{"id":25723,"date":"2026-07-21T01:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=25723"},"modified":"2026-08-16T12:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T16:31:16","slug":"wrangell-and-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2026\/07\/21\/wrangell-and-victoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrangell and Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"
Position: 48\u00b034’04.8″N 123\u00b028’11.3″W<\/a><\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were two last stops on our Alaska inside passage itinerary. The first stop was Wrangell. Founded by the Russians in 1811 and later named for Ferdinand von Wrangel<\/a>, chief manager and governor of the Russian-American Company<\/a> from 1829-1835, Wrangell is one of the oldest non-native settlements in Alaska. That\u2019s not to say the Tlingits weren\u2019t around. They were. Just that the town was not established in the way that Sitka had a native settlement pre-dating the European invasion.<\/p>\n

Wrangel ordered a stockade built on the site in 1834. In 1839 the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company leased the fort and began usurping the Tlingit trading routes into the interior. The Tlingits protested. But two outbreaks of smallpox<\/a> in 1836 and 1840 killed off half the native population (who had not acquired immunity, despite Dr. Jenner\u2019s discovery of a smallpox vaccine derived from cowpox in 1796) and the protests gave way to more pressing matters. By 1849 all the local sea otters and beavers had been turned into hats or coats, and the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company had abandoned the fort. Once the Alaska purchase was completed, the town fell out of British hands and into American ones.<\/p>\n

Finger<\/h6>\n

One tasty historical tidbit about Wrangell involved a Tlingit man, a quartermaster\u2019s wife\u2019s ring finger, and retribution by both sides in the ensuing dispute. The army held a Christmas party at Fort Wrangell and invited local tribespeople. During an altercation between Mrs. Jacob Muller and the Stikine Indian, Lowan, he, for reasons lost to time, bit off Mrs. Muller\u2019s third finger on her right hand.<\/p>\n

A melee ensued and soldiers attending shot and killed Lowan and severely injured his brother. Lowan\u2019s father, Shx\u2019atoo (Schtd-doo), following Tlingit laws on retribution, marched into the fort the following morning and shot Leon Smith, a trading partner, fourteen times. Demanding that Shx\u2019atoo give himself up, the Army bombarded the local Tlingit compound, killing at least five people. Shx\u2019atoo gave himself up and was hanged by court martial two days later on December 29. He stated before his death, his revenge was against the fort, not Smith in particular. Perhaps an early example of the differences between giving the finger and taking the finger.<\/p>\n

Dewey<\/h6>\n

All that history aside, modern Wrangell appeared before us bright and sunny. Having been through the standard economic transition of Otters > Salmon > Logging > Tourism, Wrangell greeted us with a dockside bevy of excursions and flightseeing options. Going low budget, we opted instead for exercise. Two days on board had girded our loins and we were ready for a hike. Seeking the nearest walk up a hill with alternative routes back to the ship proved less crowded than expected. The climb up Dewey Hill is well trodden and these days bolstered by wooden steps and platforms for the elderly and infirm from visiting cruise ships. The walk down the backside of the hill was free of both tourists and bugs. The long slope limits standing water and the volcanic soil is slightly more acidic, limiting larval growth. Whatever the reason, the lack of biteyness was appreciated.<\/p>\n

A long loop back into town inevitably led us to the other big low-cost attraction, petroglyphs on the beach. A glyph is any symbolic figure that is usually engraved or inscribed. In typography it is a representation of a character. So, petro (stone) + glyph (engraved symbol) and beach says it all. I am fond of petroglyphs, particularly since they can last for thousands of years. They always inspire in me the desire to pick up a rock and scratch something into another rock and hope that hundreds of years later someone will pick it up and wonder about its provenance.<\/p>\n

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