet weather generally have mental consequences for the Alaskan natives, but it doesn’t seem to affect people’s moods during Folk Fest. There was a bit in the documentary about where they are clear on the matter: it just doesn’t matter . Put on your coat. That was put to the test this year in an interesting way. While there were still big piles of snow everywhere, it was kinda nice out. Twice! Blue skies; warm sun. I was curious whether people would take to the streets, with outside jams, impromptu parties, and such. There was a little. I saw a couple of jams move chairs outside or play on the concrete outside the Sealaska Heritage Museum. It was kinda fun, but it wasn’t like this transformative thing for the festival. It was fun, but again, the weather just doesn’t seem to matter much. One of those nice days I popped into Devil’s Club to find the jam was Irish. Which is fine , but I’m not skilled enough in Irish to contribute much and there is usually enough going on I don’t need to force it. There was another fella sitting there, I noticed, who had a fiddle case, and we got to talking and turned out he played old time like me. So we found a little stoop over by Deckhand Dave’s, he flipped over an old, dirty bucket, and we played old-time duets for a couple of hours. Didn’t even catch his name. I only went to the main stage once this year. The very last night. There’s just so much to do, it’s not even weird to miss most of the main stage stuff. One way to engage with Folk Fest is to hang out at the main stage primarily, and I’m sure a ton of people do that, but the musician types are always seeking out gigs and jams, and the younger crowd (and people that just don’t care that much about folk music) take the opportunity to enjoy all the great human energy downtown. Bar hopping and seeing the many non-folk shows and such. I’m so glad I went to that last night, though. RO Shapiro had a powerful voice, sang beautiful songs alone on stage, and reminded us how important it is to support musicians. He had a wonderful song about how they all pass the same $20 bill around. I was stoked to see Riley Baugus, a banjo hero of mine. He was charming and funny and interesting in a way I definitely did not think he would be, and he managed to keep the huge audience captivated entirely alone with a banjo. He was there with The Red Hots , who I unfortunately missed. Willie Carlisle closed it up, playing with a couple of multi-instrumentalists (one of whom I got to jam a little with, incredibly). Willie is a monster with a huge voice, huge personality, and huge opinions. He’s got a kind of old timey way of speaking and choosing words. He felt like a modern embodiment of folk, blending instruments and styles that are quite different while carrying a consistent air of quality. He opened with a monster vocal-only The Balad of Penny Evans, a Steve Goodman song about Penny who’s husband dies in Vietnam and is none too happy about that. A song called Crittertown brought out a surprise friend in a giant possum costume to wander the audience (gave me big Northern Exposure feels). My favorite was Big Butt Billy, an extra-folky guitar number about a kinda gender-neutral waiter at a diner with an ass so incredible Willie breaks down into exasperated spoken word in the middle of the song, finding different wild-eyed words to praise the ass. One day in the afternoon, I was sitting in The Alaskan having a pint and waiting for Justin to get off work. There was a band setting up I’d never heard of: Big Sissy. Sisters from Connecticut. They played well and harmonized beautifully. I remember a First Aid Kit cover perfectly done. Fifteen minutes after their set was over, we had walked over to Griz Bar, and they all walked in. I got a chance to say hi and thank them for their amazing and unexpected set. It was a warm moment. Another day sitting on a stool at Griz Bar, there was a woman playing guitar really well and singing a Tom Waits cover. Rosemary was sitting, putting in little fiddle fills. They came over to the bar, and I got to buy them a drink, and the world felt warm again for another moment. She then played another Tom Waits cover. Yet another day at Griz, Dude Mountain was playing an acoustic set. It was packed, even in the drizzle. There was a large man dressed up as a kind of cartoon wizard. He didn’t look like he left the house much, honestly, but he was out now, and he brought his cat, which kinda crawled around on his shoulders. Then someone brought like a dozen Domino’s pizzas and passed them out for free. I’d say food isn’t particularly notable in Juneau. I had a steak dinner at SALT one night. The service was good. We laughed our asses off at stupid jokes. The steak was good, but everything else was fairly poor, honestly. They put this huge dollop of horseradish on my plate, camouflaged next to the au gratin potatoes, and I accidentally ate the entire thing. It was a real mouth problem for a minute there. My bad, I guess, but like, isn’t this a plating UX issue? I had a Pickle Rick at The Hanger. The Cubano at Devil’s Club. The Taco Bell replica Crunchwrap Supreme at the Imperial (regrettable but necessary). Pizza at the Island Pub over on Douglas was good, but gave me heartburn that was hard to kick. One night, we had a decent Indian spread at Spice. The vibes are a little sleepy; they didn’t seem to book any musicians this year, and the naan was a bit dry. The Mexican food at Mar y Sol is fine, but they are a dry restaurant, and no margs with Mexican is rough. Amy and crew had dinner there, and I got a text from her that they started a jam there, and honestly, that was really fun. Kinda brought Folk Fest to another area of town that doesn’t normally get it. The noon latte at Coppa was a 10. What you want out of a culinary experience in Juneau is to go out to Sand Bar in the valley and get the fried halibut. It’s literally all they do. The halibut comes from fishermen literally in Juneau. Even as a totally non-fish guy, I love it. I was sad to miss it this year. On my last full day there, I wanted to do some gift shopping. I called it Power Shopping because it was something I wanted to do, but wasn’t super in the mood for it, so the plan was hot’n’fast. I ended up getting: While Folk Fest officially ends on Sunday, and I imagine a lot of folks need to take off on Sunday or Monday, I scheduled my flight out on Tuesday on purpose because Monday is reserved for an all-day jam at The Imperial . The Imperial is right at the heart of downtown Juneau, but doesn’t seem to be an active participant in Folk Fest. Until Monday, when it’s absolutely taken over. All the stragglers show up there and all the musical styles represent. I listened to an alt-old-time jam singing Reeltime Travelers, a classic old-time jam, a country jam, and a monster cajun jam. It took me a while to get the nerve up to get my banjo and get in on it (my confidence ebbs and flows). Honestly, a couple of beers always helps, which I don’t love, but it is what it is. I ended up playing with Heidi again for a while, bookending the trip nicely, and then another group of lovely folks before feeling good about retiring the banjo for the trip. Lodestone library was hosting jams, and I peeked in and saw it, but I didn’t stop to jam, and should have. There is a new brewery in town, Harbor Mountain, that hosted stuff, but I never made it in there, even just to try a beer. I like the group Wool Pullers, who had a couple of shows, and I missed them both. I really wanted to see the band High Costa Living featuring the exuberant powerhouse that is Collette Costa , but the line at the door for that show at The Red Dog Saloon was just insane (hundreds long?) seemingly the entire night. I missed the rad metal band Bards of Mendenhall I missed The Red Hots (I should have gone to the live studio audience show at KTOO). I didn’t go to any dances. I’m dead scared of making a fool of myself at a dance, but I also want to get over it and do it. I didn’t do any workshops. I didn’t catch Caleb & Reeb, who had a LOT of shows. I saw them around a ton but didn’t seem them play, other than Reebs Sea of Heartbreak thing. I’ve still never even met Caleb, who’s a bit of a hero to me. A little intimidating. I missed the Canadian tuxedo party. I missed the cosmic truckstop brunch thing. A book from Sealaska Heritige Store . They had a Trickster basketball that was freakin’ art , but I just couldn’t justify traveling with it Some postcards and a book from Kindred Post A comic book at art supplies from Alaska Robotics (which had an incredible display of paintings of hikes in Juneau) T-Shirts from Treetop Obligatory shirts from Devil’s Club and The Alaskan
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