Wrangell's 4th

Over a week has passed since Wrangell’s 4th of July which I heard about ever since I arrived to this town in November. It’s what the residents of Wrangell are most proud of, what Better Homes & Gardens did a color spread of in 2004, what they prepare for all year, what is the ultimate definition of community for them.

The town goes all out – from July 4th queen contestants to fireworks to town tug-o-wars to a soapbox derby. Wrangell swells in population with guests and family members visiting. For those who have moved away from Wrangell, around the 4th is predominantly when they come back. They are even celebrated with a town-wide Welcome Home potluck.

Anticipation builds for each 4th with a month of queen food booths prior to the big day. The competing queen contestants serve food daily and sell raffle tickets. Money from ticket sales – each ticket is worth $1 – is what goes into the July 4th fund for the following year. This year, a little over 48,000 tickets were sold, which is lower than last year’s 65,000. Money from tickets sales is also dispersed among the queen winner (she gets a few thousand which seems like a lot but she worked probably 16 hour-days for a whole month and had a team of at least five working the same amount of hours if not more who get zilch) and the raffle ticket winners – 1st place got $5000, 2nd place $3000, and 3rd and 4th place get $500 each. I was not a raffle ticket winner.

Here are some images from the 4th which started out grey and cloudy and turned into one of the sunniest, hottest days in Wrangell causing everyone in town to sunburn. Still now, it’s funny to walk around and see tanned, peeling noses, as if everyone went on holiday to some tropical island.


According to some, the Front Street parade that kicks off the 4th every year wasn’t as grand this year as years previous. But it was still exciting to see rows of cars parked in the middle of adjacent streets and EVERYONE filling in the sidewalks.



The Chuck Oliver Logging show featured many events involving wood. Featured above is Karl competing in the Power Bucking and then two guys doing the Axe Chopping.


After sitting in the sweltering sun (we’re talking 70 degrees at least which is HOT for Wrangell) for a few Logging events, Anri and I decided to walk over to the Street Games and starting watching as the running races ended, an event that Anri was sorry she had missed as we’re both positive she would’ve won some money. Each Street Game was broken up by age group. There would be many participants for age groups under 15 – those were broken up into two-year blocks, ages 5 and 6, ages 7 and 8, etc. After age 15, the groups would be in much larger blocks to encourage people to participate – ages 16-25, ages 26-35, ages 36-50, 51-65, anyone not dead. Above are Anri and I doing tug-o-war. Our side did not win.


Egg Toss is the most popular street game bringing in the most town participation. I’ve heard many stories of people attempting to take late-afternoon naps but hearing the repeated, echoing, “Toss your egg now.” That phrase, said by the same woman for almost 28 years, is a pillar of the 4th of July in Wrangell. Teams comprise of mother/daughter, father/son, mother/son, father/daughter, brothers, sisters, brother/sister, husband/wife, friends. I got to compete twice – once with Adam during husband/wife, and again with Anri during the friends one. Needless to say, it was fun.

The following is a sequence of images from the Sonny Wigg Log Rolling Contest. I let Maria convince me that since there weren’t that many contestants entered, we’d each have a good chance of placing and winning some cash. When she convinced me of this there were, I think, two or three people entered. By the time the two of us entered, we were contestants eight and nine. Since neither of us has planned to do this, neither of us has proper foot wear, which would be cork boots, boots or footwear with spikes on the bottom of them. So we each had to wear cork boots of men who had much bigger feet than we did.

It was double elimination which means you had to fall off the log first twice to be out of the contest. I think I may have been the worse. I fell off the first time even before they said, “Go.” For my second chance, Maria and I competed against each other. She won. She ended up coming in fourth place which wasn’t enough to win cash back but it is pretty amazing she did so well on her first time log rolling, on top of the fact that she was wearing a skirt. That black shirt I was wearing was lent to me from a friend who insisted I couldn’t compete wearing just a white t-shirt. She was right.


Right around they called, “Go.” We still look pretty grounded on that log.


Getting trickier. This is right before I fell in.


After I lost for the second time. Notice the spikes on the bottom of the boots I’m wearing.


Before there was even talk of doing the log-rolling, we’re all happily and dryly watching the men’s Log Rolling contest. From left to right: Sarah, Jon, Kevin, Anri, me, and Maria.

The day ended with fireworks. Maria, Anri, and I went out on the water with Kevin in his boat. It was a fabulous place to watch them from. The fireworks felt like they were right on top of us.