Fish & Tails

Days 20 – 24, Sitka – Juneau – Petersburg, AK

The Inside Passage portion of our Alaskan journey continued with a return trip on the M/V Chenega from Sitka to Juneau.  (dot.alaska.gov/amhs/)  We are very impressed by the Alaska ferry system, and this boat is particularly nice.  We delighted in seeing a couple of Humpback whales in the distance.

After over-nighting in Juneau we had just a few hours for more sightseeing.  We'd seen beautiful Mendenhall Glacier a few days earlier so despite the drizzle we decided to go up the Mt. Roberts Tramway, probably the number 1 attraction within Juneau.  I think it has everything to do with the location; the cruise ship wharf is right in front of the tram so it is the first thing any visitor sees.  We knew visibility would be very limited because of the weather so the $33/person fare seemed pricey but we decided to make the best of it.  Lunch was good, the gift store normal, and the Alpine Trail great!  We took the short route up and around and enjoyed several viewpoints overlooking Juneau and the Gastineau Channel.  Several of the trees had small totems carved in the bark.

View of Gastineau Channel from Mt. Roberts

Tree Totem

 We decided to re-visit the Sealaska Heritage Institute, a very new museum located in the heart of the city.  Its goal is to preserve and honor the cultures of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people.  The crafts and artwork are beautiful, and the exhibits in the museum are very interesting.  We learned that every other year (even numbers) there is a large cultural celebration in Juneau where over 50 different dance groups perform; maybe there’s another trip in our future?

In the early evening we boarded the M/V Matanuska, one of the oldest and largest ships in the Alaska Marine fleet.  This ferry built in 1963, was refit in 1978, is 408’ long, and holds 499 passengers and approximately 88 vehicles.  One entire deck of the ship is staterooms and cabins.  We have rented a cabin (inside, no window) for the 12-hour overnight journey.  Again, we are very impressed by the ferry.  It is clean, comfortable, smooth, and the crew is friendly.  Our cabin was nice (bunk beds and ¾ bath) but we only spent a few hours sleeping, preferring to sit in the front lounge watching the views down Stephens Passage and Frederick Sound.  The surrounding views of the Boundary Range of the Coastal Mountains, Le Conte Glacier, and Tongass National Forest are spectacular.  The outstanding feature is The Devil’s Thumb, part of the Stikine Icecap at the boundary between BC, Canada and Alaska.

As we approached Petersburg on Mitkof Island, in the early morning hours, we saw many commercial fishing boats coming out for the day.  Petersburg has four separate harbors but none of them are deep-water ports so the large cruise ships do not go there.  However, some smaller cruise ships do stop, and it is a significant stop on the ferry route being halfway between Juneau and Ketchikan, and at the top of the Wrangell Narrows.

Walking around Petersburg, something smells fishy . . . precisely the reason there is a town here!  Petersburg was founded just before the turn of the 20^th C when Peter Buschmann spotted Le Conte Glacier and the calving ice.  He realized this would be the perfect location for a cannery and fish packing facility.  Petersburg is often called “Little Norway” because many Norwegians settled here and worked in the Icy Straits facilities.  Over the years Icy Straits changed hands many times and eventually became Petersburg Fisheries Inc.  Today, PFI is part of Icicle Seafoods Inc., one of the nation’s largest seafood processing plants located in Seattle.  Today there are a handful of major processing and packing facilities in Petersburg providing the economic force of the community.   The town has a permanent population of about 3200 people and probably a third of them are employed in the fishing industry.   Halibut, salmon, rockfish shrimp and crab are the main catches.

One of the cannery facilities

 

Halibut Sculpture

Somber Memorial

The Norwegian heritage is widely respected and honored in Petersburg.  The Sons of Norway Hall is one of the prettiest buildings and also the center of many social activities.  The town hosts a four day Little Norway Festival every May, and you can often hear Norwegian being spoken.

Our visit to Petersburg included renting a car for a day so we could explore Mitkof Island, and what is commonly called “out the road” or the 32 miles to the south end of the island.  The Petersburg Visitor Center was very helpful and suggested many stops of scenic or historic interest along the road.  It was a beautiful morning for a drive and we enjoyed the sites.  In the afternoon we drove a few miles inland to the Three Lakes Trails and hiked across the muskeg (a bog-like marshy environment in the Northern climates) on a boardwalk to Crane Lake.  It must have take a tremendous amount of work to lay the boardwalk across the muskeg, and I walked it waving my bear bell just in case a bear was enjoying lunch on the berries.

Blind Slough

Boardwalk steps

Crane Lake

Muskeg

 

Bob and I both agreed that Petersburg is at one of the most scenic locations we have visited on this Alaskan journey.  It’s a hard working fishing village that welcomes tourists.  There are many options for the sport fisherman to take a charter or for whale watching.  Frederick Sound is home to a summer feeding group of Humpback Whales on their migration between the Alaskan waters and Maui, Hawaii.

Lucky Bob does not get seasick, or rarely anyway!  So I encouraged him to sign up for a whale-watching cruise.  To continue in Bob’s words . . . I chose Whale Song Cruises and at first I choked at the cost of a whale watching tour ($350/person) but it was worth every penny . . . a full day of cruising, looking for humpbacks, and we saw a total of 21 whales!  The boat was a 14-passenger jet boat designed to go up the white water rapids in the Snake River (ID) and was well suited for whale watching.  The ride was pretty rough going full speed (30 knots), but otherwise I appreciated the pace of travel. 

Frederick Sound is one of the best locations in the world to see Humpback whales.  They spend their winters in Hawaii, and their summers in SE Alaska . . . sounds like a pretty good life to me.  Approximately 1500-2500 Humpbacks travel here in the summers to feed on krill and herring in the Frederick Sound area.  During feeding they dive between 5 - 30 minutes before re-surfacing.  The trick to spotting whales is to look for the water spray/steam when they first surface and “blow” or exhale.

We almost ran over the first whale we saw, as we were cruising at 30 knots and he surfaced about 300 yards in front of the boat.  After that we saw two humpbacks together, then a mother and calf which was very special.  The calves are born in the warm waters of Hawaii and stay with their mothers for the next year during the migration to Alaska and back to HI.  

The boat proceeded north from Petersburg, traveling about a mile off the coastline of Kupreanoff Island.  After the first 5 whales we did not see any more until we were past the village of Kake, about 45 miles from Petersburg.  Around Sail Island we saw a couple more singles, but they spent most of their time in deep diving.  Then we spotted some big splashing going on about ¾ mile away, so we took off to investigate. 

When we got closer, we started seeing not one, but groupings of 2 and 4 whales together, for a total of 8-10 whales in the area.  They were all surface feeding or “lunge-feeding” with huge open mouths, and doing tail splashes.  This was such a super photo-op, and I shot over 100 photos using the continuous shutter setting on the camera.  I only wish I had a larger telephoto lens; mine was only 135mm.  Still, I ended up with a dozen pretty good shots.  One whale came within 10 feet of the boat, just slowly rolling and waving his flipper.  We also saw a full breach in the distance, but of course no one got a shot of this.

Needless to say, this was the highlight of the day and afterwards we started back to Petersburg, seeing only 3 more whales on the way back.  Insight into this experience . . . I’m pretty small when up close and personal with a Humpback whale!  The sea lions laying around are pretty cute too.

Our only criticism of Petersburg is that it seems a bit “restaurant challenged.”  There are not many places to eat and certainly nothing that would be called “fine dining.”  The menus at the few cafes are limited and there’s only one bar in town.  I suspect that after working long shifts in the seafood processing plants, or for days out on a fishing boat, all you want to do is go home . . . and Petersburg would be a nice place to call home.

Five Fingers Lighthouse

Next up . . . another ride on the Matanuska to Ketchikan!  Thanks for joining us!