The festival features a friendly climbing/bouldering competition with music, food and prizes, including a drawing for a season pass at Eaglecrest Ski Area.

DJ AstronoMAR and DJ Smack will provide the entertainment.

Cost is $5 for those under 18, $10 for adults. Call 586-2635 for more information.

JDHS to open library wallsas First Friday space

JUNEAU - Juneau-Douglas High School librarian Barb Kreher is opening the high school library's walls as a gallery exhibit space for community artists.

The space will host a monthly First Friday exhibit with themes that focus on particular areas of study or activities held at the school during that period. Events will occur immediately following the school day on First Fridays, with staff, students and the public invited.

Artwork will be available for sale, following roughly the same guidelines the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council uses.

Kreher is looking for artwork with a fall/harvest theme to open the library's new gallery on Sept. 7. The deadline to submit art is Friday, Aug. 31.

Please submit digital images along with size and medium specifications to barbara_kreher@jsd.k12.ak.us.

October's gallery theme is war, focusing particularly on support staff such as chaplains and medics. The show will coincide with the drama department's production of "M.A.S.H." The deadline to submit art for this show is Sept. 15.

Six-part, 'Plein Air' public television series starts Sept. 6

JUNEAU - The six-part high-definition television series "Plein Air, Painting the American Landscape," produced at KTOO, will air nationally this fall on PBS stations.

The series starts Sept. 6 on Alaska One and includes three episodes shot in Alaska. It's produced by Eagle River filmmaker Greg Bombeck, shot by Alaska cinematographer Bill Holden and funded in part by the Rasmuson Foundation.

The schedule - Sept. 6, 9 p.m., "Denali en Plein Air," 9:30 p.m., "Cape Cod with Charles Sovek en Plein Air"; Sept. 13, 9 p.m., "The Tongass Rain Forest en Plein Air," 9:30 p.m. "Taos en Plein Air and the Taos Society of Artists"; Sept. 20, 9:30 p.m., "Seward en Plein Air," 10 p.m., "Trinidad, Colo. en Plein Air and the California Impressionists."

'Gastineau Channel Memories, Vol. 1' available on Web site

JUNEAU - The Juneau-Douglas City Museum's Web site now includes a link based on "Gastineau Channel Memories 1880-1959, Vol. 1" originally published in 2001 by the Pioneer Book Committee and now out of print.

The site presents a collection of stories and photographs from numerous families who settled in the Gastineau Channel area.

Find it at www.juneau.org/parksrec/museum.

Volume one includes 290 articles covering 350 families. Volume two was issued in 2004 and is still available at Hearthside Books. Volume three is planned for next year.

The committee is looking for stories from families who settled in the Gastineau Channel area between 1880 and 1967. Those stories are due by the end of September.

City Museum purchases 122-year-old collection

JUNEAU - The Juneau-Douglas City Museum, the Gastineau Channel Historical Society and eight other donors have teamed to purchase 52 photographs from 1885 of Metlakatla, Kassan, Wrangell, Juneau, Glacier Bay and Sitka.

The photos are from the collection of R.D. Schmitz. The photographs were taken by J.C. Haines in the first half of the 1880s. Haines used a dry plate camera, a technique that was developed in 1871.

These photographs may be related to a trip made by the Oliver family to Alaska during the 1880s. The Oliver Family Collection is at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, Calif.

This collection is available for public viewing with the curator of collections by appointment only. Jim Geraghty will present a lecture on the collection at 10 a.m. Oct. 6, as part of the museum's new "Coffee & Collections" series.

SAMHSA to present poetry slam Sept. 15 at UAS

JUNEAU - Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration and Voices for Recovery will host the Second Annual Poetry Slam at 7 and 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15, in Room 113 of the Hendrickson Building on the University of Alaska Southeast campus.

Everyone is invited to attend. The number of participants is limited.

Cash prizes will be awarded for first, second and third place. Call 465-3072 or e-mail Connie.Olson@alaska.gov for more information.