Ideal Cove and Petersburg
It was a lovely wet and misty morning in Frederick Sound as we steamed towards our morning destination. Almost before breakfast we had arrived at the desired location: very near the trailhead of Ideal Cove, on Mitkof Island, the island where the Norwegian-founded town of Petersburg lies. The walk up a boardwalk goes through an old forest, comprised mostly of Sitka spruce and western hemlock. It had rained earlier in the morning, and everything was wonderfully wet, just what this Temperate Rainforest needs.
For so late a date in May, very few plants were flowering, some of which were the salmonberry, the marsh marigolds, and the dwarf dogwood plants. There were still, here and there, a few of the screaming yellow spathes of the skunk cabbage also. After the different distance hikers returned, we again set sail (or steam!) northwest, along the coast of this island, to the town of Petersburg. This was the city in the United States with the highest number of millionaires per capita, till about ten years ago, when Canada and Chile began farming salmon. The fisheries of this small city include all the species of salmon, halibut, black cod, rockfish, Dungeness crab, shrimp, and all types of other seafood.
So, here in this small city, we bicycled, flew in floatplanes over the LeConte Glacier, crossed the Wrangel Narrows and visited the bog or muskeg that lies on the island on the other side of the canal, Kupreanof. This bog is protected by having a boardwalk through it, to facilitate the visit of many interested people to this unique habitat.
A large male Steller sea lion, known to the locals, swam around the fishing boats and said farewell to us as we left, shortly after Dr. Andy Szavo, director of the Alaska Whale Foundation, gave us a magnificent talk on humpback whales and their work here in Southeast Alaska.
