August 10, 1914: The Winifred left early yesterday for Telegraph. She has a good load of freight but no passengers. On the last trip down, the crew reported seeing two moose, both of them swimming in the river. The first was seen just above the canyon and the other at Clearwater. The moose are getting further down every year and before long they will be all over the islands in this section of the country, and for this reason the new law was passed last spring prohibiting the killing of them. Although the law was made fun of by several papers in the Territory, it is a good one and one that should be honored by everyone. There is hardly a trip of a river boat that one or more moose are not seen and there is estimated by parties that should know that there is close to a hundred moose living in the valley of the Stikine between here and Telegraph.
August 4, 1939: Constable J.B. Gray, of the Canadian police with headquarters in Telegraph Creek, arrived on the Hazel B. No. 2 Friday night with three Indian prisoners, two men and a girl from the upper Liard district, who had been sentenced at Telegraph Creek and were en route to Prince Rupert. Mrs. Gray acted as a matron for the girl. Unable to secure accommodations aboard the Canadian liner Princess Alice southbound from Wrangell that night, the constable Saturday chartered the Jimmy Rinehart plane to Prince Rupert. It was the first time any of the prisoners has ever been out of the B.C. wilds and they were enormously interested in the sights of Wrangell. They were very docile and followed the constable without trying to escape. While at Wrangell they were kept under custody at the hotel.
July 31, 1964: The new Alaska ferry Tustumena called in Wrangell shortly after 11 o’clock last night en route to the Westward where she will be on the Kodiak Island to Seward and Anchorage run. Representatives of the Chamber of Commerce were on hand to greet the new ship in the midnight hours. Capt. Maitland Merkley, master of the new vessel which had some 200 passengers aboard, reported there was a little shortage of music or something with which to produce it. Problem was quickly solved. School Supt. Ray Nims recalled the old piano at the school. Theater operator Richard Ballard got his truck rolling. With willing hands, the old music box was soon aboard the Tustumena, the school netting $75. As the vessel prepared to leave port, Capt. Merkley was ordering up a little glue. He’d patch up the keys he said, and the old Wrangell school piano would be a permanent fixture aboard the newest ship in the ferry fleet.
August 3, 1989: An “initiation to the country” is the response a 1987 visitor to the Stikine River had after touching the face of Shakes Glacier. The author of this phrase is the author of National Geographic Society’s “Excursion to Enchantment: A Journey to the World’s Most Beautiful Places.” A copy of the book may be checked out at the Irene Ingle Public Library. While being classified as among the “world’s most beautiful places” may be a surprise to Wrangellites, the experience of visiting the Wrangell area obviously impressed the author. “To live in Wrangell, or in any small Inside Passage town, requires loyalty – to the place itself, remote as it is, and to the wilderness looming at its edges,” said the section of the book devoted to Wrangell. Quoting Museum Director Pat Ockert, the book says “boomers” come to Alaska and quickly leave. “The rest of us came up here for the country, and we’re staying,” Ockert said. “The country,” the book continues, “in Wrangell that usually means the Stikine River.” The book describes a trip up the river with Richard Kaer as the vessel “gunned up a slough turgid with meltwater from the snow-frosted mountains above us.” “Flowing imperceptibly from a high snowfield, Shakes Glacier spilled from a valley to the water’s edge,” it said. “Carefully we cruised toward its cracked, slowly melting face to marvel at the towers of ice that rose above us. Seeing that the glacier wasn’t calving, Richard steered us closer. I stretched and touched the centuries-old ice. It was my initiation to the country.”
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