Tessa had a friend from Smith College that was from Wrangell, and would be arriving on the 5th. Unfortunately we’d just miss her by a day, but she was a great host from afar giving us the scheduled of events for July 3rd and 4th, and what not to miss in Wrangell during our stay.
The town was definitely “abuzz” for the holiday, and we realized we’d need to do any provisioning on the 3rd as businesses would be closed the 4th, and some the 5th in observance. You would never know that covid was still affecting other parts of the country/world, no restrictions here – it felt like the good ol’ days.
On July 3rd we watched one of the canoe races, but missed the log rolling competition as we were visiting local stores and exploring town. The weather was perfect and the cruise ship dock (lack of ship), was great to soak in the town and festivities. You couldn’t have asked for better weather for the holiday.
We bicycled out to Petroglyph Beach, with a low tide we tried hard to spot one of the forty petroglyphs. Unsuccessful from the platform, Tessa went down to the beach to see if she could spot one. She finally did, however two locals then started writing arrows in the sand marking all of them for her. She thanked them – they were all right under her nose!
As Ketchikan was completely out of eggs when we provisioned a couple days ago, Tessa had asked Alyse if her family could grab a dozen if there was a run on eggs in Wrangell (and you’d think there would be with an Egg Toss on the festivity list!). Her Dad Kirk was so nice to deliver the eggs to Heritage Harbour where we were docked – they live half a mile down the road and have two boats (one commercial, one pleasure) docked at Heritage. Tessa had a wonderful conversation talking with him about Wrangell and the surrounding area. July 4th there can be ten salmon headed up the river at Anan, July 5th ten thousand salmon. What a difference a day makes! Ever heard about a halibut fly lure? One of his students was making them, and he had bought a couple to try – apparently they work! He also looked exactly like Doc in Back to the Future, and may have given Tessa tips on fishing in the local area.
There’s always a project to do on a boat, and July 3rd’s project was to replace the starboard windshield wiper on the pilothouse window. It took two trips to the store to get the size right (always seems that way), and a lot of muscle to get the salty bolt to come loose. But we made friends with Coda and Sudden Inspiration docked in front of us, as they were sitting on the dock enjoying beverages watching us work, and traded stories of our “transit through” BC Waters.
Wrangell does fireworks on July 3rd at Dusk at the baseball fields. We bicycled up there, and couldn’t believe the number of people. Tessa looked up the population of Wrangell: 2400. As we waited for the main event, every one came in and parked their pickup truck and started shooting off fireworks. 11:30pm, they still had not started the show we had been there for almost ninety minutes. 11:31pm we left to ride back to the boat as we were getting cold and bitten by big mosquitoes. Of course at 11:38pm the fireworks started. Tom had joked while we were waiting that they probably wanted them to end at 12:01am July 4th. And that’s exactly when they ended!
July 4th began with the parade (well there was a fun run before that, but not after staying up so late waiting for the fireworks!), followed by the logging competition, egg toss, and fast boat parade. The parade felt like we had turned the page on Covid, with every float throwing candy and goodies to the kids. It seemed like Halloween in July!
Our Rad Power Bicycles get a lot of attention wherever we go, and Wrangell was no exception. We got to talking to a guy from Petersburg, and he actually was flying down to Seattle to look at two 61’ Tolly’s. Small world!
The logging competition drew large crowds. We watched one event, and they were definitely very serious about it.
And the egg toss was just too darn fun. Starting with the little kiddos, working their way up to the oldest. There’s definitely a technique that’s mastered with age.
We went out and set some shrimp pots with local knowledge, and watched the fast boat races from the water. It was such a glorious day, and was fun to listen to the small town chatter on the vhf.
We thought this would be the finale of the two days, but there ended up being fireworks over the harbor at 10:30pm – a much more respectable hour than last night!
