August 2, 2013 Friday
Day 26

We arrived in Petersburg at 10:30pm (on Thursday, August 1) and we were warmly greeted by our campground hosts at Frogs RV. We were so fortunate to get their last spot at Frogs. We had previously booked at another place but it was several miles from town and they weren't going to be up to check us in when we arrived around 11pm - even though they didn't tell us that when we booked there several months ago. Hmmm . . . Some friends we met in Wrangell raved about Frogs so we called them early today and they were fantastic; said they would be up and help us out when we arrived. What a relief!

I must mention again that we are meeting such nice people along the way on this journey. We have swapped stories and have received some fantastic tips on things to do and places to stay. Everyone is traveling and we are so interested in where we are all going, etc and we learn so much from others about their journey. Our mutual love for travel, nature, different cultures, etc. brings us together despite our different backgrounds and beliefs. People are genuinely just plain nice and we are loving it. Heartwarming.

Petersburg is a small fishing village on Mitkof Island with Norwegian Heritage. It is called "Alaska's little Norway" because in 1897, Norwegian Peter Buschmann built a fish cannery here, taking advantage of the icebergs in the water of Frederick Sound. A lot of the shops and homes have beautiful flowers painted on them, and this is called Rosemaling, a traditional Norwegian art form.
We especially like the fact that large cruise ships cannot dock here, so it is less touristy and the shops are locally owned, not owned by the cruise ships as so many shops are in Ketchikan. Petersburg feels like the "real" Alaska to us.

Early this morning we set off on Whale Song Cruses for the whale watching trip of a lifetime. Captain Ron and first mate Ola guided us expertly through Frederick Sound where we saw at least 100 humpback whales - blowing, breaching, tail and fin slapping, surfacing and diving. Some of the whales surfaced as close as 10 yards from our boat. Incredible! To top all that action off, we also heard distinctive whale songs, so hauntingly beautiful.
There were 8 people on our trip and we all became close friends as we experienced this wonder. One of the guys noticed something off in the distance that looked like a huge floating iceberg, so we headed that way and it sure enough was an iceberg. Captain Ron inched his boat up to the iceberg -yikes- those things can flip, but he was very careful. He let us all touch it then he chipped some ice off for our cooler. Another great tour, we had a blast!

Afterwards, several of us from the whale watching tour walked to Inga's for beers, dinner and reminiscing about our spectacular day.

Wildlife Sightings
Humpback Whales
Sea Lions
Murrelet