Rainforest walk, Ideal Cove
River, Ideal Cove
Spruce cones before & after squirrels feeding, Ideal Cove
Spiranthes romanzoffiana (ladies tresses) orchid, Ideal Cove
Fishing boat hydraulics, Petersburg
Boats in harbour, Petersburg
Leconte Glacier from the air, Petersburg
Our floatplane
Leconte Glacier from the air, Petersburg
Petersburg
Crab feast on Sea Bird
Our overnight travels had taken us further south down the Stephens Passage, past Admiralty Island and the Kootzoowoo Wilderness into Frederick Sound.
At daybreak we awoke to find ourselves just off the coast of Mitkof Island in a small inlet called Ideal Cove. This cove was just across from the Stikine Leconte Wilderness area and close by to the major Alaskan fishing town of Petersburg.
We elected to join in a naturalist walk ashore at Ideal Cove. This was along a duck-boarded hiking trail through dense rain forest. The weather was fine but the track was very wet from the previous day’s rain.
The main large trees are spruce and western hemlock although as we climbed to higher altitudes there were increasing numbers of smaller pine trees.
The border of the track was a continuous carpet of mosses, lichens and ferns, many of which seemed similar to those one might see in Tasmanian rainforest. There were numerous other plants that were completely new to us including skunk parsnip, berry plants and a type of arctic rhubarb.
To our great joy, we did find a terrestrial orchid in flower. It was a white ‘Spiranthes romanzoffiana’ that the locals call ‘ladies tresses’, similar to our local Tasmanian Spiranthes.
In the afternoon Captain Cook took the boat, with great skill into Petersburg Port and tied up in an area where there was barely room to fit our vessel. Oh the wonders of bow and stern thrusters!
During our stay in Petersburg we spent quite a deal of time wandering around the dock area where the fishing fleet was made up of purse seiners, long-liners, crab-potters, gill-netters and drop-liners. The boats still in harbour were obviously serious fishing vessels with all the possible lifting gear for nets and lines plus the refrigeration equipment for storing catches. We were informed that on a good day, an average purse-seiner boat may lift five to ten tonnes of salmon. Most of this is brought into the Petersburg port and processed at the huge cannery for sale around the world as “Alaskan Pink Salmon”.
The drop-liners specialise in the catching of halibut (like a giant flounder), some of which can weight up to 200 kg.
In recent times the fishery has been severely affected by the influx of male sperm whales to the area. These whales have quickly learnt that long lines with their attached catch provide an absolutely unsurpassed smorgasbord. Even more remarkable is the fact that these sperm whales have learnt which fishermen are the ones most likely to get a good catch and thus follow them to the outlying fishery.
In the late afternoon we did a one hour flight over the town of Petersburg and followed up the fjord to the Leconte Glacier. The flight was spectacular in that the pilot took us within close distance of the fjord cliffs and did circles over the glacier, despite the 60o tight turns required. The scenery was awesome and the size of the glacier was enormous with many smaller glaciers feeding into this one.
Harbour seal lions and some steller seals were clearly visible from the light plane which was a De Havilland Beaver.
On return to the boat we took photos of the harbour scenery in a beautifully soft evening light. After a crab-feast dinner and some socialising in the lounge we set sail for Hanus Bay where our adventures will continue tomorrow.