We arrived in Wrangell after 6 hours on the ferry from Ketchikan. With a population of about 2,400 we wondered whether a week might be too long a stay, but we found plenty to do.
Everyone in the town was friendly and we quickly met a number of people, including other independent travellers. We settled into the camping at Nemo Loop, 14 miles south of the town on the Zimovia Highway. A number of different sites in the Tongass National Forest afforded us beautiful views, so we changed campgrounds most nights stopping at the Yunshookah Loop Campsite a number of times, Three Sisters, Highline and a number of others.
There was a number of places to fish, the beach, Pats Lake, Pats Creek, Thoms Lake, the other beach, but apart from the eager rockfish, which are tasty, the ones we landed were too small to keep.
We did one great hike up to the Shoemaker Bay Shelter. A 7.4m round trip climbing 1,500 feet. It was mainly board walks through the forest and muskeg bogs and felt more like a 4 hour step class. I was glad to have the bear bells strapped to our feet, the bear pepper spray in my back pocket as the scat we came across was definitely from a bear. Learning lots here!!
We took two trips out, with Mark from Alaska Peak and Seas. Both were great and will be a separately documented so look out for Anan Wildlife Observatory, where we were privileged to see brown and black bears in their natural environment, and the Stikine River, which to took us to Shakes Lake and Shakes Glacier.
Our last foray was down to Petroglyph Beach, a State Historic Park with the highest concentration of Native American petroglyphs in the south-eastern region of Alaska, thought to have been created by members of the Tlingit Tribe.