Leslie Friday, June 13, 2008
Petersburg is a small island community of Norwegian heritage. There are 3000 inhabitants and the high school graduated about 50 people this year. Many of the houses in town fly Norwegian flags and the fish market sells Lutefisk (ugh). The town celebrates all things Norwegian. The prime occupation is fishing. There are three harbors with space for more than 700 boats. The island is 23 miles long and 16 miles wide (at the longest and widest points) but almost everyone lives in the small town.
There is one "department" store (that's what they call it). It is a combination Radio Shack, Ace Hardware, clothing, and grocery store. The grocery store is slightly larger than the C stores at gas stations. It had no frozen vegtables, lots of canned and boxed foods. I overheard an interesting conversation in the restuaryant the other night. The couples were talking about the price of gas and the impact that had on taking your car on the ferry. Previously they would take a car on the ferry to Juneau (you can't do this in one day) and fill up with groceries. Now it would cost over $200 one way to take the car on the ferry so they were debating whether it would be cheaper to have groceries shipped in via the US Post Office. (I doubt it, but that's what they were discussing.)
Here are some pictures of old houses along the slough.
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As we were exploring I saw this house build in Frederick Sound. Look at the reflection of the mountains in the upstairs windows.
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Now notice that this is actually a row house. Look at the three entrances. Consider the ceiling line in the left and right houses?
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Yesterday we went to one of the cold storage fish processing companies looking for fresh fish. Because it was after 3:00 pm, we had to go in the fish processing entrance. Workers were cutting the fish heads off and throwing the heads in a large bin. We were able to buy fresh rock fish filleted at $7.50/lb. On Friday we visited another fish processing facility looking for fresh salmon. They explained that they flash freeze the King Salmon as soon as it is processed. We did get 3 lbs. that they had just placed in the freezer. It was cold but not yet frozen.
Later on Friday we went exploring about 18 miles south in the Tongas National Forest. We took a short hike through the muskeg. We were walking on a boardwalk, which was lucky because the muskeg is a swampy bog with many small ponds and muck. If you try to walk in the muskeg you might get stuck in the mud. According to the forest service, muskeg covers more than 10 % of southeast Alaska.
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We saw this pretty Sitka Spruce tree. Notice the pretty pine cones in various stages of development.
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Many of the trees in the forest have lichens Lichens are a fungi. The presence of lichen are used to evaluate air quality. Like the doves sent in to coal mines, lichen can’t survive in areas of high air pollution. The native people used the lichen for medicinal purposes. I think that this picture shows Witch’s Hair lichen.
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My critter count for the day is 3 Sitka Black-tail Deer. While I wasn’t able to capture a picture, the Black-tail deer look like an eastern white-tailed deer but the tail is fuzzy and jet black.
Internet access in Petersburg is available by visiting the public library. They have WIFI but only 14 chairs. The first day I sat on the floor. The library isn't open on Sunday and we leave on the ferry on Monday, so we'll probably get back on-line somewhere in Sitka. Our ferry ride on Monday is 13 hours. We got a cabin for this part of the trip.
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