by Dennis Augustine
After breakfast at Oceania’s Grand Dining Room, Cecile and I stepped ashore into one of Alaska’s most quietly captivating towns—Wrangell.
Unlike the bustling ports packed with tourists, Wrangell greeted us with stillness and sincerity. No chain stores, no cruise ship chaos—just genuine local charm and the echoes of a rich, layered past.
Wrangell is one of the oldest towns in Alaska and the only one to have flown four flags: Tlingit, Russian, British, and American. Each has left its mark, but the Tlingit people—whose presence here goes back thousands of years—remain the soul of this land.
The town was named after Baron Ferdinand von Wrangell, a Baltic German explorer who governed Russian America in the 1830s. Later, during the Gold Rush, it became a rugged supply town—and though the boom has passed, its frontier spirit still lingers.
One highlight: Cecile and I had our photo taken with a woman in beautiful red and black traditional regalia of the Tlingit, the Indigenous tribe native to the Wrangell area.
