Celebrating in Petersburg

Petersburg has two nicknames—“the city that fish built” and “Little Norway”—and I’d have to say it lives up to both!   It is a commercial fishing town.  Period.  Unlike the other towns we’ve visited in Southeast Alaska so far, it has not gone through the booms and busts of gold mining and logging, and it does not participate in the tourism trade so prevalent elsewhere.   No cruise ships dock here.  Very few souvenir shops.  No restaurants open past 2 p.m. or with seating on the premises—the woman at the Chamber of Commerce stated, “We cook our dinner at home."  What it does have is three harbors for huge numbers of fishing boats, three canneries, and a population (3500) employed in fishing and support of fishermen.  The town was founded in 1900 by “Peter” Buschmann who noted the abundant salmon and herring in the area along with conditions for a safe harbor, and most importantly, proximity to the LeConte glacier, which calves lots of icebergs into the sea.  He figured he could drag icebergs to the harbor, hack them up, and use the ice to keep fish cold for transport to Seattle.  To make a long story short…”Petersburg” was born.   Commercial fishing went through tremendous booms and busts here, but was never supplanted by other industries, and Petersburg boasts that ranks among the top seafood producers in the world!  It was interesting to be a tourist here among people who, in general, ignored us.  We saw a movie in the Petersburg museum this morning and were a bit shocked to hear one of the persons interviewed in it say that visitors were a necessary evil, begrudgingly stating they had to be tolerated because “this is their forests, too, their ocean, too”.  Nothing quite so refreshing as blatant honesty!!   Also completely absent are anything but locally owned businesses.   The same speaker in the museum movie stated "all the money made in Petersburg stays in Petersburg, so everyone is prosperous."  Indeed, we saw ample evidence of this prosperity.   

We arrived in Petersburg at 4 a.m.

One of three beautiful Petersburg harbors

Educational bulletins at harbors tell what kinds of boats and what kind of fishing is done here

Largest salmon ever caught was caught in Petersburg.  This was in 1939 and it weighed 126 pounds

Huge fresh fish recently caught on display downtown

Data on above fish on display...town heros!!

It is speculated that besides that glacial ice, Peter Buschmann and the many, many Norwegian immigrants that followed him settled in this area because of its similarity in appearance and climate to Norway.   It is an absolutely beautiful town in an absolutely beautiful setting, and it celebrates its Norwegian heritage to the max!   Evidence the huge “Sons of Norway” hall with it’s commemorative Viking ship out front and “rosemaling” (attention: Scrabble players) all over.   Rosemaling refers to painted flower motifs and it is everywhere in Petersburg…and I do mean everywhere!   I also suspect theirs is a culture that loves flowers, because even though this is a hard-working town, flowers are displayed in abundance, and clearly not for tourists’ benefit!

Beautiful mountains surround Petersburg

Fancy chalet in which to view mountains, complete with telescopes

View of town

Frequent Norwegian festivals

Sons of Norway Hall

Viking ship "Valhalla"

Rosemaling on the bank...

Rosemaling on the pharmacy...

Rosemaling on the local pizza place!

Rosemaling even engraved on the sidewalks!!!

Flowers everywhere!

Downtown Petersburg mural

We camped here on Mitkof Island in a beautiful spot some 30 miles from town, on Frederick Sound which is famous for its humpback whales.   Three thousand to five thousand humpbacks spend their summers feeding in Southeast Alaska each year, and Petersburg marine biologists state nearly half of these enter the Frederick Sound.   We were thrilled when on our very first night in camp we could see and hear whales diving and slapping the water with their fins, feeding, in the distance.   One can schedule whale-watching trips out of Petersburg and be pretty much guaranteed a show!   We did not pursue that but did hope to take a guided kayak trip to the LeConte Glacier.  Unfortunately, on the day we were to go the weather got cold, rainy, and windy, so thought better of that plan…

View from our campsite when tide was "in"

Same view from our campsite when tide was "out"

Kathy walks the shoreline of our campsite on Frederick Sound

Lily at camp

Le Conte glacier and icebergs!

There was so much to celebrate in Petersburg!  Father’s Day for one!   Jim and Bernie did what all good fathers do on Father’s Day morning—slept late—not out of luxury, but necessity!   Our ferry boat from Wrangell arrived in Petersburg at 4 a.m.   We had no sleep that night, but we awakened at eleven Sunday morning to the beauty that surrounded us and enjoyed a relaxing day.   Jim and Bernie saw two moose while out exploring for possible campgrounds at the crack of dawn—that was awfully special for these couple of dads!   We roasted Kathy’s big Dolly Varden that day and had a wonderful Father’s Day feast.

Happy Father's Day!

Bernie's new favorite brew!

Roasted Dolly Varden (aka Arctic Char)

My 62nd birthday on June 25 was another cause for celebration!  It rained and rained, so we decided to go to town.   As described above, there was no place here to have a fancy restaurant dinner as Bernie had planned, but we found a bar that didn’t care a whit if you brought in food to eat with your beer, and down the street was a storefront where the locals get their fish ’n‘ chips (halibut!) between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m, and beyond that a little stand where Mexican people were selling Rockfish tacos.   So we got one of each, took them to the bar, and had us an Alaskan birthday lunch that I will never forget!   Surrounded by my loving husband, dear sister, and brother in law, as well as such natural beauty—how could I?

Venue for my birthday party

Happy Birthday, Peggy!

We also celebrated catching our first salmon in Petersburg, and let me tell you—it was not easy!   We learned that the best place to fish was in the rapids of the Blind River, where king salmon were swimming upstream to their spawning grounds.   We hiked out there and sure enough, there they were, just a-leaping in the air all around us like some kind of National Geographic TV special!  Thrilling!  Doing cartwheels!  Back-flips!  Triple Axels!  Toe loops—okay, I exaggerate—but not taking our bait!!  So we talked (and eavesdropped) on the fishermen surrounding us who were catching fish left and right, and learned we needed to "drift fish” with a big gob of salmon roe dangling 12-18 inches below a good old-fashioned, red-and-white bobber!

Bernie hikes out to our favorite fishing spot on the Blind River

Kathy and Jim out in the river, fish jumping all around them

Who says chest waders aren't sexy?

This young man had no problem catching his limit at the Blind River, so why can't we?   

Peggy doing research at the Petersburg library

Ah-HAH!  We just need to buy more stuff!!

Off to the hardware/fishing store we went to get equipped, regardless the price—you know how it is!   To make a long story short, Jim, our hero, finally hooked one after four days of observing, trying, researching, shopping, and trying some more!   And with that fish in hand, all memories of the difficulties involved in catching him vanished!   Bernie grilled him and we ate him within two hours of pulling him out of the water!   Yessiree, we ate him with all the trimmings, and he was incredibly delicious!

The big day finally comes!

Our hero!!

Our "butcher "

Two big red fillets

The grill master

Enjoying a wonderful salmon dinner on our last night at camp

Doesn't this make you hungry??

Foodies that we are, we also celebrated finding our first wild Alaskan salmonberries!   They are unique because they come in red, purple, and orange-orange!   You can tell if they are ripe by their texture primarily, and they were delicious!

Our first Alaskan salmonberries

We know just what to do with them, too!

YUM!

 Petersburg is not a hiking destination, but we managed to get one in anyway which was remarkable for consisting of miles and miles of boardwalk covered with, you guessed it—fishnet—to provide traction!

On the trail again...more boardwalk and stairs!

Fishnet--what else?--provides traction for hiking boots

The hike took us to aptly-named "Ideal Cove"

Beautiful seaweed beneath our feet

So at 3:00 a.m. June 28 we board our ferry boat for Sitka and have one last celebration—Jim and Kathy’s 46th wedding anniversary.

Congratulations, Kathy and Jim!!

It is a 14 hour ferry ride to Sitka and so once again, we have a stateroom in which to catch up on missed sleep.   We will be in Sitka for only four days because of the way the ferry schedule works up here.   We are told it will be a very, very busy time because there is so much to see and do there!   Hope you’ll tune in for the full report!