There are no longer cows at the property but the descendants of Nore's Dairy still tend to animals - Diana Nore was feeding the goats. She and husband Iver have converted the former cow barn into storage for their home farm of goats, ducks, quails, chickens and goose.
Originally from Norway, Iver P. Nore opened Nore's Dairy in August 1933, supplying milk to Wrangell and passenger vessels of the Alaska Steamship Co. During the summer months, as seen in this undated photo, the cows were barged to a 121-acre pasture on Sergief Island, eight miles from the nine-acre family farm in Wrangell.
Pulling up the driveway just past Johnson's Building Supply at 2.5 Mile is turning the page to a chapter of Wrangell history - with a red barn at the top of the hill.
Iver Pederson Nore stepped from the deck of a fishing vessel onto the Southeast Alaska shore in 1910, according to an Alaskan Dairies Historical Society's 1982 spring publication. Originally from Norway (and thus, the surname Nore), he would leave a mark on Wrangell by establishing a dairy farm in 1933.
Purchasing used lumber and other building materials from a nearby dismantled cannery, the Nore family constructed a 35-foot-by-85-foot red barn, complete with a concrete floor and galvanized metal roof.
The Iver P. Nore family consisted of his wife, Thelemina, and sons Ingvald, Ingar, Bert and Martin.
The barn is still painted red (it went through a silver paint phase during World War II, with surplus paint "probably full of lead," according to great-grandson Matt Nore), but the last of the cud-chewing denizens that once gave Nores Dairy its name (as it is written on the barn to this day, sans apostrophe, with a little space between the Nore and the s) haven't been there since 1953.
In 1946, the dairy farm hit "sour times" - a longshoreman's strike that went on for more than 100 days suspended the delivery of dry feed to the cows, 28 in all.
Before the strike, alfalfa was purchased from a supplier in Seattle, 800 miles to the south, for about $11 a ton, plus a freight charge of $11 per ton. The length of the strike forced the Nores to butcher 22 of those 28 cows, leaving six. Patriarch Iver P. Nore died a year later, in December 1947, which left half a dozen cows and the remaining operation in the hands of brothers Ingvald and Bert.
While the dairy was around, the Nores supplemented their earnings by raising minks. To this day, the galvanized welded wire that once made up their cages can be seen as the doorway material for little storage nooks inside the barn. Diana Nore - who married Iver, son of Bert, nephew of Ingvald and named for his grandfather Iver P. - takes care of the animals that reside at the farm.
"To Live Longer and Be Stronger, Drink Guernsey Milk" was emblazoned on the back of the Nore's Dairy Ford panel delivery truck in 1939, but these days the matriarch-on-station tends to goats, quails, chickens, ducks, a goose (out for blood if you don't give it enough neck rubs), a cat, several dogs and over the years, several humans.
Keith Nore, a cousin who lives in North Pole, is a veritable treasure trove of Nore's Dairy history.
"Iver's great-grandfather and my grandfather were brothers, we're on the different branch, we're still related," he said March 16.
A clipping he sent from the Nov. 10, 1933, Wrangell Sentinel has a headline, "Cows Violate Ordinance."
"Attention being called that the cows of I. P. Nore were running at large in the southern part of the town and that complaints had been received as to considerable damage being done, particularly to the property of the Bureau of Public Roads department," read the excerpt. The rest of the clipping details how a councilmember made a motion, seconded by another, to carry "that the clerk notify Mr. Nore that he is in violation of ordinance ... and that the same will be enforced from this date."
A 1950 a $25 business license from the Department of Taxation for the Territory of Alaska (nine years before Alaska achieved statehood) certified Nore's Dairy in Wrangell could engage in the business of a dairy.
A U.S. Post Office 1 cent envelope (with a bust of Benjamin Franklin on a green seal) holds a July 1, 1949, invoice to Nore's for $67.50 for cow and chicken feed.
An invoice from the dairy on April 30, 1943, for $78.75 for 105 gallons shows the price of milk was 75 cents per gallon, about $12 today, adjusted for inflation.
Apparently, there was a competing dairy in Wrangell, but their milk was thin, Keith Nore said.
"I spent quite a while with Ingvald Nore, the son of Iver P. Nore," he said. "I interviewed him quite a few times when we were together. We traveled to Nebraska, California and Norway visiting Nore family relatives."
The current location at 2.5 Mile was not the original location.
Ingvald told Keith that Nore's Dairy started with nine cows in August 1933. The dairy originally operated out of Iver P. Nore's house on Case Avenue. They bottled milk in the basement. When they bought more cows and production increased, they built the barn out on the highway. That house remains in the family: Twyla Nore lives there; her husband, Dan Nore, grandson of Iver P. Nore, died in April 2021.
In the summer the cows grazed on the flats of Sergief Island. They tried to harvest grass for hay from the flats to use during the winter but the moisture content was too high and it rotted. They were forced to buy hay from Washington. To help pay for the hay, they bought a gillnetter and sold salmon. "When the price of salmon increased, that helped out a lot!" Keith said.
Iver P. and his son, Bert, (Diana's late father-in-law) tended the cows on the island and milked them. Ingvald's job was to run back and forth, pick up the milk from the island, take it back to Wrangell and deliver it to their customers. Ingvald told Keith they even sold 10-gallon containers to the tourist ships.
To haul the milk, the Nores had a special boat built. It was 30 feet long and wider than most boats, so it ran well in shallow water. It had twin screws and Ingvald told Keith he took care of all of the maintenance for the motor.
"I asked Ingvald how all of this work affected his social life," Keith said. "He laughed and said he didn't have much of a social life at all. 'Who would want to marry the poor guy?!' he said. He did end up marrying a woman from Norway, a widow with two daughters. Friends convinced Ingvald to have her come to Wrangell and so he sent over money to pay for her trip. Anna arrived and she and Ingvald fell in love and were eventually married.
"How did you know she was the one?'' Keith said he asked Ingvald. "'She paid me back my money when she arrived in Wrangell,'" he responded.
In 1951, a major fire, repeating a similar event of 1906, swept through Wrangell's downtown waterfront area, leaving ash where a major lumber mill and a shipping port once stood. At the same time, milk and cream were being shipped to Alaska from the Lower 48 at competitive prices. Nore's Dairy could not insulate itself from these events, according to the historical society excerpt. After 20 years of operation, it closed its doors in 1953.
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