Petersburg's Little Norway Festival and Beyond

May 25, 2012

We are sitting in Auke Bay Marina, near Juneau, enjoying some rain free weather.  I am in the pilothouse as I write and have a wonderful view of the harbor and the mountains across the channel.  I’ve been well entertained by a young whale who decided to see how far he could jump out of the water.  Amazing!

To catch you up on our travels:

We arrived in Petersburg on Tuesday, May 15, after a dreary, rainy cruise up Wrangell Narrows.  We moored in North Harbor, as we did last year, and as you can see, we’re surrounded by fishing boats.  There are two canneries in this harbor so it’s quite a busy place.  The eagles are pretty excited about the canneries’ activities and we hear and see lots of them at all hours.  In fact the whole town has more than its share of eagles.  We’ve kept a close eye on Smokey and actually don’t let her go outside.  Theoretically a mature eagle could take off with her!   This eagle was sitting on a mask overlooking the harbor.

We wanted to be in Petersburg during this weekend to see the Little Norway Festival, which began with a parade on Thursday afternoon.  Some of the locals really got “into” the Viking “look”.  The town actually has a replica of a Viking ship parked outside the Sons of Norway hall (more about that later) and the boat is a key participant in the parade.  School kids compete for the privilege of riding on the ship, but the Vikings, not to be outdone, ride on the pickup pulling the ship.  I’d estimate their average blood alcohol level was well above the legal limit!

Locals who had ancestors from Norway dressed in the traditional costumes from the areas in Norway where their families immigrated.  They marched in the parade too.   I particularly like this photo of a grandmother and granddaughter in Norwegian regional dress, with the Viking in the background!

The parade lasted about 15 minutes…not bad for a town of 3,000 people I thought.  If a Petersburg resident wasn’t in the parade, he or she was standing along side watching, cheering, and grabbing the candy that was being tossed.  Immediately after the parade, the entire crowd watched or participated in the “herring toss”.  This game is organized like an egg toss but uses herring.  Lots of folks participated and lots of slimy fish were flying through the air!  Can you see the fish in this well-dressed young lady's hand?  She and her boyfriend almost won!

We went to a Scandinavian lunch and fashion show at the Sons of Norway hall.  This building is 100 years old and still used heavily today.  In front of the building is the fishermen’s memorial park where they keep the Viking ship parked.  We had a shrimp salad for lunch, which was delicious, but poor Jerry couldn’t partake.  He got extra servings of bread and fruit!  The fashion show included about 80 regional Norwegian costumes.  The moderator, Glo, had made many of the costumes, travelling to Norway to get original patterns and fabrics.  She was quite knowledgeable and seemed to know everyone in town.  Come to find out, she was also the harbormaster for Petersburg!  No wonder she looked familiar.  

I wanted a picture of these young ladies who served the lunch.  Look what happens when you ask a bunch of Norwegian-Americans to say "turkey lips"!

On Wednesday, a 35’ cruiser pulled into the slip across the walkway from us.  They were also from Anacortes so we spent lots of time with them.  They enjoy kayaking and participated in the boat race.  Their kayaks were quite interesting.  They had actually made the kayaks themselves and are nylon sealed with waterproof sealant.  While we were there, they had one of the local artists paint some rosemaling on each kayak.  It looked great next to their Tlingit native designs.

The boat race was quite entertaining.  Of course the Vikings were there to…well, I don’t know exactly what their function was, other than to be the comic relief.  There was one Viking ship in the race and I’m pretty sure they finished last.  They just couldn’t quite get it all together.  Rowing seemed beyond them!  I really don't think the Viking on the right is trying to hit the Viking on the left.  He just didn't know what to do with the oar!  It may have something to do with beer….

There are three marinas in Petersburg, so we did a lot of dock walking.  Besides all the various types of fishing boats, there are cruisers like us and some quite large boats.  Here is a smattering of what we saw:

This boat is a long-liner, fishing for salmon on long lines, for high quality fish.  One of the locals told us that a law was passed that said fishing boats could be no longer than 58 feet, but the law did not specify how tall the boats could be.  This one was huge!  We were parked next to it and the eagle that I photographed was sitting up on one of the masts.

Pavlov is a processing boat.  She offloads from the fishing boats, allowing the fishermen to stay out longer.  Pavlov brings the catch into the cannery.  It’s a huge boat, too. 

The docks have their share of quirky things.  For instance, this ship has not been moved in years, and looks the same as it did last year.  It’s evident that someone lives on this boat, and yes, the reindeer to light up!  Every night.  The harbormaster told us that the North Harbor docks are due to be completely renovated next year.  I wonder if this boat will still be here!

Knut and Gerry, our slip neighbors in La Conner arrived on Friday.  They had departed the first of May and made a beeline to Petersburg for this festival.  They had not attended before, even though Knut grew up in SE Alaska and is half Norwegian.  It was great to sit and visit with them and learn about his life as a commercial fisherman out of Bristol Bay.  He still comes up here to fish on a small boat every summer.  They leave their Nordic Tug in Hoonah, Gerry flies home and he flies to Bristol Bay.  Quite a life!

Last year we met Grant and Lila Trask at the Petersburg Lutheran Church and we saw them again this year.  Grant is a retired long-liner and we learned a bit about what that life was like for them.  (If you're from Christ Lutheran, you'll know what I mean when I say that he was the "Andy Balerud of Petersburg"!)   They took their boat to Sitka every summer and fished in the Gulf of Alaska for salmon.  Their son and daughter were deck hands, although Lila said that their daughter did not enjoy working with the fish!

It was quite a process to carefully catch each fish, gently and quick kill and clean it, and pack it in ice.  Their market were expensive restaurants that charged $30-$40 a plate for the deluxe salmon.  Sunday afternoon he took us on a tour of two interesting boats.  We went on board a friend’s boat that he said was very similar to his long-liner.  Look at all those lures!  There were a zillion more outside in the cockpit.

Grant also took us aboard an old tug, built in 1899 that had worked as a cannery tender and a log tower in Puget Sound, among many other things.  Take a look at the YouTube video clip of this ship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_KOzlJlXgE

The ship is named “Katahdin” and is currently owned by a dentist who lives across Wrangell Narrows from Petersburg, on Kupreanof Island.  His website is quite interesting too: http://dougleen.com/  You can get the whole story of the boat’s restoration and lots of other stuff.  This guy is definitely a renaissance man.  We were able to crawl all over it and even had out photo taken in the galley with the couple from Anacortes.

Another marina event worth mentioning was the children's fishing derby.  All ages and sizes invaded the marina on Saturday morning to see who could catch the largest fish.  I have no idea who won but I sure hope it was this well-dressed little girl!  Apparently she's giving her older brother some pointers.

Included in the Little Norway celebration was a tour of the two US Coast Guard boats stationed in Petersburg, the “Elderberry” and the “Anacapa”.  We have seen both of these boats out on the water and were curious to see their “innards”.  The young man who toured us on Anacapa told us that they were the ship to sink the Japanese ghost ship out in the Gulf of Alaska several weeks ago.  It sounded like that was the most excitement they’ve had in quite awhile.  Elderberry is a buoy tender and maintains the lighted buoys in Wrangell Narrows.  We saw them working on a buoy at the southern end of the narrows last year.  I got a great shot of Cap’n Jerry at the helm of Anacapa.

Tired of pictures of Vikings yet?  I couldn’t pass up this photo opp!  No, they didn’t really share their beer!  Rather interesting outfits, though!

We left Petersburg on Tuesday, May 22, and headed across Frederick Sound.  This is big time whale country and we saw lots of whales here last year.  We saw one lonely whale shortly after we left Wrangell Narrows and a few off in the distance, but nothing dramatic.  We anchored in Gambier Bay Tuesday evening.  This wasn’t a particularly beautiful spot, but a new place for us, as we made our way north up Stephens Passage.  It was a quiet anchorage and Smokey was even brave enough to circumnavigate the boat!

On Wednesday, May 23, we hoped to anchor in No Name Cove, at the entrance to Tracy Arm, and go look at the glaciers.  This is where we had stayed with Jim and Chris Munch last year, and we were certain we’d have the same beautiful afternoon, but, of course, it wasn’t meant to be.  Our standard faire of rainy, low overcast weather persisted.  The gray of the sky met the gray of the ocean, and if it weren’t for the rippled water, it would have been hard to distinguish the two.  The photo is looking at the entrance of Tracy Arm.  We should be seeing peaks with snow…nope!  

We passed quite a few small icebergs as we moved north and were glad the visibility was no worse than it was.

We continued on to Taku Harbor, another three hours or so closer to Juneau.  We’d stay here last year, too, and knew it to be a good moorage in case the weather turned bad.  This is a state-maintained dock, so no services.  There was once a cannery here, but only the rotting pilings are left.  We could wander on the shore a little bit to explore and it always feels good to stretch our legs.  About 8 PM, we happened to glance out the back door of the boat and Disney Wonder passing by the entrance to the harbor, on their way to Skagway.  Pretty, huh?

Thursday, May 24, we took off for Auke Bay, and had the best day of our trip so far.  By the time we got tied up we had lovely sunshine and a glorious view of the mountains on Admiralty Island.  As we came in we could see Mendenhall Glacier glowing in the sunshine.  Donald and Dorothy Peterson (Jerry’s aunt) arrive tomorrow and we hope to drive up there and explore with them the glacier.  Until then, it’s laundry, vacuuming, and getting ready for company.  Usual stuff. 

We plan to depart on Monday, May 28, for Glacier Bay, arriving on Tuesday, May 29.  We’ll hope for great weather while we’re there, since we’ll travelling all over this huge bay and anchoring wherever we find a spot.  Right now it sounds like rain and more rain…oh, well!  We hope to go to Sitka by cruising down the west side of Chichigof Island…”on the outside” as they say.  We’ll arrive in Sitka on June 8 or 9 and Donald and Dorothy depart on June 10.  It should be quite a trip and we’re sure looking forward to their company!

As always, we wish you could join us!