Robert, Thursday, June 5
We both slept almost 12 hours last night. I think it was a combination of getting up early and then getting cold and wet while setting up here. I set up my computer and discovered that we had the best internet service that we have had on this trip. It is great to have wifi in a campground so that we don’t have to drive around town looking for hot spots. As this campground only has 7 spaces (in other words, it is tiny) it really surprised us that they did offer free wifi. The population of Wrangell is about 2,000. It looks like any similar sized town that does not get 10,000 tourists off of cruise ships every day. In other words, a few small bars, a couple of grocery stores, two laundromats (but one is closed), and a hardware store just about sums it up. You could walk from one end of town to the other in under 15 minutes. Cruise ships don’t come here often as it is really out of the way. There is a ship route that passes through a place called the "Wrangell Narrows" just to the north of town. We haven’t seen it yet but it is reported to be very narrow and shallow. I read one account that said you could throw rocks and hit either bank from the ferry. The ferries can handle it only at high tide but the cruise ships cannot. That means a cruise ship has to go miles out of the way when traveling to the north of here. And of course, once they get here there aren’t the hundreds of t-shirt shops and jewelry stores that seem to be preferred by the tourists. What the town is known for is being like towns in Alaska were like before the big cruise ships came. After a slow start, we did go out exploring. After last night, the weather was beautiful. The sun was out, the sky was blue, it was warm, and it was definitely short sleeve shirt weather. About 1 mile to the north of town is petroglyph beach. There are petroglyphs carved on the rocks that are on the beach. You can walk down some stairs to the beach and find a number of petroglyphs. The best time is at low tide but we were just driving around and decided to stop. The tides here run around 4 feet and it somewhere between high and low when we were there. We did manage to locate a visitor’s center so we stopped to pick up literature on Wrangell. We asked where we could buy local fresh fish in town and we were told that we couldn’t. The economy of this town is fishing and logging but nowhere can you buy fresh fish! We were told that almost everyone in town has a boat and when they want fresh fish, they go catch it. We came back "home" and set up the lawn chairs. It wasn’t too shabby just to sit in the sun and do nothing. When we made reservations at this campground, the manager told us that we would have to park in the overflow space. That meant that we were in a site that backed up to a storage shed with the office on one side and the manager’s RV on the other. While we were sitting there enjoying the sun, the manager came over and said that if we wanted to move we could have one of the regular sites. We quickly closed everything up and moved to a much better site. Out of the 7 sites, one is occupied by the manager, one by us, one from another couple from Colorado, and one from a couple from Virginia. I don’t know about the other three sites. The other couple from Colorado is from Lakewood (very close to home) and the couple from Virginia is from Lake Anna although they lived in Manassas (very close to where we lived in Fairfax) for a long time. After we moved the rig we grilled chicken for dinner. We have a small Weber gas grill. When we first got it I didn’t like it but over time I have learned how to use it. I turn it up high to heat it, put the food on it, and then turn it down to cook. Now I really like it and the chicken was great. I almost forgot, we have now been on the road for 4 weeks. In case it is not clear from our posts, we are having a great time!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wrangell Petroglyph Beach
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.
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329815_AyjK4-M.jpg
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329853_mXJrX-M.jpg
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329879_3tDe4-M.jpg
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329899_VgGDV-M.jpg
more later,
Leslie
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.
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329815_AyjK4-M.jpg
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329853_mXJrX-M.jpg
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329879_3tDe4-M.jpg
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/308329899_VgGDV-M.jpg
more later,
Leslie
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