Wrangell cruise ship greeter to retire this year

After 60 years of greeting tourists visiting Wrangell, Lurine McGee officially called it quits earlier this year.

“Well, I’m 91 (years old),” she said. “Don’t you think it’s time?”

The retired nurse and grandmother of four has been a fixture to decades of cruise ship passengers looking to take in Wrangell, often walking down to the terminal in driving wind and heavy rain. She officially greeted her last cruise ship Aug. 7.

“It’s getting harder for me to get down there, particularly if the weather’s bad,” she said. “I think somebody else should do it.”

McGee, an extensive traveler herself, said she got the idea for greeting people based on her personal experience.

“I was thinking of the times I traveled,” she said. “It made me feel so good when there was someone to meet you.”

When she started greeting the ships, a group of Wrangellites dressed in old-timey costumes was the city’s trademark.

“I didn’t quite feel like that,” she said. “I worked nights over at the hospital.”

Over the years, McGee has become a friendly face, but also a valuable resource for cruisers coming through. Just don’t ask her what you should see first.

“I did some traveling, and always like to read up a lot on where I’m going,” she joked. “It surprises me that they (cruise ship patrons) spend that much money to get to a place they don’t know anything about.”

She recommends climbing Dewey Hill to see where John Muir took in Wrangell in the late 1800s.

“I just like to go up there and I sit where he sat, and I see what he saw,” she said. “I also like to go out to Lookout Point and look back at Wrangell. I like to see where they cut the timber and the beach. There are many things out in the forest where people could see and don’t.”

McGee came to Alaska in the 1970s after completing nursing training in Chicago. She first worked at a hospital in Skagway, then relocated to Mount Edgecumbe, and eventually settled in Wrangell. She learned to hunt, though she was never comfortable with the violence.

“I don’t like to kill anything,” she said. “I’m kind.”

Her favorite part of greeting each ship was the children.

“I usually like the grandparents that are traveling with their grandchildren that are very young,” she said. “They are coming up off of the ship and they’re trying to tell each other what to do.”

Joan Benjamin will continue greeting large cruise ships for the moment and said she was impressed with McGee’s dedication.

“It wasn’t easy to go down in the rain and wind and the mosquitoes,” she said.

The last cruise ship of the season departed Monday, but people interested in greeting the cruise ships next year can call Benjamin at 874-3252.