After more than three decades, Ketchikan’s beloved Soho Coho t-shirt shop and gallery will be closing its doors at the end of this year.
Michelle Troll is sitting in the backroom of Soho Coho, her retail store and art gallery in downtown Ketchikan. Metal shelves all around her are packed floor to ceiling with T-shirts. A steady stream of visitors filter in and out of the store to take advantage of closing sales or just offer words of encouragement, gratitude, and sorrow.
Michelle Troll got to Ketchikan in 1984. Her future husband Ray had been in the city for about a year.
“And I guess our paths just crossed,” Michelle said.
Ray had asked her to lunch. “It was still late summer. The fish were spawning. You know. So there was love in the air. Literally. I’ve always mixed all that stuff up in my art,” he remembered.
In many ways the building blocks that would become Soho Coho were already in place.
“And so he was already working on his career as an artist. He was always an artist. I guess my education was visual communications. So it was just a good match,” said Michelle, who got her start working in the advertising department of the Ketchikan Daily News.
The Trolls opened their store in 1992 on the upper floor of the building it currently occupies – above the now-defunct Five Star Cafe. You walk over the wooden footbridge spanning Ketchikan Creek and there, next to a Chinese restaurant, is a light pink, two-story wooden clapboard building on stilts above the salmon stream.
The building, known as The Star, boasts an even longer and richer history. It was built in 1903 and held the title of the largest brothel in Ketchikan. The metal star inlaid into the floor of Soho Coho used to mark the brothel’s dancefloor.
“We moved in and opened our retail store and then we just kept going. Every year, at the end of the year we would say ‘Okay, we made enough money that we can do this again next year,'” Michelle recollected.
Over the course of Soho Coho, they’ve displayed the work of many artists, including Evon Zerbetz and Grace Freeman. They’ve also had over 100 different T-shirt designs that have been sold in shops across the country.
The T-shirts sport Ray’s artwork and are often related to salmon or the ecology of Alaska. Among many other places, they’ve been seen in the movie Superbad and being worn by Harrison Ford and Daniel Radcliffe.
While the cruise ship industry has been very good to them, the support of Ketchikan and Alaskans across the state have kept the Trolls in business.
“Our local customers who bring their families in and are here shopping through the holiday season and support us in the offseason, I mean, we couldn’t have done this without all of them,” said Michelle.
Ray always wanted to have a gallery. But he doesn’t take credit for the store’s operation. The Soho Coho is Michelle’s baby.
“It is her store,” he said. “Michelle has the business head in the relationship. I don’t have the business head. I do not have that. So really, it is Michelle that has run the business all these years.”
Both Trolls expressed gratitude for their employees, around 50 Ketchikan locals including all of their children at various points. Since the store is closing at the end of December, their names are written on 50 paper stockings hanging over a cardboard fireplace in the store. Michelle mentored them all.
She said that watching her employees grow in their post-retail careers has been a joy. She’s also watched her husband’s career grow with the store.
“I have to say that the Soho Coho has grown, along with Ray’s career, because Ray’s career has just blossomed and grown as he ages. And so we have grown with that,” Michelle said.
Closing the store also marks the end of another era. The Soho Coho is known for the bright neon sign hanging in the window and a large blue fish hanging above the door. When the wooden fish is taken off the side of the building, they have plans for it.
“It’s going to be set on an easel and then ignited because Ray always says everything’s cooler with flames.”
It’s true. He does say that.
“Everything ironically looks cooler with flames. You know, you want to make it look cool? Put flames on it. So I like the cool burning. So we’re gonna do a cool burning. And so Burning Fish,” Ray said separately.
“I just think for a sense of closure, and kind of ceremony and a sort of performance art thing,” Ray explained when asked why. “Because I’m an artist! I usually do weird performance art stuff.”
A sense of closure is important to the Trolls. According to Michelle, it may be a little more important for Ray though.
“This is not easy for him to walk away from,” she said.
Though the daily operations fell on Michelle and her crew, she said it acted as her husband’s public presence. A place synonymous with who they are. For Ray, the store was his stage. But for him, sometimes it’s important to know when to draw the curtain. “An old lesson in theater is leave them wanting. Before they want you off the stage, just leave the stage. So, for this part of the stage, it’s time to step off.”
The storeroom Michelle is standing in will still be the hub for their online store though which isn’t going anywhere.
A local artist, Evon Zerbetz, will be taking over the space as a gallery. The old brothel on stilts above Ketchikan Creek will continue its tradition of showcasing local artists as it enters its next chapter.
Get in touch with the author at jack@krbd.org.
