Wrangell Narrows, Alaska, 1926
The card above has the name Thwaites and the number 2160 at the lower left corner. It was sent by a friend to I.C. Lee and dated 1926. It was probably a black and white print that has faded to a sepia color.
While our ship did not travel through the Wrangell Narrows seen in these two postcards from the 1920s, this is another locality that I recall my parents talking about. The card above has a photograph by John Edward Thwaites who delivered mail to the costal communities. He worked as a clerk for the Railway Mail Service beginning in 1905 and sailed on the S.S. Dora a mail boat traveling the route from Valdez to Unalaska and later in 1914 on the Seward-Seattle route. As an amateur photographer he used a Kodak camera and documented his experiences. The postcard market was booming and he continued to take photos selling thousands of photographic postcards with scenes from Alaska.
The card below I found in a shop in Ketchikan. It appears to have been taken about the same time and shows a slightly different angle of the same body of water. The image number #3146 is found on the reverse and a notation that Lantern Press, Seattle, WA, printed the card.
Another view of Wrangell Narrows, Alaska, ca 1920s
Wrangell Narrows is a winding, 22 miles or 35 km, channel between Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands in Southeast Alaska. Because of the navigational hazards there are about 60 lights and buoys to mark the safe passage areas. The Narrows is named for the narrowest central portion of the channel. Used by fishing boats and the Alaska Marine Highway ferries the Narrows are too shallow and narrow for the cruise ships.
For more information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangell_Narrows
http://content.lib.washington.edu/thwaitesweb/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Wrangell_Alaska
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