Letter: Fortress of the Bear gives thanks

To our wonderful neighbors in Juneau,

Many of you have honored us with your visits. We are so lucky to meet such wonderful people who are passionate about our project and choose to get involved in creative ways. Over the last two weeks, a huge portion of Fortress of the Bear got a beautiful makeover, courtesy of Xentropa Services and Sherwin-Williams. All from beautiful Juneau.

The Xentropa team — Ben Disney, Pete Vernetti and Dave Rodriguez — donated their time and skills, and took on the huge challenge of redecorating the outside of one of our brown bear enclosures.

Those of you who have visited are sure to remember the orange tiled tank, which didn’t make the best first impression or do Fortress justice. Their first challenge was to remove the build-up of calcium deposits that had leeched from the old tank through the tiles, then add a base coat of white primer and finally, paint the whole thing green!

As if that wasn’t a big enough donation, they proceeded to paint the red and blue fence in the black bear enclosure, to match. The black bear cubs enjoyed a vacation into a vacated brown bear enclosure while their habitat was spruced up.

And finally, the front of our viewing deck got the green treatment, too. Everything looks so amazing, we just can’t thank the Xentropa team enough, and Sherwin-Williams for donating all the paint.

Thank you Ben, Pete and Dave, and Sherwin-Williams!

Bear hugs to you all!

Les Kinnear,

Executive Director,

Sitka