Notice new retail on First and Morris streets

Like La Conner, the remote town of Skagway, Alaska, depends on tourists.

Unlike La Conner, those tourists come on cruise ships – descending in May and vanishing in September, leaving just 1,200 residents to soldier on until spring.

After one too many Skagway winters, Jim Thompson and partner Lisa Sentle pulled up stakes for La Conner last summer. The business they brought with them, Kirmse’s Antiques, they reopened at 501 S. 1st St., evoking southeast Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush.

Named for gold rush jeweler H.D. Kirmse, the store features Thompson’s extensive museum-quality collection of antiques and Native Alaskan and Tlingit items.

You can read about H.D. Kirmse himself in an article displayed behind the register, or talk to Sentle about their decades in Alaska.

You cannot talk to Hamilton, because he’s finishing another summer – his 58th – as an engineer on the narrow-gauge White Pass & Yukon Railway in Skagway.

He will be back soon, though. “We love this community and are thrilled to be here!” said Sentle, a Shelter Bay resident.

A few storefronts south at 509 S. 1st St., Heather Smith has transformed the former Bears ‘n Friends space into Latitude Longitude La Conner. The store sells nautical and beach-inspired gifts, “beachy modern” home décor and apparel.

“Basically I’d like to always be on vacation, on a boat or a tropical beach, but since I can’t, we created this store,” said Smith.

Smith and her family uncovered windows, pulled up carpet, and upgraded paint and lighting to give the place a bright, airy vacation look. Then they stocked it with mermaids, starfish, whales, glass floats, nets and other coastal creatures.

Smith stocks men’s clothing and items that appeal to boaters like herself. She is proud to be the only mainland vendor of large and colorful Maui Beach sheets, which can be beach towels, table cloths or sarongs.

“I surrounded myself with beach stuff and hope that others will join me,” she said.

Sempre Italiano has been bringing Italy to La Conner since 2006. In 2020, it changed addresses. Now the store sells hand-painted Italian and French ceramics and linens from the O’Leary building at 605 S. 1st St..

“The space is bigger, brighter, and has a better layout,” said Laura Chiusano, who owns the store with her husband Raffaele. “There’s a lot more foot traffic – and we have air conditioning!”

Chiusano is not sure whether it’s the new location or post-pandemic restlessness, but business is up significantly.

In response, the Chiusanos have increased their inventory, from one shipment per artist per year to two shipments for some artists.

“2021 is our best year ever,” she says. “We have no regrets!”

Yvonne Corbett has no regrets about being the Chiusanos’ next door neighbor. Her women’s boutique, Ladders, is in the south half of the O’Leary Building at 609 S. 1st St..

Corbett launched Ladders in Stanwood in 2015 following a long career as an oral surgery assistant. When Heather Carter, her neighbor and customer – and director of the La Conner Chamber of Commerce – told her about spaces opening up in town, Corbett and her husband decided to take the gamble during the pandemic – “even though we weren’t sure what would happen when things opened back up,” she said.

Since Ladders opened in late October, Corbett has heard nothing but good things from her customers, who range from teens to “older hip women” in their 80s.

“‘Thank you for bringing something new to the area,’ they tell me,” she said. “So far, our gamble is paying off.”

Marjie Jensen began selling colorful, comfortable women’s clothes after she bought some for herself and her friends.

“I bought a top, then another, then another, and then the company contacted me and offered to wholesale them to me,” she said.

For a long time she sold clothing, jewelry, and rocks at craft fairs and festivals like the Green River Rendezvous in Wyoming. Once she opened Mo’s Eclectic Gifts and Apparel, she was still an itinerant peddler, as her shop migrated between various shared storefronts on Morris Street.

Now she is back where she started about three years ago, at 306 Morris, with a supportive new landlord.

“I like La Conner,” she said. “I’ve kind of taken a beating here, but I still like it, and it feels like it’s getting better. July was just crazy.”

Crazy enough, she hopes, that she can stay put.