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The MV Taku will be available as a hotel ship in Wrangell for the Chief Shakes Tribal House rededication event set for May 2-4. The ferry will arrive at the city dock in Wrangell midday on Thursday, May 2 and will be available to provide nightly accommodations starting at 4:00pm. The vessel will depart Wrangell on Sunday, May 5, and checkout will be required by 11:00 a.m. No food or beverage service will be available on the vessel and the service schedule of the Taku will be held in a restricted status within the AMHS reservations system so...
With the rededication of the Chief Shakes Tribal House only a month away, two local women who are blood descendants of Chief Shakes VI, the second to last leader of the Native community in Wrangell, are remembering him with their memories and a pre-1940 Potlatch photo of the Chief, who was born George Shakes in 1878. Nellie Gunderson-Lewis Torgramsen, the granddaughter of Chief Shakes VI, was born in 1932 in Wrangell and is related to him through her mother Margaret, grandmother Minnie Snook, an...
The final touches on the Chief Shakes Tribal House are currently underway in preparation for the May 3-4 rededication ceremony on the island – and last week saw a colossal parade of students from Wrangell High School and the Native community down Front Street to restore a pair of cedar house posts to their rightful place in the Tribal House. The posts, which were carved by Steve Brown and Wayne Price, traveled from the James and Elsie Nolan Center in a flatbed trailer and were accompanied by m...
The traditional cedar screen that will adorn the face of the renovated Chief Shakes Tribal House will spring from bare wood beginning this week – and give colorful life to the new building, courtesy of master carver Steve Brown and his crew of adzers. According to Brown, the past week saw the cedar used on the screen adzed, joined and the traditional design drawn on its face courtesy of some high-tech methods. “We’re wrapping up the adzing of the boards and the surface will have the same hand-...
Master carver Steve Brown adzes a cedar plank that will ultimately become part of the screen for the renovated Chief Shakes Tribal House. Carving and painting of the assembled screen is set to take place over the next few weeks....
A “bridge” can be both a noun and a verb – and at Wrangell’s Chief Shakes Island it is both a literal and figurative example of what a bridge can be. The footbridge connecting Shakes Island to Wrangell Island is currently undergoing a facelift, with new handrails and planks being installed by the same crew that renovated the Tribal House during the past year. It’s the bridge’s connection between landmasses – and the action of bridging the past with the present – that Wrangell Cooperative Ass...
With less than four months remaining until the rededication of Shakes Island and the Chief Shakes Tribal House, the Wrangell Cooperative Association is at a make-or-break moment when it comes to housing a group of 1,000-plus guests and dignitaries who will visit the island May 3-4. According to WCA Board of Directors member Ken Hoyt, a number of spaces have been filled, primarily by reserving nearly every room in the Stikine Inn, Diamond C Hotel, and Alaskan Sourdough Lodge, as well as a number of bed and breakfasts and private homes. It’s s...
A new mayor, renovations to the Shakes Island Tribal House and Marine Service Center, and the ongoing Wrangell Medical Center debate – all of these stories were newsmakers in 2012. Let’s take a look back at some of the biggest stories in Wrangell over the past year. JANUARY A late night blaze destroyed a trailer and sent a woman to Wrangell Medical Center with severe burns on Dec. 22. The fire, which began at 10:30 p.m. in a small pull-behind trailer near the top of the park, severely inj...
Construction on the Chief Shakes Tribal House wrapped up on Friday, Dec. 14 as the rebuilding effort marked a major milestone with an open house and the official completion of work in an effort that took a year to finish and cost just around $1 million. The cedar structure, which was the home of Chief Shakes VII, the last leader of the Wrangell tribe, began its transformation in 2011 and has seen a brand new house rise in the place of the former. Todd White, a lifelong Wrangell resident, is the...
Gladys Gunderson, Shtax’ héen Kwáan, passed away on November 27, 2012 with her family by her side. Gladys was born in Klawock, on August 20, 1927 to Ester Williams Roberts and George Roberts. She was one of eight children, including sisters Eleanor, Irene, Mamie, Romaine, and brothers Theodore, Leonard, and Harold. Gladys grew up in Klawock and then moved to Sitka in 1954 where she worked at the Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital, where she met Gilbert Gunderson who also worked there. As Gilbert moved bac...
A group of 15 participants gathered last weekend at Wrangell High School’s wood shop to cut and form traditional wooden paddles for use in the rededication of Chief Shakes Island in May of next year. The workshop, which will produce 30 paddles to be used by Wrangell’s delegation to the event, was the brainchild of Shane Gillen and SEARHC natural foods specialist Ken Hoyt. “We had a pretty good turnout,” Hoyt said. “We had both Brian and Doug Chilton who are master carvers from Juneau and Angoo...
The Chief Shakes Tribal House renovation is almost done after a yearlong crawl towards completion – and a new, permanent carving shed is almost ready to be built adjacent to the SNO Building on Front Street in downtown. The Shakes structure is beginning to look like a near finished product, with foundation, wall and roof construction wrapping up in the past few weeks. Finishing the interior will still take at least two more months, though, and some of the house’s artwork, including the scr...
A debate over whether to cut down one of the oldest trees on Chief Shakes Island was temporarily resolved last week after the Wrangell Cooperative Association Board of Directors voted recently to remove it – and the issue was brought up for discussion during the WCA general membership meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 14. The tree, a cottonwood that is estimated by local botanist Glen Decker to be approximately 100 years old, sits on the northwestern corner of the island, adjacent to the location of t...
A late stretch of warm, fall weather saw the new Chief Shakes Tribal House roof up in a matter of days – and it wasn’t long before the weather switched, with cool, clear days giving way eventually to rain and some heavy winds. “We’re still standing,” said Project Manager Todd White. “Take a look at the new foundation, massive logs and water tight roof, and you wonder what it’d actually take to make even a scratch in the awesome building. The interior remains bone-dry, thanks to a beefed up roof system.” In addition to the classic cedar p...
Linda Churchill and Suzie Kasinger show off a quartet of traditional lanterns taken from the interior of the Chief Shakes Tribal House that they recently cleaned and repainted. The lanterns were last used for the 1940 Potlatch and will be put in place for the Shakes rededication this coming May. From front to back: The Raven, The Bear, and a pair of unidentified creatures....
Nov. 14, 1912: Considerable uneasiness is felt here for the safety of “Capt. Kidd” a well known Wrangell character, who with his daughter, went up the Stikine to the Hot Springs some six weeks ago and who have not been heard from since. From all information gathered they must have been out of provisions for a week. Deputy Marshal, Schnabel made an attempt to get up the river Saturday on the Black Fox but the slush ice was running too strong and the party was obliged to turn back. Efforts are being made to have Chief Shakes and some of his brave...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association has released the tentative schedule of events for the Rededication of Shakes Island set for May 3-4, 2013. Beginning on Friday, May 3 a noontime parade through downtown, as well a children’s regalia contest and canoe races will take place. A bingo tournament and Native dancing is set for that evening beginning at 7 p.m. with a location as yet to be determined. On Saturday the events will begin in earnest with the “One People Canoe Society” making a landi...
BERT STEDMAN (R) Why are you running for this seat in the Alaska State Senate? I’m running for re-election to continue building a positive future for Southeast. We have many needs in our region such as living wage jobs, access to resources, affordable energy and reliable transportation to name a few. As other regions in the state grow in population, Southeast Alaska is losing representation in the legislature. Therefore, it is extremely important that we elect effective, results-oriented legislators to represent our interests in Juneau. My n...
If estimates of expected attendance hold true, the population of Wrangell could increase by 25 percent or more in May 2013 – during the rededication of Chief Shakes Tribal House. The numbers of expected visitors, which has been calculated by Tis Peterman of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, could equal between 700-1,000 participants from across Alaska and the lower-48. Because of this projection, the hunt for housing so many visitors to the borough is on with a vengeance. “So far we...
The family of Kaawishté, also known as Chief Shakes V, visited Wrangell last week and was treated to a trip to Shakes Island and the Tribal House and the hospitality of the Wrangell Cooperative Association. Jessica Clark, one of descendents of the Kaawishté who lives in Cypress, Calif., said it was an important experience for her to stand on Shakes Island and learn about her family history. “It’s really enlightening to see where our family came from,” she said. “Both my dad and my uncles ha...
Shakes Island renovation project adzer Suzie Kasinger takes one of the 4400 cuts needed to shape each side of the cedar posts used in the Chief Shakes Tribal House. Though each adzer’s style and cut lengths are different, the average post requires the 4000-plus whacks to make it right....
Zachary Jones, a historian and archivist for Sealaska Heritage Institute was in Wrangell last week to speak to the public about his ongoing research into documentation of the 1869 Battle of Wrangell. Jones, a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnohistory at University of Alaska Fairbanks, has worked for Sealaska for five years as a curator on Native artifacts. His current studies involve the conflict between U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Wrangell and the local Tlingit people. The study is being funded...
With the flurry of activity on Shakes Island, including the redesign and construction of a new Chief Shakes Tribal House, the cleaning and renovation of the totem poles, and planning for a rededication ceremony in May 2013, the Wrangell Cooperative Association is busy focusing on the future of tribal assets in the community. But a portion of Wrangell’s Tlingit history is also spread to the wind as a part of two separate exhibits at museums in Washington and Colorado. The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of W...
The Chief Shakes Tribal House restoration project is more than halfway to completion, thanks in part to good weather and the hard work of the adzing team involved in the renovation. “If I had to put a number on the total project, I’d say we’re about 65 percent done,” said Project Manager Todd White. “We expected to salvage about 30 percent of the existing Tribal House, but that number turned out to be closer to 7 percent, creating additional work. But even with the additions, we’re still on-time for the 2013 re-dedication.” The Shakes Island tr...
With coats of stain covering the walls, and the majority of framing complete, the Chief Shakes Tribal House is more than halfway toward completion. According to project superintendent Todd White, the work continues and brings the finished house closer to reality every day. “The walls have been up for some time, but now the roof is halfway done and the adzers are doing everything they can to keep the cedar flowing to the island,” White said. “If I had to put a number on the total project, I’d s...