Wrangell to Petersburg, Alaska

Wednesday, July 3 we started the day with a pleasant surprise. Kim, the man who looks after boats here had come by early in the morning and left two sockeye salmon fillets and a jar of smoked salmon on our deck. So our fresh fish problem has been solved by a generous local resident.

We then took a cab to look at the potential moorage spaces in Shoemaker Bay, about 5 miles south of town. There is only one cab in town, and she was very busy, but pleasant and informative. She assured us that this was a safe place to leave a boat. She waited for us as we ran down to the docks and looked at a few empty slips. We were surprised to find that the docks weren’t really as bad as we had been led to believe. They are certainly older than the one we are at now, but we have seen docks a whole lot worse than these. So we returned to town and are now the owners of a year-long lease on a slip in Wrangell Alaska. One nice aspect of this is that moorage for the whole year costs less than three months of what we were paying in Ladysmith.

We had a good lunch at a café downtown, and simultaneously were able to check and send e-mails. Downtown Wrangell is basically one street a few blocks long with a typical set of shops one would find in a busy small town without any access to chain box stores. Although they do get some cruise ships here, the town is not really oriented toward tourists, and does not have all of the jewelry and souvenir shops found in a place like Ketchikan. It has two hardware/marine stores, a clothing store, a pharmacy, two cafes, several bars, a fancy motel, etc. One side of the street has old, false-fronted buildings, while the other side, which burned to the ground in 1952 has a more modern, less attractive feel to it. The town curves around the harbor, and the waterfront is mostly boatyards, fish processors, and other industrial type businesses. In some sense it is an example of the “real Alaska” that most tourists don’t get to see.

Fishing Derby, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

The morning Independence Day activity was a fishing contest for kids at the town dock. They could only use a line wrapped around a stick with one hook, and no adult help. Watching them arrive at the weigh station was fun. Some of them had caught a flounder, others a sculpin, some very large starfish, and one little girl about three years old was waiting in line to have her barnacle-encrusted stick weighed. I think she was in a different class.

We then walked over to the Wrangell Museum which proved to be a bit frustrating. It is located in a very attractive, modern building, and is very nicely arranged, with many interesting historical objects and photographs. It presents the history of Wrangell. Clearly a lot of money was spent to put it all together. However, I found it rather maddening, as it was very difficult to follow a coherent story. In some areas the displays progressed clockwise, and in others counterclockwise. The descriptions often started in the middle of some story, assuming they had already told you things that you knew nothing about. Each panel was interesting in itself, but was often unrelated to the panel before or after. It could have been done so much better, as the town does have an interesting history.

We picked up some ice and some wine, and returned to the boat. There we got in a conversation with a man who has left his boat in Alaska over the winter for three years. He had some good advice on how to prepare the boat. We went over to his boat to look at his dehumidifier, and found his wife, who was so ready to be home, and his brother and wife who were making themselves scarce. Looked like a two week cruise that had lasted a few days too long. A boat is a very small space. We decided not to walk over to the elementary school for the talent show and crowning of the Queen, but stayed home and had an excellent dinner of fresh salmon, courtesy of Kim.  

Queen Darian, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

Thursday July 4 we did some work on the boat, walked the dog, and such until mid-morning when we walked downtown to see the parade. It was pretty typical weather that we have been experiencing. That is, a bit of everything. There was blue sky, warm sun, clouds, cold wind and a rain shower. Most days have been like this for the past few weeks.

Parade, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

This is the big day of the year for Wrangell, and the amount of effort expended by a town of 2000 is pretty impressive. There were three candidates for Queen, and the winner is determined by who raises the most money toward Independence Day expenses. Each girl assembles a team to help with the fund raising. Among other things it seems that they have all been cooking meals for most of the town for the past month. The three of them raised over $180,000 this year. They get to keep 30% to cover their expenses, and 70% goes towards next year’s celebration expenses.

Parade, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

Our home town of Ashland, Oregon is famous for its July 4^th, and it is interesting to compare the two. Ashland has ten times the population of Wrangell, but its parade is not ten times longer (though sometimes it seems like it). This parade was a bit heavy on fire fighting and ambulance equipment, but did have some clever entries such as the Stikine Riverdance, a group following a canoe wearing life jackets and wielding paddles who did some Irish dancing. There was an astounding amount of candy tossed into the crowd. Little kids arrived with sacks to fill with candy, and they really did fill them up.

After the parade we were ready for some food. There were very long lines of people wanting to buy burgers and tacos. We walked right up to a booth without a line, and bought the most wonderful plate of fresh halibut. I guess everybody here is pretty tired of having to eat fresh halibut day after day. We then polished off a couple huge pieces of apple pie from the pie booth, and felt ready to carry on. Schooner was having a wonderful time scavenging, and really cleaned up under the pie booth table.

Infant Candy Contest, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

We then went to see if we had won the $5000 first prize at the drawing from the tickets we bought in support of one of the Queen candidates. Sadly we did not. Sadly, our Queen choice didn’t win either. Walking past the pony rides (available until the ponies get tired), we encountered the toddler competitions. There were the candy races that involved picking up candies scattered on the grass; four categories; for kids under 2, and kids under 4 – separate boys and girls divisions. When asked why they separated them, the lady in charge said “we’re sexist.” For those who couldn’t yet walk, there was a crawling race toward boxes of animal crackers. Now let me tell you, they don’t have anything like this in Ashland.

Log Chopping Competition, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

We arrived a bit late for the logging competition, but that was ok, because they were incredibly disorganized, and took forever to get started. Once they got started they spent most of the time trying to figure out their paperwork, and mumbling indecipherable things into the microphone. We watched guys (and one girl) cut up large logs with chainsaws and with hand saws. We watched them cut logs in half with axes. After an hour or so we eventually began to tire of it, and left without seeing the choker setting, the axe throwing, the Idaho style hand bucking, or (for the women) the rolling pin toss.

Log Sawing Competition, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

Tug of War, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

Returning down the main street we discovered the Street Games. As we arrived they were calling for women over 65 to run the 50 yard dash. Despite my best efforts, I could not get Jean to run. This was the last of the running races that had been going on for a long time. It was followed by a series of age classes of tug of war. The kids 16-19 seemed the most competitive, those 12-15 seemed to have the most fun, and those 5-7 seemed the most bewildered. We were fading fast, and did not stay for the sack races or the three legged races.

We walked back to the boat and rested up from our exertions of the day. I eventually was ready to return, but Jean declined and did some sewing on a boat canvas project. Walking back down Front Street I discovered the egg toss. This was very popular and had been going on for hours, with classes such as mother-daughter, husband-wife, etc. Picking my way through the mass of broken eggs I went to the waterfront to find that the log rolling was run by the same folks who did the logging competition, and was running close to an hour late. Eventually I enjoyed watching young people forcing each other to fall off a log into the icy water. They seemed to be having a lot of fun, but I didn’t pony up the $20 entry fee to give it a try myself.

Egg Toss, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

Considering how late things were running, I decided to head home, passing up a chance to see the hot dog eating contest and the egg roulette (whatever that is). Back on Front Street what should I find, but people still tossing eggs. They’ve been doing this for a very long time, and Lord knows how many eggs have been destroyed. There were maybe 100 people all in the center of the street, tossing eggs back and forth to each other. The current class was “friends.” Fortunately I didn’t have a friend there, so escaped without egg on my face.

Log Rolling, July 4th, Wrangell, AK

Back at the boat we had our second wonderful salmon dinner, and then waited for the fireworks. The problem, of course is that the sun doesn’t set until 10:00, and dusk lasts forever. So, though it wasn’t really dark, they felt it was dark enough to start the show at 11:30. The show was great.

So, how does this compare with Ashland? Well, it is very different. Ashland is primarily a spectator event, and people wander around and watch things and buy things. Wrangell is very much into participation. The town is filled with people doing things. Even those watching seem to go off and do something else after they’re done watching. Wrangell also makes a huge effort to have things for kids to do. I’m sure that every kid in town was there, and they all seemed to be having a great time. Wrangell spends a lot of money. They had to buy all of those eggs; the candy thrown out during the parade; there were cash prizes for most of the events - the winners of the tug-of-war each received a dollar bill; the fireworks show was bigger and better than Ashland’s; but they also had put a lot of community effort into raising the money. Ashland’s 4^th is certainly larger and more sophisticated, but they could learn a few lessons from Wrangell. Wrangell seemed to be having more fun.

Zimovia Strait, Wrangell, AK

Friday, July 5^th we finally left Wrangell. We started the day by walking downtown for breakfast, and I managed to polish off a plate of Diamond C Hash, which got me through until a very late lunch. There was no wind at first, so we motored west along the edge of the Stikine River delta, which goes from several hundred feet deep to several feet deep in a hundred yards or so. If you look on a map it might seem that you could sail north from Wrangell to get to Petersburg, but at low tide there is essentially no water there due to the river delta. Consequently it is necessary to go west and then north up Wrangell Narrows.

Wrangell, AK

We left relatively late in order to avoid a contrary flood current, but when we got past the islands and into Sumner Strait it seemed we had made an error in judgment. The wind was blowing from the west out there (the direction we wanted to go), and there was a steep 3-foot chop that we had to go into. Had we left earlier, the conditions would have been better. We sailed for a while, but the wind really wasn’t strong enough to make good progress against the waves. So we motorsailed, and eventually the chop became much less as we gained the southern part of the strait. This was a great relief as we were expecting things to get worse as the afternoon progressed. One remarkable event was the sighting of a Laysan albatross. Now I know that they are birds of the open ocean, and are not supposed to be here, but we had an excellent look as it cruised along above us; it matches the pictures in our guide books, and it’s hard to come up with an alternative for a bird the size of an eagle.

Rover, St John Harbor, AK

We eventually anchored in St John Harbor on Zarembo Island. Our guide book said this was the best anchorage in the area. Note that it did not say it was a good anchorage. There was wind coming down the river valley, and at 90-degrees there was swell from the strait making its way through the islands. It was OK, but definitely a bit more motion than we normally expect for a night anchorage.

Blueberries, St John Harbor, Zimovia Is, AK

I took Schooner for a walk on a nearby island, and it was another example of the advantage of having a dog along. Otherwise I would certainly have stayed on the boat, as there was nothing notable about the surrounding shore, and it was getting toward low tide and its attendant mud. However, the island held a number of treasures including interesting bones of a variety of animals, including a seal. The forest also had an excellent crop of blueberries. It is still tad early, but it was fun to nibble on them in search of a few ripe berries.  We had salmon for dinner for the third night in a row. Be careful what you ask for.

The next morning we made an uneventful crossing of Sumner Strait to the southern entrance of Wrangell Narrows. The name of this feature is rather odd, as it takes you to Petersburg, not to Wrangell. It is a winding, rock studded 20-mile passage that is pretty much the only way to go, so it gets lots of traffic, including the Alaska ferries, which are relatively large ships. If a large vessel hit a rock or ran aground here it would choke off most transportation in Southeast Alaska, so it is exceedingly well marked. It apparently has the highest concentration of navigational aids of any place in the country. In some parts it was like driving down a highway with a curving line of red markers on the starboard side and corresponding green markers on the port. We didn’t meet anything larger than a purse seiner (though we met a dozen of them), so the passage didn’t generate any problems for us. We also managed to time it so that we rode the flood tide halfway in, and then the ebb tide the other half out. We felt pretty smug about that.

We were tied to the dock in Petersburg by early afternoon. The contrast with Wrangell is striking. In Wrangell we were at beautiful new docks a mile from town. Here we are on crumbling docks, sinking low in the water and growing grass from the concrete cracks, and right in the middle of town. Within two blocks of the dock there are showers, laundry, groceries, a liquor store, a pharmacy, and two hardware stores – everything needed by a cruising boat.

Harbor, Petersburg, AK

The dock is snuggled up between two canneries, and there is a steady stream of boats unloading fish, while the street hums with the freezers keeping shipping containers full of seafood at zero degrees. Everything comes to and leaves from Alaska in shipping containers, and every little community has a pile of them lying somewhere. They also use them in creative ways to construct other structures. In Wrangell there was a shelter in a boatyard made of shipping containers piled thirty feet high covered with a canvas roof. In Petersburg they fill them full of their garbage, and ship them down to Washington for disposal. Instead of a landfill, they have a garbage baling facility.

The fishing business seems to be pretty international, and the small grocery store carries an amazing variety of obscure ethnic foods. Another rare find here is a shop that sells seafood! We’ll stock up before we leave, though we are limited by how long we can keep ice in our cooler.

Sing Lee Alley, Petersburg, AK

Petersburg, a town of less than 3000, was founded in the 1890’s by Norwegians, and it still carries strong evidence of that heritage. The big lodge in town is the Sons of Norway hall, which has a Viking ship out in front of it. A number of buildings in town are decorated with rosemaling, and the town is generally very tidy and clean. It clearly is pretty prosperous, as fishing is doing well, and they are not a timber town. They also don’t have any cruise ship facilities, as those ships can’t transit the Narrows to get here. That’s not to say there are no tourists; there are a lot of folks coming and going to fishing lodges.

Sons of Norway Hall, Petersburg, AK

Sunday we (that is Jean) did laundry. I would think that Laundromats should be strong proponents of the dollar coin. It takes a ridiculous number of quarters to wash and dry anything. Canada, of course, has a one dollar and a two dollar coin that are very convenient. The one dollar coin is called a “loonie” because it has a loon on one side. The two dollar coin somewhat inevitably has become a “toonie.” Canada also has recently stopped making pennies, and at the cash register now, everything is rounded off to the nearest nickel.

Hungry Point Trail, Petersburg, AK

I did some shopping at the hardware stores, and we repaired a bit of our battery charging system that had fallen apart.  It was a cloudless blue sky, and a bit hot for working outside. Eventually some clouds appeared, and we hiked uphill to the ball fields and then took a trail through a muskeg forest of dwarf pines. The views of the rugged mountains and glaciers across the sound were very nice. We saw one whale spout and dive as we walked back to town through a pleasant residential area.

Devil's Thumb from Petersburg, AK

The weather forecast is for rain and high winds tomorrow, so we’ll stay here, see some more of the town, buy groceries, and get ready to leave on Tuesday. We’re headed toward Juneau, but it will probably take us a week and a half to get there. Especially since we’re first going to go south for a bit. There are no towns between here and there, so phone and internet will be unavailable for some time.