Jun 18, 2012 - Day 4 - Monday, June 18, 2012

Keith and I woke up around 4:00 AM. It is daylight at 4:00 in the morning here in Petersburg. I hear different bird sounds and some road noise. The hotel is in the middle of a small town that seems to be a one road town. Today we will walk around Petersburg until it is time to catch the ferry at 11:45 AM. The weather is nice in the low 60's with a chance of rain. We walked around town and saw many beautiful plants that we took pictures of. We stopped at what Keith called "The world's greatest hardware store"....real name is "Hammer and...

Jun 16, 2012 - Day 2 - Saturday, June 16, 2012

I slept great! We woke up to low clouds touching the mountain tops. The color outside was many shades of grey displayed throughout the water and sky. The air was cool and thick showing signs of rain for the day. We had a wonderful breakfast in the dining room on the Columbia. Keith had eggs, hash browns and toast with coffee. I had huevos rancheros with hash browns and hot tea. I had asked for "tea", but in Alaska, they assume you mean "hot tea". I drank it and it was actually better than coffee. The food was very good and the view from the...

Aug 11, 2011 - Petersburg

Days 49-52 Petersburg is different from other Southeast Alaska communities because of its Norwegian heritage. It’s a neat community of about three thousand in population with prim houses that often have many brightly colored flowering hanging baskets. Nicely cared for yards are the norm. Because of the Norwegian heritage, it’s a fishing village. It’s a three seafood-processing town with the largest halibut fleet in Southeast. At the local museum, a video about the town is titled, “Petersburg—The Town that Fishing Built.” Petersburg doesn’t...

Jul 12, 2011 - La Conte Bay Glacier Tour (Wrangell to Petersburg, Alaska)

Our tour was pre-booked so all we had to do was show up with binoculars and camera in hand. The crew was made up of Jim and Jim. Jim, the captain, was a big, burly man of few words. Jim, the guide, was a youngish middle school (grades 5 – 7) teacher who was not only pleasant, but a wealth of information. Our fellow sea mates were a motley group. Of note was a middle-aged, Caucasian boat captain with her 5 year-old Chinese daughter who she took everywhere with her and a lady photographer with a humongous camera and a very shy son. The jet...

Jul 27, 2010 - Petersburg

No traveling today so we just took it easy. We went out to a place where you walk out a long boardwalk to a stream. Bears come and eat Salmon there but all we saw were the fish jumping out of the water. Guess the bears weren't hungry. Take a look at how you hold up a satellite dish in Alaska. I thought Wiley would get a kick out of that. Tomorrow we go to Juneau.

Aug 3, 2009 - Petersburg AK

We left our campground at 10 AM to insure we arrived in Prince Rupert timely to catch the ferry plus allow enough time for a lunch stop. We were camped on the Skeena River and we followed the river all the way to the sea. The river continued to get wider as more streams converged with the Skeena. We shared the river valley with a narrow gauged railroad track. The river was filled with fisherman, waiting for the Salmon. Yesterday was a national holiday for Canada. We were told they were celebrating independence, didn’t they celebrated the...

Jul 22, 2009 - SE Baronof Island to Petersburg

We weren’t going to back track this trip but here we are in Petersburg also known as “Little Norway”. Here’s how it happened. We were traveling north up the eastern side of Baronof Island in protected waters doing what is called “gunk-holing”. Sounds odd but it really means just stopping in coves and anchoring when desirable for the day or overnight. We stopped into a great little spot called Little Port Walter. Mike wanted to go to shore as there was a NOAA station that is staffed with scientists and fish management folks with a dock. I...

Jun 7, 2009 - Petersburg, AK - Twin Creek RV Park

Well, we arrived at Petersburg 30 minutes late at 1:00 a.m. on Thursday morning and by the time we got off the boat and got to the campground and parked it was 2:00 a.m. We just found an empty spot, parked the mothership and went to bed. After a few hours sleep, we registered and set up in our actual campsite. We have no cell service but I was able to find the satellite and we have WiFi. We will just have to use the cell when we are in town. The campground is about 8 miles south of Petersburg. The campground itself is a little rundown but...

Jun 2, 2009 - Petersburg

We read that it is a feather in your cap to be able to say you have transited the Wrangell narrows which lie north of Wrangell on the way to Petersburg. With about 60 buoys and channel width of only 30 ft. in some areas it could get very sketchy with cruise ships later this season. Lucky for us the weather was clear and sunny and our GPS system (E120) is awesome. Sometimes we feel like we are cheating with all this sophisticated stuff on board. So we can say we have transited the narrows which just seemed like another nice passage. Two...

Jun 1, 2009 - Petersburg & LeConte Glacier Jet Boat Tour

We were the first off the boat in Petersburg because we had an 8:30 A.M. departure for jet boat tour. Petersburg, Alaska, is a Norwegian town on Mitkoff Island. Our tour of the LeConte Glacier was with BreakAway Adventures' boats. Dwight piloted our jet boat (he's the son of the owner of BreakAway), and Jared was his co-pilot. As we left the harbor, we saw a bunch of harbor seals on a buoy, as well as an eagle perched on a buoy. At first we were in open water where there was no ice, however, as we got further in, we were slowly plowing our...

Jul 28, 2008 - Ferry To Petersburg

Our day can be described this way: early start, confusion at check-in, long ferry ride, rain, fog, and an almost indescribable campground. Now for the details. We got up at 4:30 AM, to be at the ferry terminal by 5 AM. We thought we would just take the PT to the terminal, check in and get our lane assignments, then go get the RV. NOT!!! The ferry personnel said once we check in we cannot leave the facility, so we had to give them back our passes, go get the RV (1/10th mile), and re check in, all this to find out the ferry was leaving an...

Jun 10, 2008 - Petersburg, AK

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Petersburg, Alaska What a gorgeous spot this is! We took off this morning to see as much Mitkof island as we could…and I think we have see most all the roads on it. We made several stops to look at all our eyes could possibly see. The first place was called Blind River Rapids which is on the Blind River. We walked out about ¼ mile on a boardwalk over some marshy ground to the river. Chuck was setting up the camera on a little tripod (truly a pocket size) and I was getting into the right position along the boardwalk. I...