Wake Island Walk About

03 March 2025

On my day off today I went exploring. First let’s talk about Australian ironwood trees. The phase “you can’t see the forest because all of the trees are in the way” comes to mind as I bring this up. These ironwoods are not native to Wake but they have found a home here. I’ll give them credit for their resilience to survive in this climate. Each one produces thousands of seeds so they spread all over the island. I’m not a fan of them. Having grown up in Washington State, I’m more of a Douglas Fir fan, or in Montana, Tamaracks are my favorite especially in the fall when they change color.

Back to the main point. Many of the old structures and buildings are largely obscured or hidden by the forests of ironwoods here. Their big overstory largely blocks out any underbrush from getting a foothold. And the ironwood’s long wispy needles create a thick carpet mulch that further suppresses any other seeds from germinating. However, that lack of understory makes it relatively easy to walk through the forest as I found out today.

I was told one of these buildings here used to house an old transmitter site. I made it my mission to go check this building out on my lazy day off from work and away from the ham radio. I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the equipment racks still inside. You could almost feel the memory of all that RF that must have poured out of there. Along the outside walls were dozens of insulators and feed points that must have fed impressive antenna arrays. I will just post the pictures here, below, and hopefully one of you all might know more about the history and mission of this site. Feel free to leave a comment if you want to share more information.

73, Allen