Petersburg Borough is a borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to Census Bureau estimates, the population was 3,196 in 2016. The borough seat is Petersburg. Petersburg is the most recently created county equivalent in the United States.
The City and Borough of Wrangell is a borough in the Alaska, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 2,369, up from 2,308 in 2000. Incorporated as a Unified Home Rule Borough on May 30, 2008, Wrangell was previously a city in the Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area. Its Tlingit name is Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw. The Tlingit people residing in the Wrangell area, who were there centuries before Europeans, call themselves the Shtaxʼhéen Ḵwáan after the nearby Stikine River. Alternately they use the autonym Shxʼát Ḵwáan, where the meaning of shxʼát is unknown.
The Stikine River is a river, historically also the Stickeen River, approximately 610 km (379 mi) long, in northwestern British Columbia in Canada and in southeast Alaska in the United States.
Mitkof Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in southeast Alaska between Kupreanof Island to the west and the Alaskan mainland to the east. It is approximately 16 km (9.9 mi) wide and 28 km (17 mi) long with a land area of 539.7 km2 (208.4 sq mi), making it the 30th largest island in the United States. Much of the island is managed as part of the Tongass National Forest.
The Wrangell Narrows is a winding, 35-km-long (22 mi) channel between Mitkof Island and Kupreanof Island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska. The Wrangell Narrows is one of the six Listed narrows in Southeast Alaska. There are about 60 lights and buoys to mark it because of its winding nature and navigation hazards. It was named "Proliv Vrangelya" in 1838 by G. Lindenberg after Admiral Baron Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangell. The translation Wrangell Strait remained in use while Wrangell Narrows referred to the narrowest central portion. By 1919 Department of Commerce nautical chart 8170 was changed from Wrangell Strait to Wrangell Narrows.
Sumner Strait is a strait in the Alexander Archipelago in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is about 80 miles (130 km) long and 10 miles (16 km) wide, extending from the mouth of the Stikine River to Iphigenia Bay on the Gulf of Alaska, separating Mitkof Island, Kupreanof Island, and Kuiu Island on the north from Zarembo Island and Prince of Wales Island on the south.
Zimovia Strait is a narrow strait in the Alexander Archipelago in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is about 100 km (60 mi) long and bounded by Wrangell Island to the east and Woronkofski and Etolin Islands to the west. The strait is shown in an 1844 Russian chart, but the name was first published in 1853 on a Russian Hydrographic Department chart as "Proliv Zimov'ya".
Etolin Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska, United States at 56°05′52″N132°21′37″W. It is between Prince of Wales Island, to its west, and the Alaska mainland, to its east. It is southwest of Wrangell Island. It was first charted in 1793 by James Johnstone, one of George Vancouver's officers during his 1791-95 expedition. He only charted its southwest and east coasts, not realizing it was an island. It was originally named Duke of York Island but was renamed by the United States after the Alaska Purchase. It is named after Adolf Etolin, governor of the Russian American colonies from 1840 to 1845.
Zarembo Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska, United States. It lies directly south of Mitkof Island and northwest of Etolin Island. To the northwest is Kupreanof Island and to the southwest is Prince of Wales Island. It has a land area of 183.14 square miles, making it the 34th largest island in the United States. It has no permanent resident population. It was first charted in 1793 by James Johnstone, one of George Vancouver's officers during his 1791-95 expedition. He only charted its north, west, and south coasts, not realizing it was an island. The island is named after Dionysius Zarembo, a Polish employee of the Russian American Company and explorer of Alaska. Usually known as Dionysius Zarembo, he was captain of the Russian-American Company ship Chichagof during the foundation of the Redoubt San Dionisio, named for his name-saint, a fortification at present-day Wrangell which was established to forestall encroachment on the Stikine region by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Woronkofski Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska, United States. It is separated from Wrangell Island to the east by Zimovia Strait, just west of the city of Wrangell; to the west it is separated from Zarembo Island by Stikine Strait, and to the south from Etolin Island by Chichagof Pass. Woronkofski Island has a land area of 59.382 km² and was unpopulated at the 2000 census. The city of Wrangell is exploring the possibility of utilizing Sunrise Lake on the island for hydroelectrical power and drinking water.
Wrangell Island is in the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle of southeastern Alaska. It is 48 kilometres long and 8 to 23 kilometres wide. It has a land area of 544.03 square kilometres, making it the 29th largest island in the United States. Wrangell is separated from the mainland by the narrow Blake Channel.
The Stikine-LeConte Wilderness is on the mainland of southeast Alaska, southeast of Petersburg and north of Wrangell, Alaska. The boundary extends from Frederick Sound on the west to the Alaska–Canada boundary on the east. The wilderness is 448,841 acres (181,640 ha) in size. It is part of Tongass National Forest, which is managed by the United States Forest Service.
Kadin Island is an island in the Alaska Panhandle of southeastern Alaska. It is located in the mouth of the Stikine River, 7 km (4 mi) NW of Wrangell Island, Alexander Archipelago.
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska, United States. Originally built as the Redoubt San Dionisio or Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834, the site was transferred to the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company as part of a lease signed in the region in 1838, and renamed Fort Stikine when turned into a Hudson's Bay Company post in 1839. The post was closed and decommissioned by 1843 but the name remained for the large village of the Stikine people which had grown around it, becoming known as Shakesville in reference to its ruling Chief Shakes by the 1860s. With the Alaska Purchase of 1867, the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was renamed Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded. The site today is now part of the city of Wrangell.
The Stikine Gold Rush was a minor but important gold rush in the Stikine Country of northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The rush's discoverer was Alexander "Buck" Choquette, who staked a claim at Choquette Bar in 1861, just downstream from the confluence of the Stikine and Anuk Rivers, at approximately 56°48′N131°46′W. Choquette was the son-in-law of the Tlingit chief Chief Shakes, who presided over the region at the mouth of the river, the site of the former Fort Stikine and today's city of Wrangell, Alaska, and had also explored the Nass and several other rivers.
Ernest Sound is a strait in Southeast Alaska, U.S.A. It extends 48 kilometres (30 mi) southwest, from the mouth of Bradfield Canal to Clarence Strait, separating Wrangell and Etolin Islands from the mainland. It was first traversed and charted in 1793 by James Johnstone, one of George Vancouver's officers during his 1791-95 expedition. Vancouver later named it "Prince Ernest's Sound", after Prince Ernest, Duke of Cumberland.
Eastern Passage is a channel in Southeast Alaska, U.S.A. It extends southeast 29 kilometres (18 mi) from the mouth of the Stikine River to The Narrows, separating the northeastern half of Wrangell Island from the mainland. It was named in 1877 by William Healy Dall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. It was first traversed and charted in 1793 by James Johnstone, one of George Vancouver's officers during his 1791-95 expedition.
Chichagof Pass is a strait separating Woronkofski and Etolin Islands. The strait is shown in an 1844 Russian chart, but the name was first published in 1853 on a Russian Hydrographic Department chart as "Proliv Chichagova". Lieutenant Commander H. E. Nichols, USN, published the present name in the 1891 Coast Pilot; the original name was probably given for the ship Chichagov.
Stikine Sound is a body of water in the U.S. state of Alaska, 12 miles (19 km) north of Wrangell. It was named by Mikhail Tebenkov. It forms where the Stikine River finally reaches salt walter. The delta of the river is the silted-up inland extension of this channel. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) wide and about 20 miles (32 km) in length, with a large number of islands near its eastern end, and lying directly off the flats of the Stikine River.
Dry Strait is an ocean strait separating Mitkof Island and Dry Island in Southeast Alaska, United States near the mouth of the Stikine River. At the time of Russian exploration in the region, the strait was known as Sukhoy Strait. The strait is shallow and connects Frederick Sound in the north with Sumner Strait in the south. Dry Island is part of mainland Alaska and is formed by distributaries of the Stikine that empty into the ocean to the north and south of Dry Strait. The strait received its name, presumably, due to the fact that it is often dry at low tide.
