Petersburg

We docked at Petersburg, a Norwegian settlement, the next morning at about 8 AM. We walked the short distance to the Sons of Norway Hall. There was a replica of a Viking boat out front and a deck with a large statue of a fisherman. There were hundreds of plaques on the fence giving names and dates of fishermen and women who had lost their lives at sea. They all had an original saying on them.Inside the hall, we enjoyed a muggah(sp?). This was when a fisherman went out to fish early in the morning and would come in after a few hours to have cookies and coffee. Then, they go back out to fish. Some ladies had baked three different traditional Norwegian cookies for us to eat and served coffee. Then, we went outside on the deck where we were entertained by four boys and four girls dressed in native costume to do traditional folk dances for us. After their performance, we all made a big circle and danced. We all got on a yellow school bus and rode to a bog where we took a short walk. The moss in some places goes down 30 feet. It felt like walking on a waterbed. Cody and Aspen walked the short distance back to town with a few others, but my knee was bothering me so I rode back. We drove by a school and I was astonished that their baseball diamond was gravel! We also got a glimpse of a black tailed deer on the way to the bog. Back on the ship, it was cookie time. Today, we had white chocolate and macadamia cookies. Our stop the next day was to be Kake. For dinner that night, I had chicken cobb salad and tomato bisque soup. There was time to play games and cards and visit in the lounge. Jess, a very good artist, had different things for the young people(or anyone) to make. One night, we made a bracelet of white cedar and another night, Aspen made a small drum and drew Tlingit figures on it. There were many interesting books in the lounge for anyone to read. Mary gave a talk that evening about salmon and the hatchery we would see the next day. One of the sayings in that area is, ''Fishing is not a matter of life and death-it's more serious than that''. We learned about chum, red or sockeye, silver or coho, pink or Humpies, king or Chinook. We also learned there are no Omega 3's in farm raised salmon. That night, after most had gone to their cabins for the night, Mary read ,''The Strangest Story Ever Told'', which was set in Thomas Bay. We could listen through the speaker in our cabins.