A modern map showing Wrangell Island and Etolin Island, separated by the narrow channel of the Zimovia Strait.

An honest mistake?

At first, I thought it was a typo. In 1884, the Indianapolis Journal wrote:

…Fort Wrangel, on Etolin Island, at the mouth of the Stickeen…

That’s a mistake, I thought. Wrangell has always been on Wrangell Island. Etolin Island sits across the Zimovia Strait from Wrangell.

But then I saw it again. The 1869 Coast Pilot identifies the location of Point Highfield:

…the northern extremity of Etolin Island, off which lies a small partially wooded islet two-thirds of a mile distant…

The islet being described is Deadmans Island. Once again, Wrangell Island is called Etolin Island.

I tried to brush it off. I tried to blame it on bad editors who’d never been to Wrangell. But then I found someone using it who had been to the community, and is considered an expert on the subject: George Thornton Emmons. He came to Kaach.xana.a’kw in the early 1880s and did anthropological research among the Lingít. His volume was published after his death, with Frederica de Leguna’s voice often appearing in the text, inside [brackets], cleaning up his mistakes.

…Near the northwest extremity of Etolin Island [Emmons evidently meant Wrangell Island]…
… on the channel back of Etolin Island [read Wrangell Island]…

If George Thornton Emmons was using it, then it was no accident. It all suggests a pattern: for a time, some people called Fort Wrangel’s island Etolin.

The 1880 Census

The 1880 Census in Alaska identified Fort Wrangel as being on Etholin Island. It also identifies four Lingít villages on Etholin Island: Shustak’s village, Kash’s village, Towayat’s village, Kohltiene’s village.

While there’s no doubt that Etolin Island is rich with Indigenous history, I think this census is actually of Wrangell Island — not Etholin Island.

Wrangell Island’s Other Names

Wrangell Island’s name on hand-drawn Russian map in 1849 by Tebenkov was Kaπxanna, clearly a nod to the Lingít name of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. The 1869 Coast Pilot says the Russians called the islands between “Ernest and Clarence Straits” the Etolin Islands. This includes Wrangell Island, which may help explain why it was sometimes called Etolin Island.

The most compelling reason people may have identified Fort Wrangel as sitting on Etolin Island is the name of the harbor: Etolin Harbor, or Etolin Bay. It’s the body of water created by the peninsula in front of Wrangell serving as a breakwater. This Russian map shows the plans for Gavani Etolin. This name stuck throughout the decades that came, and people may have applied it to the whole island.

The U.S. era in Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw began in 1868, when the Army began construction of a fortress. In the first post return filed by the Army commander, he described their location as “at North West end facing South of Wrangell Island, Etholine Bay…”

By 1890, every printed source that discusses Fort Wrangel agrees that it sits on Wrangell Island, and that Etolin Island sits nearby.

It must have been as confusing for people in the past as it is now.