Wrangell Airport

Wrangell Airport serves a small town on Wrangell Island, at the mouth of the Stikine River, which flows down from the interior and meets the sea here. It lies in Alaska's southeastern panhandle, the narrow strip of coast and islands running south along the Canadian border. Roughly two thousand people live there, in a town that is the only place in Alaska governed under three flags.

It began as the Russian outpost Redoubt Saint Dionysius. It was then leased to the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Stikine, and it became American with the purchase of Alaska in 1867. Each ruler left a different name on the same patch of ground. For a short spell the whole town boomed as a supply point for gold rushes heading up the Stikine River.

Like the rest of the panhandle, Wrangell has no road link to anywhere else, so air service is essential rather than handy. The airfield grew in the mid twentieth century and was later paved and lengthened to take jets. That put Wrangell on Alaska Airlines' southeast milk run, a daily Boeing 737 that hops from town to town along the coast carrying mail, freight, groceries, and passengers.

Wrangell has a single runway, 11/29, about 6,000 feet long. It sits on a shelf of ground beside the water, with forest and mountains close by. The terminal is small, sized for one jet at a time.

Scheduled service is entirely Alaska Airlines milk run 737s, backed by 737 freighters that keep cargo moving. Weather drives everything. Rain, low cloud, and fog often force flights to overfly the town, and passengers can end up in Petersburg or Ketchikan instead. Floatplanes, the state ferry, and fishing boats handle everything else, including charters to remote cabins and hot springs.