Wrangell, on the north end of Wrangell Island is our first port of the trip. Our ship parked a little ways out from the pier and two tender boats from the ship ferried passengers to and from the dock.
This was our first feet-on-the-ground landing in Alaska. We enjoyed both the town and the hike in the forest emphasizing the botanical uses of plants by the Tlingit people.
An American cruise ship was at Wrangell at the same time. Top of a tender boat. They seem a bit like floating submarines.On the tender, we didn’t have to bring our life jackets from our room. See how secure they seem? They can be completely enclosed in bad weather.
The streets were a lot like any American town. We learned that Wrangell doesn’t get much snow, and when it comes it’s often followed by rain, so snow doesn’t stick around for long.
Wrangell has a lot of different flags with fun mottos. Another interesting motto on Main StreetCute wolf flag above bunting getting ready for Independence DayWe were told in one of our lectures that formerly, when old totems fell, the people would let them go to make room for new stories. Now people try to preserve them to remember.Painted rocks remind me of hopeful messages during the pandemic. The sidewalks are made of chips of local black slate and bright red glass, the town colors. Cute moose made out of driftwoodArt carved from woodMural on a building The rain was fairly light, luckily. Fairy house in upside-down tree trunk below Norwegian Spruce.
The guide for our forest walk in the gardens was an 18 year-old woman, just graduated from high school with 15 people in her class. Della plans to go to Fort Lewis College in Durango, where our own Checkers got a degree. She wrestles competitively and is planning on majoring in Business Administration. She also really knows her plants and loves her home town.
Labrador tea flowers with one of the many varieties of fern. So many kinds of berries! Della told us how the native people used each kind.Della called this a weed, and it does look related to dandelion. Our lovely guide in front of cow parsnip. Skunk cabbageSame, showing the knob of flowers that gives the plant its name.Devil’s Club, a useful plant in many ways.
Muskeg, basically a peat bog, hundreds of feet deep. The ground is acidic and almost anoxic, so any tree that gets started growing is stunted like a bonsai tree.
Bunch of Geeks go Traveling 