Historian addresses elephant in the room

Ronan Rooney picked the Nose for his latest history lesson.

The podcaster recently wrote a blog post about one of the island's most photographed landmarks: Elephant's Nose.

It's at the northern tip of Woronkofski Island, 4.5 miles west of Wrangell across Zimovia Strait. Rooney's blog digs into the history behind the Nose and how it got its popular name.

Fannie Kellog Young, wife of the Rev. S. Hall Young, gave the Nose its name. The couple moved to Wrangell in 1878 and lived just in front of where the post office is today. Fannie Young had a direct view of the Nose from her house and noted that it resembled an elephant - the name stuck.

Rooney said he chose to write a short-form blog post about this subject because he wanted it to be available to a wider audience - people can read it in just a few minutes. He admitted that some of his podcasts require a couple hours of commitment to listen to.

Typically, his podcasts focus more on events in Wrangell's history that might take place over various locations. The history of Elephant's Nose is different, Rooney said, because it's place-based history.

The Nose is timeless, he said. It's a feature unique to Wrangell that will always look the same and is part of everyone's experience who has ever visited the island.

Rooney has spent a lot of time looking at historical photos of Wrangell, and he "always looks for the Nose in the background" to help identify the location.

"It's been the site of timber and mining operations. The water around Elephant's Nose is popular for fishing, as well," he says in his storytelling. "In 1955, it's where Doris Iversen reportedly caught a 74-pound king salmon during the salmon derby."

He put a post up on Facebook asking community members to share their photos of Elephant's Nose. "Everyone had a moment in time where they chose to take out their cameras and snap a photo of the Nose," Rooney said, adding that he loved seeing all the different angles and ways people chose to capture it. Some photos had boats, some had snow, tide pools or the sunset.

Sharing history online through podcasts and blogs makes his work feel more collaborative than it might if it were in book form, Rooney said. He enjoys the feedback, information and photos that people share in response to his work. It makes social media feel like a tool that builds community and lifts people up, he said.

Rooney started his history podcasts four years ago, and since then has produced more than a dozen episodes. The former Wrangell resident lives in Oregon.

He is hoping to write more blog posts that center around places in Wrangell. Ideas he has for future stories include the mural at the post office, the harbor breakwater constructed 100 years ago in 1924, the locations John Muir visited and the current location of the airport, which used to be the site of an Alaska Packers Association cannery.