Day 15 - Wed - 09/30/26 - Wrangell

 Since we didn't set an alarm, we let the sound of the thrusters wake us up. As is customary when the ship docs, we don't feel any movement or touch when the ship comes up against the dock. I've only been to Wrangell once before and that was on a flight on my way to Valdez. And I never left the airport so I've never been in the town itself proper. We prepared for our day, enjoyed the leisurely breakfast, and then scanned off the ship into a light drizzle. Our general plan for the day was to walk the little town and see what we could see, and depending on that it would determine when we would get back to the ship.

We walked up  the main street and a few shops were open and we stepped in and chatted with the proprietors or workers and enjoyed those conversations. In the little Ace Hardware store we met Kathy who, as it turned out, grew up in Sitka and was a student of our now deceased friend who was the math teacher when she was in school. She clearly remembered him and that was a very moving moment to have that connection. Interestingly, the Ace Hardware addition is actually behind the façade of the original Wrangell fire department. The fire department has been relocated up the hill into much larger quarters, but the sign is still present on the face of the building. We enjoyed our conversations with the various building owners or employees or hardest and made our way to the local museum where we took a quick look around, but decided not to go into the museum as we want to see what the town was about. We also checked out the local grocery store which is an IGA. Behind those buildings on Shake Island is the tribal community center and Long House. Undercover of our umbrellas, we walked down the street past the totem, park and reached the entrance to the walkway, which leads to the Long house. It wasn't open, but we could walk around the building and take pictures of the total poles and I noted that the sheeting material was circle. cut cedar that was well over 16 inches wide. These were very wide boards. We then walked back to the street the totem park was located on and up the hill from the totem park was Saint Stephens Episcopal Church. It's a large white church looking building however it was not open to go inside. After taking a few photographs, we then walked up Church Street and then passed the new fire department building before turning around and headed toward the elementary school. I spotted on a map that there were some hiking trails behind the elementary school leading out from the ballfields and that looked to be an interesting hike.

We found the entrance to the trail between two baseball fields and started our hike along the very well manicure gravel surface trail. Near the start, we encountered a local who had been mushroom foraging. He showed us one of the mushrooms that he had harvested and explained how wet it was back off the trail. But he was also very positive about how nice of a trail it was and so we continued on walking. We didn't see any fauna back there except for a few birds. But we are always prepared for the elusive bear sighting or possibly deer. We also encountered a short excursion group that was hiking the opposite correction from us and we crossed paths and they continued their hike in a clockwise direction while we considered in a counterclockwise direction. As we approach the end of the hike we encountered or were passed by a local lady who was doing a hike and she gave us some tips on a possible additional hike. After she headed on her way, we decided that we would continue on our original plan and not follow her her hike as it involved hiking up a mountain and then back down into the town.

Leaving the baseball field complex, we walked up 2nd Ave., which was a slight hill and then it turned left and dropped down into the little town. The downward slope was a little steep, but quite walkable and eventually we ended up near the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church. I took pictures of both and since the Catholic Church was open, I went up the stairs to it and went inside and took a few photographs. It was then a short walk down into the heart of the little town. We decided to have a little bit of lunch as it was well into afternoon at this point. We found a Thai restaurant and enjoyed some Pad sie yew, which was quite tasty. City next to us was the cruise director from the ship, Theresa, and her assistant cruise director. When they left, Theresa left her jacket. So I jumped up and ran out of the store yelling for her attention. She eventually stopped, turned around, and I told her she had forgotten her jacket. The owner of the restaurant came out of the restaurant with it and handed it off to Theresa and she was very appreciative to me for noticing it.

We then decided after finishing our meal to hike out to the petroglyphs at Petroglyph Beach. It's about a 7/10 of a mile walk from town past the post office and the Alaska ferry dock. Kiddy corner and across the street is an extended stay and trading post. We went in there and there claim to fame is fur articles. They had 4 or 5 vintage fur sewing machines and the proprietor gave me a demonstration on how those machines worked, which was pretty cool. They're sort of unlike in the sewing machine I've seen, and that the needle is horizontal, and there are a couple feed rollers that pulled the fur through a so a locking stitch could be made with every thrust of the needle. That way the sea can be cut at any point and the thread does not come undone. Angela ended up buying a little fur trinket as a gift and we left the store and continued on our walk to the Petroglyph Beach.

Arriving at the beach, the tide was high, and therefore we could not see the petroglyphs down on the beach and had to content ourselves with seeing the reproductions that are on the platform that is reached by stairs from the road. There was another couple there, and the gentlemen and I both were taking pictures of what appeared to be a variety of duck (harlequin).

By this time it was about 3:45 and we had a 5:00 PM dinner reservation at the Pinnacle Grill on the ship. So we excuse ourselves and began to walk back in a light drizzle to the ship. I found a little shortcut, and we took that back to the ship with the final opportunity to photograph a couple of the bears that were missed when we left the ship in the earlier in the day.

Back onboard the ship, we went to our state room and put our wet outer clothing in the shower to dry off and changed into nicer clothes for dinner appointment. The dinner was nice and it came for free as part of our loyalty status with Holland America cruise lines. After dinner, the entertainment was a cast show Solid Gold which featured music from the 1970s. It was a fast paced display of music that we were very familiar with and ended with a collection of Abba tunes that the entire audience was totally grooving with. Following this, we tried to listen in to set from the damn band, however, there was no seating so we went back to the explorers lounge where two members of the Vivace instrumental group were playing. It seems that the pianist needed to rest her hands that evening, so we were unable to see the trio. However, the violinist and the cellist put on two fine sets that we enjoyed as our ship made its way in the dark towards the next destination of Ketchikan. It was roughly 90 miles away so the ship did not have to go over eight or 9 knots to reach it in time the next morning.

Wrangell was a very interesting little town and I'm sure we could find something interesting to do if we were to return again.

Tomorrow morning we're expected to be in Ketchikan and the weather prospects look a little better so we're hopeful that we can get out and see a little of the town before our very interesting shore excursion starts at around 11:30 AM.