Ideal Cove and Petersburg
We began a lovely sunny day in the vicinity of Mitkof Island, upon which is built the town of Petersburg. First sailed to the south-easternmost point where we hiked into a lovely forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock trees, covered in big masses of different mosses. A small river gurgled nearby, as we walked along a boardwalk, enjoying quite a few species of plants, recognizable by spines (the Devil’s club), or by smell (the skunk cabbage). Few plants were flowering, but the forest was very interesting, and we even saw some early mushrooms, especially a strong orange one on the ground, of the genus Aleuria aurantia.
As soon as we were all back on board, by mid-morning, we sailed north again, into Petersburg, a town which at one time had the biggest number of millionaires per capita of any city in the United States. This was due to the enormous availability of salmon, halibut and Dungeness crab, as well as shrimp and other sea foods.
Some of us took flights to the glaciers (LeConte Glacier), where we saw mountain goats and in the water, harbor seals on the ice-flows at the face of the glacier. Others had interesting hikes into the bog on Kupreanof Island, where we saw quite a few flowers, such as violets, skunk cabbage flowers, two species of blueberry, and flowers of the bog laurel, bogbean and bog cranberry.
A third group walked into town and visited a small museum or the few tourist shops (thank goodness), or walked along the large dock, learning all about the numerous fishing boats docked there: purse seiners, crabbers, etc. By late afternoon we had untied from the dock at Petersburg, and sailed off into the northwest, in the general direction of our morrow destination.
