Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
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Three wooden masts from a sailing vessel stand upright in the sands of the Malaspina Forelands of Wrangell-St. Elias NP. Park officials and regional cultural resource specialists had visited the site in the past and tentatively identified the remains as those of the Japanese schooner Satsu Maru, which reportedly ran aground in this area in 1907. The SRC was asked to document and evaluate the remains of the shipwreck late in August 1984.
Analysis by SRC concluded the schooner site on the Malaspina Forelands is significant, and should be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. The three dramatic masts that comprise the only visible cultural features to the site are definitely those of a three-masted schooner built sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. The fact that the masts are still almost perfectly upright and parallel to each other strongly suggest that the ship's hull is largely intact and well preserved under the sediment. There was nothing in the material record contradicting contemporary newspapers accounts labelling the site as the remains of Japanese schooner Satsu Maru. |
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| Recommendations were made to the park that the site be protected in place, perhaps with panels explaining the history of the site and identifying it clearly as federal property protected by preservation law. It was also recommended that the site be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places; that any future field research activities concentrate on site preservation, not excavation; and that consideration be given to integrating the wreck into the general interpretive theme of the park. These issues all became largely academic when subsequent to the study the site was heavily impacted from shoreline erosion. |
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- August 1986 Documentation and evaluation of the three intact and upright mast structures in the sands of the Malaspina Forelands believed to be the Japanese schooner Satsu Maru. Daniel Lenihan, Project Director. This report is on file at SRC and available through special request.
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Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
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