Leslie Thursday, June 5, 2008
Today started out sunny and cool (mid-50s). We were so thankful to see the sun after the deluge of yesterday.
We’re learned that Wrangell is a very small, remote town. The population is around 2,000 people and the only cruise ships that come here are the very small ones, carrying about 100 people. Because of the Wrangell Narrows and the shallow water at low tide, large ships can’t make it to Wrangell. We were told that at low tide the delta of the Stikine River is completing out of the water. There is no real Visitor’s Center. The US Forest Service has a number of cabins and campsites on the island.
We’re really not sure what we’ll do here for 7 days although it may be our opportunity to clean and reorganize the rig. I’m still waiting for us to use all the old, brown water from our freshwater tank so that we can run baking soda through the lines. We haven’t been able to use the city water connection since Prince Rupert. The manufacturer shipped a new handle for the water system to us here in Wrangell 10 days ago but it has not yet arrived. Express mail has a different meaning in the wilds of Alaska. We hope that it will arrive before we leave here.
Our tourist activity today was a trip to Petroglyph Beach located a mile north of town. This beach is at the mouth of the Stikine River. The Stikine River served as the entry into the interior of Alaska and northern Canada for many different peoples. (Until construction of the ALCAN Highway in the 1940s, the water route was the only route into the interior.)
Archeologists believe that the petroglyphs were made in the last 10,000 years but before the arrival of the Tlingit people who were the occupants when the British arrived. There is some theory that the petroglyphs were made here to thank the salmon for providing food - or alternatively to stake a claim to the fishing grounds.
The petroglyphs we found we located on the dark rocks along the waterline. We were told that more petroglyphs are visible at low tide. We'll likely go back later.
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more later,
Leslie
2 comments:
According to wrangell.com there is a lot to do there including a bear observatory
If you read the Chamber of Commerence stuff, there is a lot to do here, There is as much to do as there is in any town with 2,000 people who are mostly engaged in commercial fishing and logging. There are tours to the Stikine River and to the Anan Bear Observatory. However, the bear tours haven't started yet as the salmon haven't started running up the rivers. The bears show up in numbers on the rivers and streams when the salmon tun. Before that they are scattered in the bush at something like one per 10 square miles. When they are in the bush you are lucky to see any.
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