CELEBRATE WRANGELL'S RICH HISTORY.

• Author: PILKINGTON, STEVE
• Position: Brief Article

Celebrating the past is the theme behind Southeast Alaska's Tent City Days 2001, an event that provides the perfect setting for families and individuals to visit Wrangell.

The Tent City Days are held during the first weekend of February to commemorate the many gold rushes that passed through Wrangell. Historians have told about courageous men and women who flocked to Wrangell in the late 1800s and early 1900s and established tent cities as staging areas for the trek up the Stikine River to reach the gold fields. These areas included the Cassiar gold region of British Columbia and the Klondike region in the Yukon Territory.

This year the festival will run from Feb. 2-4.

"We'll be pretty busy that weekend," said Nedia Volta, coordinator of the event for its sponsor, the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce. "We're gonna try to do some more kids events."

The schedule for the festival is packed with things to do. She said the chamber tries to add something new to the celebration every year. The opening ceremonies happen early Feb. 2 and the special events began later that evening. Last year there were long-john and tall-tales contests in different locations.

Throughout the weekend there are art sales, theatrical performances, bed races, remote control model races, a golf tournament, turkey shoots and other activities. Saturday night is the height of the festival with a dress ball--and after the dance, breakfast. Many of the events, like the Shady Lady Fancy Dress Ball and men's and women's scary leg contest, are meant to capture some of the nostalgia of the gold rush past.

Despite all this, Wrangell also has some interesting things to do outside the Tent City Days, many of them focusing on the area's diverse past and the beauty of the surrounding Tongass National Forest.

From its earliest period of occupation, perhaps as far back as 8,000 years ago, people have taken advantage of Wrangell's unique setting, according to local historians...