Carving shed work begins on Front Street

Ground has been broken on a new carving shed for the Wrangell Cooperative Association on property adjacent to the SNO Building in downtown.

The construction, under the direction of WCA project manager Todd White, began with grading and underground work and will progress over the coming months to include pouring a foundation, framing, and ultimate completion of the one-of-a-kind structure.

According to White, the work will begin in earnest once warmer temperatures arrive and the snow gives way to sunshine.

“We’ve been doing the dirt work, but God came and showed us winter can still happen in Wrangell, so we can’t work on the frozen ground right now,” White said. “We can’t pour any concrete right now anyway because the plant is not open.”

After concrete is poured White said a framing package is next up on his to-do list and that final completion of the building will depend on funding availability.

“The way our funding is laid out right now, we don’t have full funding yet,” White added. “So, if our funding comes in we will go to a completed 41- by 92-foot building that will be about 3,600 square feet in size and will have a training room, a carving room, as well as totem storage and office and bathroom spaces.”

The building comes with an estimated price tag of around a million dollars. Funding came from grants issued by the Rasmuson Foundation, the Murdock Trust, appropriations from the State of Alaska, and Microsoft entrepreneur Paul Allen.

Lovey Brock, a member of Wrangell’s Native community said the project is important to the Borough because it will reinvigorate pride in the history of Southeast native clans.

“I think it is important for the carving shed to be completed because we lost a lot of cultural background and feelings after my generation because there was really nothing here for them,” she said. “The Tribal House and the carving shed will bring back that pride in our culture by teaching not only the carving arts, but jewelry carvers, basket weavers and we’ll hopefully have a class on paddles.”

White also added that his crew and the WCA Board of Directors on the project have encouraged him.

“Without our board, and newly elected president Tim Gillen, as well as my hardworking crew, we couldn’t get this done,” he said.

According to White, completion of the project is expected by Thanksgiving.