If you’re a Camosun College student taking classes at the Lansdowne campus, you might have noticed a cat hanging around the school. That cat’s name is Alaska; she’s a four-year-old brown-striped tabby who loves to spend her days at the college hanging out with students and getting into trouble.
Alaska’s owner Jocelyn Preston says that petting Alaska is encouraged, but feeding and letting her into the buildings is not. Preston says she’s attempted to put Alaska on “house arrest,” but Alaska’s proved to be a formidable escape artist, slicing through screens, breaking plants, and squeezing through windows to escape. Preston has accepted Alaska as an outdoor cat and is doing everything she can to spread awareness of her nomadic tabby.
Preston only learned about Alaska’s extracurricular activities at the college when she decided to buy her cats collars with name tags.
“We actually got tags for her and her brother, Murphy,” she says. “I want to say this was early October. And then I started getting probably like 10 calls and 10 texts every day being like, ‘Your cat’s at Camosun.’”
The flurry of calls and texts inspired Preston to create the Instagram account @sassylasky to inform Camosun students that Alaska knows her way home, as long as she isn’t let into buildings or fed. This, coupled with posters put up around campus by the Camosun College Student Society, has helped ensure that Alaska returns home at night.
“I don’t like when she doesn’t come home at all,” says Preston. “And there have been quite a few times where she’s just stayed over at Camosun; I think there were people feeding her. And then once I got Instagram going and people started hearing about her, and there’s posters up, I think people have been feeding her less, which is really good because she comes home. But I think, honestly, she’d be happy to just live at Camosun full-time.”
Alaska once vanished through a hole in the wall inside the Young building’s gym and couldn’t find her way back out. Someone witnessed the event and promptly called Preston, alerting her to Alaska’s disappearing act.
“She didn’t come home that night,” she says. “So, the next day, we went back, and I was calling her from the hole and nothing. And then we’re walking up some stairs from the gym, and I could hear meowing from the wall… And I was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s literally in the wall.’ We opened an elevator and saw her paw trying to get out of the side. So my partner opened the elevator doors a bit more, and she could squeeze out. So she had been in the walls of the school for like 24 hours. And then the next day, apparently, she tried to go right back into that hole again.”
Another bonus of the Instagram account is allowing Preston a unique look into Alaska’s adventures from the students tagging Alaska in photos around campus.
“It’s really funny getting tagged in the photos,” she says. “I’m so glad I have her Instagram because I don’t know what she’s up to. I got tagged in an Instagram story, and she was in the Fisher building, and I guess there’s a pond with fish, and she was going after the fish. I would never have known that if I hadn’t been tagged in it.”
However, not everyone at Camosun has been as receptive to Alaska as the students are.
“I think some employees aren’t stoked about it,” says Preston. “We’ve been threatened with animal control a few times, but I don’t know what to do about that. And what’s animal control going to do? She’s just a local neighbourhood cat.”
Camosun College executive director of communications and marketing Rodney Porter can’t help but laugh while discussing Alaska’s fondness for the college and its students (“Alaska does seem to be obsessed about our Lansdowne campus; who can blame her?” says Porter, who adds that he’s a cat lover).
On a serious note, Porter commends Preston and her partner on being responsible pet owners, and notes that it’s important to keep Alaska out of the buildings for health and safety reasons. He says the college appreciates the role that animals play in our lives, but it also needs to ensure it has a respectful workplace.
“People have medical accommodations, multiple needs,” says Porter. “It’s important to have a safe and healthy work and education environment and that’s why the policy is not to have pets going into any of our buildings. We have therapy dogs, but they’re all registered… We don’t have any official policy on Sassy Lasky.”
Preston believes that there are benefits to having Alaska visit with the students in between their classes as a way to reduce stress.
“I think it’s good,” she says. “If I was a student and I was stressed out, I’d love to have an animal around. So, I like to think it’s helpful for the students to have a little animal that they can pet in between classes to kind of help their mental health.”
Alaska can find her way home, but if you notice her acting tired or confused, contact Preston using the number on Alaska’s collar.