In 1984, Sitkans Don Muller, Alice Lee, Marylin Carty, and Carolyn Servid, co-workers at Old Harbor Books, founded the Sitka Symposium, an event they imagined would explore writing in the context of ideas. Guest faculty that first year were John Haines, Sam Hamill, William Kittredge; Sheila Nickerson, William Pitt Root, John Adams (composer), and Ruth Knier.