Alaska historian Trish Neal has been working for several years to finish a book started decades ago by Joel Wing, a former federal magistrate in Wrangell. But the book is not about the law, it’s mostly about his family’s adventures in British Columbia’s Cassiar mining district up the Stikine and Dease rivers.

And now as she gets closer to finishing her work, Neal is asking if anyone has any photos of Wing she could use to illustrate the book.

 Neal is working off of Wing’s manuscript of his family’s life, “Rosie’s Gold Nugget: The Life of the Wing Family on Quartz Creek in the Cassiar.” It was based on his father’s diaries from 1916 to 1947 and his own experiences as his youth and later just before retiring as magistrate in 1973.

Wing died at age 79 in 1987.

Neal, who was working as curator at the Wrangell Museum, met Wing in 1981 and promised to help him get his stories published. She has written about Wrangell history and is eager to publish one more.

“What I need are photographs to illustrate the book,” she said. “I’m not going to be making any money on it. The manuscript belongs to the museum, so it will be a publication that they own.”

She realizes finding a photo from the family’s mining days will be difficult. “Even a nice photograph of him as the magistrate would be great. But I would be happy with any good photo of him.”

She is hoping she can get some historical photos from the Dease Lake and Cassiar District mining district from the British Columbia provincial archives.

Wing was the last surviving member of his immediate family. He never married and had no children, making it harder to track down information.

Neal researched genealogy, Social Security records and chased down leads to tell more of the story of Wing and his family to include in the book. Along with being a magistrate, aeronautics administrator, air traffic controller and adventurer, he also ran a curio booth at the age of 19 in Wrangell in 1927.

If she can come up with some photos to go along with the history, and if ChatGPT helps out with transcribing Wing’s manuscript, Neal hopes to get it all pulled together and published by Christmas.

Anyone with photos of Wing can call or text Neal at 907-717-8117.

And even if someone does not have any photos of Wing, she still wants to hear from them. “Even memories of Joel would be fun to help tell Joel’s story,” she said.