Our Story

We are two happy retail nerds doing what we love to do. We have been fortunate enough over the years to have run an assortment of retail operations from remote mom & pop stores to national big box chains.

In 2012, it was practically love at first sight for us when we began to work together in in Juneau. We soon married in 2014 and work eventually brought us to our forever home of Seward, Alaska. In 2019, we added our beloved dog Smokey to the family, and can commonly be found in the shop greeting new friends or patiently awaiting belly rubs.

How Forests, Tides & Treasures Came to Be

In October of 2017, we had the opportunity to resurrect one of Seward's oldest stores, Brown & Hawkins (B&H), which was originally founded in 1903. In May of 2018, we added the the second B&H store and worked to bring them both back to their original luster and place in the community. After the B&H building was sold in June of 2019, we rebranded as Forests, Tides and Treasures (FTT) and then moved the whole operation to the Seward Boat Harbor in January 2020.  

When rebranding to Forests, Tides, and Treasures (FTT), we brainstormed over 200 different names with local friends and shoppers alike, trying to capture all that we cherished about Seward and our community. Seward is a welcoming port community, nestled in between the Kenai Mountain range covered by spruce, birch and aspen trees that flow down to the black rocky beaches that are refreshed endlessly by the waters of Resurrection Bay.

With this as our inspiration, we organized FTT into three interconnected spaces: Outdoor, Gallery and Gifts. In this way, each guest - whether a local or visitor - can metaphorically walk with us everyday through the Seward that we love, which includes its Forests (Outdoor), Tides (Gallery) and Treasures (Gifts).

When chatting about FTT, we will always tell you that FTT is a community-minded business. There is a specific person or story behind every product that we carry. And it is always our goal to incorporate the community’s needs into our merchandise inventory to ensure that these selections reflect the practical and aspirational needs as well as the fun, vital and ever-changing environment that is Seward.

Forests, Tides & Treasures is directly involved in the community itself. We take pride in not only raising funds for SOS Pets to support the Seward Animal Shelter, as well as local School Art programs year-round, but we also helped co-found the Seward Business Network & Seward Second Saturdays.

Simply put, we love what we do. Every day at Forests, Tides & Treasures, we strive to provide a unique experience of discovery that forges the connections between each guest and the artisans & vendors found within. Those connections are the reflections of all that there is to discover and celebrate in our beautiful home of Seward, Alaska and beyond.