When our family resided in Wrangell from 1963-66, the community had two major payrolls: the Wrangell Mill located in town, and six miles south a mill owned by Alaska Lumber and Pulp Corp., which later acquired the downtown mill.
In addition to the sawmill jobs, there were longshore jobs, numerous tugboats and, of course, loggers in the woods harvesting the timber.
The recent release by the Trump administration’s report outlining “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” included development of the timber resources of Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. This would put the U.S. Forest Service to the test of making a timber supply available.
The challenge is ours. I might suggest an unconventional approach. The borough owns the former mill site at 6-Mile, which would be available for locating a new sawmill manufacturing facility.
Second, and most important, is to have access to a timber supply. I’d suggest the community work with the Forest Service to encourage them to put up a sale large enough to interest domestic sawmill operators such as Weyerhaeuser or perhaps a foreign firm from Japan. The sale would have to be large enough to amortize a significant portion of the investment.
My point is rather than just waiting for someone to come along, we would offer a package proposal that would be open to joint negotiations and might result in some forest-related companies domestic or foreign.
The borough would not be bound unless there was satisfaction on both sides that the proposal was economic and beneficial to the community and the new sawmill operator.
We should be prepared to remind those opposed to timber harvesting that we are dealing with a renewable resource. Properly managed, it can be sustainable indefinitely.
Southeast Alaska needs year-round payrolls. Seasonal tourism is not sufficient, as our communities decline in population and our school enrollment as well.
Wrangell was a timber town and can still be one if we accept the challenge from our president.
Frank H. Murkowski
Governor of Alaska, 2002-2006
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