Cruising and Petersburg
Just what we needed! A lovely day with few clouds and the sun peeking through every so often. We were slowly sailing along Frederick Sound, in the southern portion of Southeast Alaska, looking out for interesting marine and coastal wildlife. Quite a while before breakfast we saw a humpback whale, and shortly thereafter, a harbor seal. A few birds, such as marbled murrelets, surf scoters and loons were also seen, always scurrying away from the ship. Some flew off to land elsewhere, some dove immediately.
At the southeastern end of Frederick Sound we saw a great amount of icebergs, all originating from the Le Conte Glacier. These were all stuck in a line, at a quite shallow depth, on the terminal moraine of this glacier, left there a long time ago, as it retreated back into its fjord. Ice from here was hauled by small ships to the nearby port and town of Petersburg during the last years of the 1800’s, and well into the 1900’s, where the descendants of the original Norwegian founders of Petersburg had all the canneries and packeries. Wood to build the boxes for shipping the fish with ice to the lower 48’s was obtained from this heavily forested island, called Mitkof.
We left the ice area, and crossed the Sound to the Coast of Mitkof Island, where we landed almost everybody on board, and made very interesting inroads into the temperate rain forest of this gigantic state. A boardwalk led us into the interior, through a quite old forest, somewhat depauperated of the good trees, the Sitka Spruce, quite a long time ago. We met interesting plants such as the skunk cabbage and the devil’s club, as well as a big number of smaller plants that were still in bloom. Other hikes went higher up on the island.
Back to the ship in time for lunch and for the trip to Petersburg, where we docked at one of the three marinas, almost all dedicated to fishing boats. Petersburg is definitely a fishing community. All types of fishing vessels are always seen, from the small crabbers and gillnetters, to the bigger purse-seiners and fish buyers. The hardware stores are loaded with just everything a fisherman might need for his vessel or for his fishing implements.
Hikes were made to the bog or muskeg on the adjacent Kupreanof Island, to see the so varied wild plants growing in these so harsh acid conditions, from sundews to shorepine and dwarf junipers.
After the return of everybody to our ship, we had a guest speaker, Dr. Andy Szavo, Director of the Alaska Whale Foundation, who illustrated us about so many aspects of the life of the humpback whale!
