July 3, 2022

The Inside Passage’s Wild River

By roadsrus

The Stikine River has been kept wild. Stikine means “great river” in Tlingit, and it is. It travels 400 miles from its headquarters in British Columbia to the Inside Passage just north of the town of Wrangell. It travels through glacial valleys and delta flats. Its delta is a haven for about 120 species of migrating birds. Its upper reaches flow through a huge canyon. Many see this river via jet boat tour. We only saw it from Petroglyph Beach.

Some call the Stikine the fastest flowing navigable river remaining in North America. Its delta is just a few miles northwest of Wrangell. One of its major features is a 55 mile long canyon upstream from this town. When it crosses into Alaska, the Stikine still has 30 miles to go. Few have seen its wildlife, forests, and glaciers.

Gold was discovered on the Stikine River in 1861. This was 3 years after the gold rush on the Fraser River and almost 40 years before the Klondike Gold Rush, so Wrangell became a gold rush destination and boom town as the first of its lives. This turned out to be a minor gold rush that lasted for only a few years, but it influenced the later gold rushes in important ways.

Hank

About roadsrus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roadsrus
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 3rd, 2022 at 6:48 pm and posted in a 5 Compass attraction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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