The Way We Were

July 15, 1916: The Princess Charlotte, the floating palace of the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship line, arrived in Wrangell on her first trip to Alaska early last Tuesday morning and went south again last night. The Princess Charlotte is, without a doubt, the finest vessel that has sailed the Southeastern Alaska route and will make a regular trip every other week all the rest of the season. The Princess Charlotte is under the command of Captain John MacLeod, one of the best known and best liked skippers on the Alaska run. A.G. Baker is purser. The Princess Charlotte has 178 round trip passengers aboard, and 58 other passengers, making a list of 236. Her passengers for Wrangell were H.W. Brodie, J. Russell, G. Davis, J. Lovett, G. Radolet, C. Kennedy, G. Kennedy and J. Nouge.

July 15, 1941: Alaska’s No. 1 industry – salmon packing – blossomed into full bloom this week as fish continued to pour into local canneries at a pace far in excess of last season. and at the best rate in many years for this district. In addition to the seiners and gillnetters, traps, which opened yesterday and today, were adding to the volume. Farwest got in 15,000 fish from their traps this morning. ARB reported its traps doing well. Fishermen in this district were reporting excellent returns. Price was up to 20 cents from some areas. Pay in the canneries is running from 67 1/2 cents an hour up with additional 10 cents for overtime and all local labor is being absorbed.

July 22, 1966: Firm market for Alaska lumber exists in Japan and there is a growing demand for the Alaska product in that country, O. Honoso, manager of the lumber department of Mitsui & Co., Osaka, said here this week while on a visit with 17 other Japanese industrialists to the Wrangell Lumber Company operations. Spruce, he said, is particularly desirable because of its lighter color. The Japanese people, he pointed out, are partial to light colored woods. Mr. Honoso, on his first visit to Alaska, said he was greatly impressed with the vast timber resources that Alaska holds.

July 25, 1991: The initial part of a three-year study on the Stikine River moose herd by the Forest Service and state game biologists has proved inconclusive, according to state game biologist Charlie Land. “We did a month’s worth of work,” Land said. “This was a preliminary study and it didn’t work.” Two biologists from the Department of Fish and Game staged moose observations by climbing up into the same trees hunters use. They surveyed from the Canadian border to lower Limb Island, counting moose cows and calves. Too little moose was spotted by the biologists to prove the strategy worked, Land said. According to Land, the department had hoped that this strategy would be less expensive than putting radio collars on cows and then searching for them when calves are born to see if their offspring survived. However, it was unsuccessful. “I guess it’s an idea so simple that it wouldn’t work,” Land said. Forest Service biologists headed up the efforts to gather data about the forage and other facts about the river habitat. According to a spokesman for the Forest Service, the results of that study still have not been compiled.