wrangell - alaska
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My earliest memory of Wrangell was when one of the local salmon canneries
caught fire and burnt to the water level in 1947, it was located where today
youll find the Alaska Marine Highway ferry dock. The last time I was in
Wrangell I did notice that the canneries old Filipino bunkhouse, with its sagging
roof was still standing.My next memories are of the glorious 4 th of July parades and celebrations the
community held every year, my grandmother Anna Hunter Person, a full-
blooded Tlingit women from Angoon would deck out my sister (Gloria) and I in
full Tlingit regalia and wed join the other children in various costumes and
parade through town, wondering why all the parents where so excited to see
their curtain climbers, most of us with our fingers stuck in our mouths are other
unmentionable appendages. Of course, we were a little young to realize that
the parents were happy with surviving the previous evening, with some a bit
hung-over from the 3 rd of July celebration at the dance and the crowning of the
4 th of July queen for the year. All-in-all Wrangells 4 th of July celebrations were
the social event of the year, and I doubt even to this year will you find
anywhere else on this planet a more exciting place to be to celebrate the birth
of the United States of America.
When I write, I often assume that my readers are knowledgeable of what I
write about, so let me define the region of the world where I reached the legal
age of 18 some years ago.
As a local, I like others of my ilk often had a hoot responding to the
questions we were asked by the tourists that would come ashore off the Alaska
Stream and Canadian tourist boats, and wander about our peaceful town. As I
scramble through my memories of these wide-eyed visitors I now realize their
fascination with their journey through a portion of Sewards Icebox, whereas
what little they had learned in their life before they sailed the pristine waters of
the Inside Passage was cast aside, their physical being taking in the
magnificent landscape unfolding before their eyes, they couldnt help but think
they had stepped back in time. Even today once you step outside of the
physical presence of a major area and take a stroll on an island beach, or up a
wild and wooly mountain side there is a good chance that no one has been
there before you you and the past of the 49 th State merge as whispering
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breezes fill you head with sights and sounds that contain legend after legend of
the humans whose footsteps you now follow.
At the mouths of small streams you hear the playing children of the families
who followed the migrating salmon filling their larders for the up-coming cold-
wet winters, you can hear the women laughing as they boil huge Russian madepots, or back further cedar crafted water proof baskets being dipped in boiling
water in a pit of lined glacier made rocks, heated with stones from a nearby
fire pit.
Later that evening youd hear the men of the clan discussing the voyage back
to their permanent settlement, across sometimes waters that were as
unpredictable as a new bride.
Sydney Laurence Going to the Potlatch
John Muir in his book, Travels in Alaska put to the pen the beauty of the
Inside Passage in Southeast Alaska, we he wrote; Some idea of the wealth of
this scenery may be gained from the fact that the coast-line of Alaska is about
twenty-six thousand miles long (note it is over 33,000 miles long), more thantwice as long as al the rest of the United States. The islands of the Alexander
Archipelago, with the straits, channels, canals, sounds, passages and fiords,
form an intricate web of land and water embroidery sixty or seventy miles
wide, fringing the lofty ice chain of Coast Mountains from Puget Sound to Cook
Inlet .
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Where God goes for Vacation This is the land I call home, a place that charms the hearts of visitors (if they
come in July or August), and at times the ire of its residents. It a calm and
boring sort of life, in that there are no hurricanes, no violent Pacific storms lash
its tree lined shoreline, and murders and other sort of mayhem are in short
supply. In other words it is small town America with the presence of nature
lurking around every corner and but a few steps off the main thoroughfare.
If youre of the nature that you demand 24/7 excitement and glitz, dont
apply! Just like if you required buckets of vitamin D from our friendly heater inour Solar System it shows it face so seldom that when it does the local
natives believe they have done some wrong, how else can I explain the fact
that when I was growing up and the sun broke through the low hanging clouds,
picnics were packed and children tucked under their arms as the grownups
shuttled us out the local cemetery beach.
Other than what is listed, Wrangell was a terrific place to sprout your wings,
just wish I had realized that when I was making life a bit worrisome for my
folks, grandparents include. I was fortunate to be of two families that loved thesea, who thought nothing of chugging off into the sunset, or rousting me out of
bed in the wee hours of the morning to go drop a hook someplace chasing the
mighty salmon or the bottom hugging halibut. In my usual complaints I often
made reference to the fact that the fish never developed and appetite for other
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smaller fish until around ten in the morning, so why the four AM wakeup. It
always fell on deaf ears!
On one side of the family tree we had age old fishermen, men who fished the
surrounding area in all season and all types of weather, while off-season some
of them in the dead of winter ran trap lines. The other side of the family treeyoud find cannery workers, ministers and shop keepers or like myself still in
limbo of what we were going to do when the calling came. Myself I was too
excited about learning anything squeezed between four walls, other than
participating in an activity such as music or leaning against a wall someplace
thinking up a reason for being alive that day. Dont get me wrong, I had some
terrific teachers, whereas I wasnt that interested in art our art teacher who
filled in as our history teacher had more stories and adventures than Mark
Twain, which I believe peeked my interest in history. An interest that today
runs amok whenever I travel to a foreign land speaking of such, it is this
constant fleetof-foot to travel that has rekindled by memories of Wrangell,
that sleepy town that has the historic privilege of being the only town in Alaska
to have flown under four flags, the Tlingit, Russian, English and the country
from which I have my passport the United States of America.
We all lived and maintained in a small town located on the northern tip of Wrangell Island, one island of many in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast
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Alaska, commonly referred to by other residents of our 49 th State as the
Banana Belt. The island is some 30-miles long and ranges from 3 to 14 miles
wide, making it the 29 th largest island in these here United States, an island
that is separated from the North American continent by a 12-mile long strip of
water marked on the charts as Blake Channel, locals have adopted the name
Back Channel. If it is your desire to step off the island you wont find gently
rolling hills headed east, whereas almost immediately youll bump into the
Coastal Range a line of peaks and ice filled valley that stretch from the tip of
the southeast panhandle all the way down to Vancouver British Columbia. I
find it interesting that to most outsiders the compliant of the isolation they
experience in southeast Alaska, whereas they find that their journey into the
region of the persistent clouds brings about a serious depression within their
subconscious. Albeit I never personally felt this, I did notice in the people that
moved into the Puget Sound area from, lets say California, experienced a
similar attitude when in came to the Seattle region. I would believe that most
people who have grown up in the Panhandle of Southeast Alaska that their
bodies have adjusted to the misty area one benefit being skin cancer is less.
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Access to the interior is through the many rivers that have cut through the
ranges, rivers such as the Stikine River, a river that has made Wrangell
infamous in its history, whereas Wrangell is considered the Gateway to the
Stikine.
Wrangell has a long and colorful history, first settled by the Tlingit people far
back in history, and is noted as being sighted by James Johnstone, one of
George Vancouver officers during his 1791-1795 expeditions, it is also noted he
only charted its east coast and did not realize that the
Wrangell Island was actually an island. The Russians
were the first Europeans to set up camp in Wrangell in
their quest to rid the land of its valuable furs, and put a
halt to the British fleet sailing in and trading for the furs
from the local indigenous peoples. In and around 1834
they established Fort Redoubt and eventually named
the location after Baron Ferdinand Friedrich Georg Ludwig von Wrangel, a
Baltic German explorer in the service of Tzar and the founder of the Russian
Geographical Society on August 6 th , 1845 in St Petersburg.
As in pre-historic times the location of Wrangell made it an ideal place for
traveling into the interior of North America via the Stikine River, which by the
time the Europeans moved in was a well worn route used by the coastal
Indians. The Stikine (Stickeen) is approximately 390 miles long with its mouth
just a short distance northeast of Wrangell, today it is considered as one of the
last truly wild major rivers in British Columbia, a river that drains a rugged,
largely pristine, area of the Coastal Mountains, cutting a fast-flowing swath
through the mountains and rolling hills and valleys that are full of wild game
and historical tales of mystery and Indian legends. The Tlingits have a legend
of their beginnings in the area, the product of their people floating the mighty
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Stikine under the Ice from the last Ice Age glacial maximum that covered the
coastal regions of North America.
Like other towns and cities in the 49 th State Wrangell has experienced its
boom and bust cycles, the first in recent times being the Cassiar Gold Rush
which took place shortly after William Henry Seward convinced Congress, afterbeing re-approached by the Russians, to purchase the territory.
The expense of the Crimean War (1853-1856) has seriously depleted the
Russian treasury, in addition the Tsar and his boys felt they were going to loose
their claim in Alaska due to the growing British and French population in British
Columbia supported by a continuing discovery of gold in the British colony in
this the Russians figured that with the growing population and the presence of
the well backed Hudson Bay Trading Company (mostly owned by the Crown),
that defending their position in Alaska would be very difficult if not a loosing
battle so they decide to dump it.
Based on this premise Tsar Alexander II flipped coin (tongue in cheek) and
decided to sell the territory, both the British and the Americans were
approached, the British expressed very little interest, when they offered to sell
it in 1859, but the Civil War brought the negotiations to it is kneesat the end
of the War the Tsar sent word to the Russian foreign minister in Washington
DC, Eduard de Stoeckl to re-enter the negotiations with Secretary Seward. In
the beginning of March 1867, where it took
until March 30 th , 1867, which after an all-
night session that at 4 AM a treaty was
endorsed that set the purchase price at
$7.2 million dollars, the extra $200,000 is
said to have been to assist Stoeckl in
paying off the Senators who had said
theyd agree to the purchase they havent change have they?
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The Original Check
The community of Wrangell grew during the boom in the early 1870s of the
discovery of some pretty extensive placer gold deposits in and around Dease
Lake and its two primary tributaries, McDame and Thibert Creek, and yet being
what they really were the boom played out by 1880, the Cassiar Gold Rush
slowly faded away.
The next boom was the discovery of large quantities of the yellow stuff on
August 16 th , 1896 in the Yukon. Fever once again ran rampant as over 100,000
prospectors headed for the Klondike Gold Strike, once again pushing Wrangell
into the limelight as a jumping off place
via the Stikine Trail, which was sold as the
only practical way to the Klondike, purely
an advertising ploy. As many as 10,000
prospectors were in and out of the sleepy
little trading post, where some never
made it past Cottonwood Island where a
ragged crew of at least 1,000 spent a
miserable winter in 1897-1898 waiting for
the spring breakuptheir encampment was referred to as Stikine City with
traces of it wiped out during the following spring. Nevertheless the residents of
Wrangell were subjected to steamer after steamer unloading men from the
lower-48 with visions of wealth (some pudding) dancing before their eyes
only to sit out the winter in abject misery.
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The infamous Wyatt Earp and his wife Josie made a stop over in Wrangell for
ten-days during the Gold Rush, whereas it is recorded that when the steamer
was docking he saw the Marshall standing on the dock he figured he was going
to issue one of Wyatts warrants
against him, turned out he was anacquaintance and asked Wyatt to be
his deputy until the next ship arrived
that was heading up the Inside
Passage to Skagway. In his notes
later on Wyatt described Wrangell a
boom town that was just like Hell-on-
Wheels, a description in those days
used to describe the unruly camps as portrayed across the west associated
with the Union Pacific rail lines headed west. Notes that Ive been able to
gather showed that approximately 5,000 prospectors entered the Klondike
region via the Stikine Trail.
The gold rush in Alaska had hardly settled down when the Salmon took the
lead as the next money maker for the elites in the Salmon fishing industry,
whereas it was Henry Frederick Fortman (out of San Francisco, owner of the
Arctic Packing Company) who ran the Alaska Packing Association (1891) later
re-incorporated as the Alaska Packers Association in 1893, dear old Henry was
the chief cook and bottle washer until 1922 and remained on its board until his
demise in 1946.
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APA Cannery in Wrangell end of the north end road
Canned salmon morphed into the largest industry in Alaska during the next
few decades, as once again Wrangell boomed as it was situated at a then
healthy Stikine River with all its salmon rich tributaries. Salmon grew to
produce over 80% of the territorys tax revenues, and in providing employment
that was the envy of some locations in the lower-48. In this the APA swung a
big hammer when it came to political clout both in the territories capital Juneau
and in the hall of Congress in Washington DC, especially where the industry
was being regulate by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries which was part of
the US Dept of Commerce as today absolute control that they had put a great
many of local Alaskan
residents up-on-step as they
viewed the APA as being
greedy, selfish and ruthless in
their operationsthis
especially true of its operations
in Bristol Bay the Klondike of the Alaska Salmon industry.
Today we complain about corporations and their tax credits, in 1907 the
APA canned over $3 million worth of salmon, but thanks to their tax credits
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achieved with their hatchery releases that total over $32,000 their tax bill for
that year was $0.32 they paid it with stamps.
Salmon was King
APA was not without its good points, where their cannery hospitals provided
medical care for its workers and among the local Native population, one
particular instance being during the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic that
ravaged western Alaska in the spring of 1919, where they provided assistancein treating the sick, and in burying the ones who didnt make, and caring for
the orphaned children this after the Federal government had turned its back
on the pleas for help. One Navy Lieutenant on inspecting the situation in
Bristol Bay reported that the conditions were satisfactory, prompting the
cannery superintendent JC Bell to remark, We have not been able to fathom
whether the conditions are satisfactory for them or the Natives who are dead
and buriedand as usual the job is up to the Alaska Packers Association.
The APA is best remember as using the last fleet of tall ships, albeit theromance of the visions of sailing across the bounding main had faded, APA
working in an environment dictated by seasons realized that using sail rather
than steam was a great way to economize their operations. In this they began
to replace their wooden ships with iron-hulled sailing vessels, where the first
purchased was the Star of Russia , liking the handle so much they named the
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rest of their purchases likewise, the Star of Alaska , Star of Finland and the ill
fated Star of Bengal .
Growing up in the region, one realizes once youre out of the protection of the
numerous island the weather is unpredictable and that the closer you get to
the Gulf of Alaska it can turn pretty violenton September 20 th , 1908 the Star of Bengal with a full end-of-the-
season cannery crew and over
52,000 cases of 1-pound cans of
salmon on board was towed out
of Wrangell, when they reached
the limit of the islands and their
protection a gale blew up the Star of Bengal dropped its hook as the tugboats
cut their lines, unfortunately the anchor dragged and the ship broke up on the
rocks of Coronation Island, 111 people lost their lives that day, mostly Chinese
and Japanese cannery workers.
Star of Bengal
Wrangell-1908
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By 1900, 30 canneries were operating in Southeast Alaska, all owned and
operated by corporations outside of Alaska, mainly in Portland, San Francisco,
Seattle and Boston, whereas the firm in San Francisco controlled six of them
statewide. The 1900 salmon shipped out of Alaska amounted to 21,918,672
one pound cans, in addition 27 salmon salt operations put up 21,121 barrels of Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Chinook) and sockeye, each barrel containing 200
pound of fish.
Growing up in a family of commercial fisher man I sat through many family
dinners listing to the experiences and exploits of the men in the family, and
that of some of my Aunts. It most always would come down to the methods
used by the canneries, methods that they said would eventually deplete the
fishing industry they were correct in their complaints.
Salmon were harvested through a wide array of methods by the canneries,
and the local independent fishermen, who sold to the canneries. Gillnets and
seines were used, along with a few traditional ways of spearing and fish wheels
in the streams, yet eventually the canneries took over the traditional streams
that had been in Tlingit families for many, many years and since the Tlingit had
never filed a proper piece of legal document stating their claim the
organizations from the lwr-49 barricaded the stream and put in large fish traps,
patrolling them with their own salmon police supported by the Federal and
Territorial government. It wasnt too long that some of the smaller streams
were completely decimated by the methods of the canneries.
Albeit as far back as 1884, when the Organic Act was passed especially for
Alaskan Natives that stated, Indianshall not be disturbed in the possession
of any lands actually in their use for occupation or now claimed by them,
there was NO Federal action to enforce that intent.
By 1907, 22 canneries were operating in Southeast, using the traditional
methods as previously mentioned, but to include 40 very large salmon traps. A
year before a new federal law was passed that gave the Secretary of
Commerce only minimal authority to regulate Alaska salmon harvest; any
reforms brought before the Congress or other agencies of the government
were slammed to the ground by the powerful salmon lobby.
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By 1924, there were 65 canneries operating in Southeast, and increase of
195%, and there were 351 very large salmon traps, and increase of 777% over
1907.
Between 1906 and 1923, 42 separate pieces of
Federal Legislation addressing the Alaska salmonfisheries were introduced in Congress, and over a
dozen in-depth hearing were held on the subject,
but in spite of the mounting evidence of the need
for stronger conservation measure, not a SINGLE
piece of legislation passed making it obvious the
canned salmon industry was just to strong.
As usual with big industry, it wasnt until after the 1 st
World War had ended and the canned salmon prices took a
nose dive, whereas the supply outpaced the demand that
the canned salmon industry became receptive to
regulations that might limit the salmon harvest as long
as the overall interests of the cannery owners and
operators was protected.
It was in 1921 when a Wrangell man whose family had a
long history in the region, William Paul a long-time member of the Alaska NativeBrotherhood, and the lawyer that fought the case for Chief Shakes (Charlie Jones) for his
right to vote (and won) testified in Congress on the negative impacts of fish traps and the
absentee owners of the salmon industry, he not only fought for the Native fisherman but
spoke in favor off all independent fisher in Southeast. He explained that the cannery-
owned fish traps had displaced the livelihoods of both the Native and the non-Native
population, creating terrific hardships on their families and that the traps were one of the
primary reasons that the runs were fading away. At the end of his testimony he stressed that
the conservation of the salmon in addition to the social and economic needs of the Alaska
residents.
A building strong anti-trap sentiment was ramping up in Southeast, whereas 95% if not
100% of the local population understood their impact on the salmon fisheries, sooner than
expected the fish traps became the symbol representing the Outside domination of the
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Territory to the detriment of Alaskans. In reality the traps were looked upon by most
Alaskans as the dipper with which the large absentee owners appeared to skim with
hardly any effort at all the cream of one of the regions most valuable natural resource
a resource that not only provide a direct source of a dinner staple, but money to advance
their position in the cash-based society, in addition the spent salmon after laying its eggs
died and their rotting corpses fed the animals and the habitat along the streams truly the
salmon was a huge contributor to the Southeast Alaska environment.
As time went by, the failure of the Federal Government reinforced a strong anti-federal
spirit, whereas the fisheries domination buy outside interests became a rally cry for
statehood advocates.
In closing the salmons controversial role in Wrangell history, we find that as usual the
distant governing of the resource, based on inadequate research and lack of localmanagement the resource faded from the high economic value it once enjoyed. Albeit
salmon prices rebounded after the Great Depression, where the high prices coupled with an
increased canned production, resulted in a year-by-year taking of the salmon especially
sales to the US military for inclusion in their field rations. The salmon pack peaked in
1947 at 4.3 million cases and then began its decline however the market is said to have
been established. Prices remained strong and rose due to the increased demand and the
reduction of supply, which only worked to increase the taking of the resource.
In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower declared the Alaska salmon fishery a Federal
Disaster and called for a major rebuilding effort, to no avail the pack continued to decline,
reaching an all-time low in 1959 the year Alaska joined old Glory as one of the stars in
its field of blue.
The
decline of this industry was the era in which I grew my wings, and having one
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side of the family heavily engaged in the salmon industry, while the other was
associated with its canneries, on top of having a grandmother who would
regularly voice her opinion I, from the perspective of a young person watched
the death of a great Tlingit tradition salmon.
Wrangells lumber industry holds the Alaskan record for the most years of
continuous operation at 122-years, a record that began in 1889 when Captain
Thomas A Wilson and Rufus Sylvester built a mill in the center of town.
Although its first year production was behind the mill in Juneau and Father
Duncans mill in Metlakatla, the 1,000,000 board feet grew over the years to
give Wrangell the distinction of being the largest producing mill along the
Pacific north coast. The owners were paying around $3 to $5 per log, as found
or towed from the beach where the loggers had placed them.
During the next 11-years, in 1900, the Wrangell mill was out producing 13
other mills in Alaska, with its annual output for the year at 3.23 million board
feet, 39.7% of the total output in Southeast Alaska, a percentage they
maintained for the following years.
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It seems that fire is no stranger to Wrangell, whereas a blaze in 1906 ran
willy-nilly through the business district, missing the mill, where it was reported
that early the next Monday it began sawing lumber that would be used to
reconstruct the town. In 1918 the mill itself was a victim of a fire that
destroyed the planning mill and the boxfactory, where it was noted that for almost 30-
years the mill had been Wrangells steadfast
revenue provider for the town, whereas the
absence of the monthly payroll would be
greatly missed. The mill was rebuilt and up
and running in less than one year!
The Tongass spruce is of a closer grain,
consequently stronger than any other member
of the Spruce family on the American
continent, which made it a high-demand
product in the early days of aviation. Buyers
from airplane manufactures in England and America picked it as the primary
wood in airplane construction, except for the production of propellers. The mill
also became a major supplier of box lumber, or shooks, for the use of shipping
canned salmon to the outside, which continued right up until cardboard boxes
pushed them out of the marketplace after WWII.
In 1926 the mill, enjoying the title of being the largest business in town,
changed becoming involved with supplying power to the town subsequently its
name changed to the Wrangell Lumber and Power Company, after it had the
franchise for the City of Wrangell. It was also reported that the oldest sawmill
in Alaska was in the process of building a new deep-water-dock some 60 by
600, making it possible to load ocean going vessels.
It was back in 1905 that Agriculture Secretary James Wilson created the
Forest Service, along with three principals 1) Sustained yield, 2) Multiple use,
and 3) Protection of local communities. It was six years later in 1911 that the
Forest Service adopted the practice of clear cutting as the best and most
consistent silvicultural system, in other words as pointed out in a 1972
brochure that by removing all of the timber in an area allows sunlight to reach
the forest floor. Whereby the added heat and light enhances the growth of
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both trees and permits the deer population easy access for food. To support
their belief they told us that partial removal left shade that retards the
growth of trees and the access by the wild life, and since Hemlock is more
shade tolerant than Spruce, the new growth would be mostly Hemlock. They
further postulated that leaving mature and over-mature timber standing willincrease the risk of insect and disease problems in the young-growth. It was
their intent in this pragmatic attitude, to create a fully integrated timber
manufacturing industry in their work-up to offering long-term timber contracts
that included a requirement to construct a pulp mill. Which they had offered
in years prior to the issuance of the 1972 brochure.
It was in 1913 that they offered a 300 million board foot timber sale on the
Stikine River along with a billion board foot sale in the Behm Canal region, no
bids were received.
After WWII, the mill operated intermittently along with changing hands
several times, no more fish box manufacture, the military contracts had dried
up, and aluminum had replaced spruce for aircraft construction. Hey,
remember Howard Hughes Spruce Goose, to all this add the Puget Sound
region shipping via an improved transportation, wood products competing in a
market place in Southeast that had been dominated by local sawmills.
It was in 1947 when President Harry give em hell Truman signed the
Tongass Timber Act, which contained the authorization of the USFS to enter
into 50-year timber sales contracts, these longer term contract permitted
investors the ability to amortize the large cost of building a Pulp Mill. It was
the Pacific Northern Timber Company that contracted for a 28-year supply of
timber from around Wrangell whereas their contract required the
construction of a pulp mill or chipping mill.
In addition, Japan was rebuilding after WWII, where it had lost access to the
heavily forested islands to Russia and their forests had been attacked with
vigor in their effort to support their construction during the war of
infrastructure destroyed by US bombing.
The era that most of you reading this from Wrangell began when regulations
were relaxed that allowed the shipment of raw logs to Japan, and the transfer
of ownership from CT Takahashi, a Seattle businessman who had purchased
the mill at a barebones price in a bankruptcy action in 1949. In 1953, under
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the command of Tadao Sasayama (who worked or General McArthurs staff in
Tokyo) Alaska Lumber and Pulp was actively preparing to construct a pulp mill
in Stika thereby it leased and later purchased the Wrangell sawmill in 1954
it wasnt until 1955 after being modified that the mill began sawing lumber.
The operation was renamed to Wrangell Lumber Company, and it was on January 28 th that the town heard for the first time the end of work steam
whistle at 5 PMthe population ceased whatever they were doing, after-all it
was the first time that they had heard the whistle in great number of years
Wrangell was back!
The 60s saw a new market for the mill in Wrangell, where an upward spiraling
economy in Japan increased their reliance on Alaska timber, used in home
construction and industrial development like other operations in the
Southeast, the majority of the products shipped overseas were in the form of
raw logs are rough sawed cants or dissolving pulp. In 1970 the sawn wood
exports to Japan had increased from 67 billion board feet (MMB) in 1965 to 315
MMBF in 1970 a huge amount being shipped out of Wrangell.
Wrangells lumber exports continued to increase throughout the 60s, peak in
1973, and went into a minor decline until 1985, where the exports dropped as
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a result of the sharp decline in the number of Japanese housing starts, this
coupled with the change in Japanese building practices that showed a
remarkable decrease in wood-based housesit is also noted that the lumber
producers in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia were exporting their
lumber to Japan. Over-all Alaskas exports between 1973 and 1985 fell bysome 78%, compared to the Japanese use falling some 22%, the large
decrease evidence of the competition from the lwr-48 and British Columbia.
There are a number of reasons, besides the reduced demand in Japan that
affected the Wrangell mills demise, not of which was the new rules and
regulations of the USFS, and the signing of Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1981 by President Jimmy Peanut Farmer
Carter. The act established additional Wilderness and National Monuments in
Southeast that effectively reduced the area of the Tongass that could be
logged. Although the act was originally sold as a salvation to the Tongass, and
to insure that it did not harm the existing timber industry, it mandated that the
Forest Service be allowed to offer 450 million board feet of saw log timber
annually.
All the new Federal regulations, along with the 1971 award by the
government that created the Native Corporations and the extensive logging of
their newly acquired lands were but a temporary reprieve to the Wrangell Mill,
which finally shut it operation down. It had gone from its first shipment of 3.2
million board feet on the Kosho Mauru in July of 1955 to when it was closed in
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1984, with its operations transferred to the new mill in Shoemaker Bay. Which
had the largest output capacity of any mill in Alaska, whereas the production of
400,000 board feet in one day was achieved on a frequent basis, producing a
full shipload every two weeks. The closure of the town mill ended 93-years of
lumber production at the site, a huge piece of Wrangells history was anotherlegend for the campfires.
Shoemaker Bay Mill
The tourist industry in Wrangell was a large part of my growing up, when the
liners of Alaska Steam and the Canadian Pacific Railroad would send a burst of
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steam to their whistles, my grandmother and I were already walking down the
seawall with me pulling her red wagon stacked full of handmade moccasins,
setting up our stand in front of Benjamins store front. Id pickup my box of
carefully wrapped flowers and my small selection of garnets and we sit quietly
by as the tourists strolled by, some stopping to pick through the moccasins,with the usual questions running from where can I find these someplace in the
lwr-49 or British Columbia, to where do you get these pretty black rocks.
During the off-season my grandmother, Anna Person, took a week to make a
pair, sowing all by hand including the moccasin tops, at a push with my
grandfather, Olaf Person, and I giving what assistance we were capable of,
shed manage two a week. She sold each pair at a price ranging from $7.50 to
$10.00, which when you think about was close to slave labor.
Later as part of the Wrangell Pep Band wed greet each and every ship, rain
or shine sometimes I was caught unloading shrimp and would plop myself
down next to Jack and Don smelling like a box of shrimp which was fine the
shuffle to get down wind gave me plenty of room to stomp my feet and strain
my lungs. What a lively bunch we were, John on the baritone, Terry on the
Sousa, Trudy on the Clarinet, Patsy on her Sax along with Elaine. And Alta and
Leon slipping the slides of their trombones back and forth as we punched out
one of Dixieland numbers my favorite, and still is, When the Saints Go
Marching In, funny
with the exception of a
few there not too many
saints in our group. I
know I left out a few
names, Chicky, Tito,
Sam, Dorothy, Jamiel,
but Im getting on and
Ill stick by that. It is
safe to say we had more fun than the crowd that always gathered to greet the
shipeven though from time-to-time they exclaimed we were the best, why
not we were locals. .
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One time one of the ships had David Niven and Johnny Mercer on board, and
it was through their efforts that Manhattan Beach H/S near LA sent us boxes of
band uniforms, plums and all one fall it was Christmas in the Band Room.
At the time, the scariest time in my life was when my mother saw me off
during the 2 nd week in August 1963 headed outside to school, I looked out of
the windows of the goose as I flew south to a world Id had only read about
or seen in a news reel. I was leaving
a place that had sheltered me fromthe rest of the planet, cloud covered
though it may have been a great deal
of time, it was a quiet region of the
world that throughout my life would
remain as my pillar, grounding me whenever it seemed that things were
going sideways. When I finally deplaned in Los Angeles my immediate thought
was to turn around and head back to that life of shrimp and crab, and the
solitude one felt walking home in the evening as the drizzle found its way downthe back of your neck.
Albeit this part of my life was over, the memories would remain forever home was
Wrangell a far distant outpost of humanity where everyone knew your name.