Zarembo Island mineral water had a short life a century ago

It began with a bottle, not in the usual way as a tragedy, but a mystery. Tinted blue and clearly old, the heavy glass bottle is imperfect with numerous bubbles frozen forever in the medium.

It had an embossed brand on its body: Zarembo Springs Mineral Co., Seattle. After an impulse purchase, I still wondered, what was its story? Here is the answer.

Zarembo Island is west, southwest of Wrangell. Its Tlingít name is Shtax-Noow, and before the arrival of settlers, the area Shtax héen wáan, or Stikine people, preserved Zarembo as a hunting sanctuary. In a 1946 report on Tlingit and Haida land rig...