The Way We Were

May 28, 1925

The plans are to include the seventh and eighth grades with the high school next year to constitute, with the ninth grade, a junior high school organization. This will mean many advantages that are impossible under the present system. It will give students longer class periods under teachers who are specialists in a particular line; it will eliminate the disturbance that comes from classes being held in a room where others must study; and it will permit an additional course not possible at present.

May 26, 1950

Wrangell will have a double shot of visitors this weekend as the Prince George and Princess Louise are due to arrive this afternoon and tomorrow morning. There will be more than 200 persons each aboard the George and Princess Louise. Wrangell is making preparations to receive and entertain the approximately 400 sightseers. The Camp Fire Girls under the direction of Mrs. Frank Webb will be on hand to greet the tourists and show them around town. The big event of the evening will be the replaying of the Stikine Stampede Show, which the town put on last year. The Can-Can Girls, the Barroom Ballard, some close harmony by the better singers around town, and the playing of the famous “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” will be on the hour-long program. The admission to this will be $1 for everyone.

May 28, 1975

Dan Duncan, 13, is a commercial salmon fisherman. He doesn’t own a limited entry permit for a big power troller so he just does the best he can with the tools he has. The tools in Dan’s case consist of a 14-foot aluminum skiff, a four-horse kicker and a commercial hand-trolling license. His gear is a replica in miniature, sans power, of that on a large commercial troller. He has rigged two 10-foot-long alder trolling poles with a series of light ropes and pulleys so they can be lowered for trolling and raised for running. Each pole carries 450-pound-test nylon mainlines and two 120-pound test monofilament leaders. Two five-pound cannon balls serve as sinkers and the mainlines are coiled by hand around a wooden spool that came with the nylon rope. A small structure in the boat supports a windshield and serves as a shelter from the wind and rain. Young Duncan lives with his parents, the Edgar Duncans, aboard the family’s 52-foot commercial troller Linda Arlene, and when they head out to the fishing grounds this summer Dan’s skiff will be towed behind the larger boat.

May 25, 2000

The word is out: If you want to see great fireworks on the Fourth, come to Wrangell! “We’ve gotten better each year,” said an enthusiastic Dave McGuire, “and we plan to keep on going that way.” McGuire is chair this year of the Fourth of July fireworks show. The fireworks team in Wrangell, known as the “The Crew,” is composed of seven licensed pyrotechnicians and many volunteers from the community (it takes as many as 15 people working all day to create the show). To have this many licensed pyrotechnicians in a small community is unusual. According to McGuire, “It takes six licensed shots (a shot is a public fireworks display of some kind) and a written test before they’ll give you the license. It is not easy to get.”