Work is underway to resuscitate the Fort Seward Hospital Building, long used as the headquarters for Alaska Indian Arts.

The building's back porch is currently being replaced. Port Chilkoot Company board member Annette Smith said she has been preparing new deck boards to be installed by Clearwater Plumbing and Heating. Clearwater next will repair the building's heating and plumbing, which froze up in 2019, rendering the building inoperable since.

Port Chilkoot earlier this year received a $27,000 matching grant from the Alaska Office of History and Archeology (OHA) for the resuscitation project, which is expected to take up to six months.

Smith told the CVN in February that Port Chilkoot Co. aims to make the hospital building available for office spaces, workshop areas, galleries or shops.

The hospital building was built nearly 120 years ago as part of the U.S. Army fort to maintain order among gold prospectors heading north and as a strategic installation during the country's boundary dispute with Canada. The dispute was resolved in 1903, a year before the fort was finished. The original fort comprised more than 90 buildings.

OHA in the past has contributed funding to rehabilitation efforts of the barracks building at the bottom of the Parade Grounds, including porch repair in 2014 and siding installation in 2018. There were formerly two barracks buildings at the fort, but one burned down in 1981.

"Fort Seward is a community asset, not only for Haines and the upper Lynn Canal, but for the entire state of Alaska. Much more work is needed, but the Port Chilkoot Company is grateful for all support," Smith said in a press release.