Petersburg

The annual Little Norway Festival in Petersburg honors the town’s and communities’ Norwegian heritage. It is Petersburg largest community event and held in the middle of May over a weekend close to the Norwegian Constitution Day, May 17.  Like many small town celebrations, there are parades, contests, demonstrations and many opportunities to eat and drink.

We arrived on Friday, May 17 which was the day of the parade followed by the very popular herring toss and street fair (crafts, food vendors and beer gardens).

I’ve red circled the herrings in flight in the photograph.

We made the extra effort to get to Petersburg in time for the festival in part to meet up with friends also attending. John & Kathleen arrived a two days ahead of us to start bringing their boat out of its winter hibernation. Not exactly intended, we ended up moored next to them on the dock.  Their boat was built at the same time as ours at the Seahorse Marine boatyard.

Also arriving ahead of us were Natala and Don Goodman accompanied by Dave Adams. Dave owns two aircraft that he built but neither are on floats. Don, Dave and I were on the successful 1981 Denali South Buttress climb. They had flown up on Don & Natala’s Cessna 182 equipped with floats.  The US Forest Service has many cabins in SE Alaska only accessible by float planes or boat available to rent.  Don & Natala have done several previous trips visiting some cabins and where possible we’ve met up with them along the way.

On Saturday, the highlight of the day was the Kaffe Hus. This is a fund raiser for the Sons of Norway in which homemade traditional Norwegian treats are laid out buffet style and you can fill your plate to your heart’s content. Bringing a container or ziploc bag to carry something back to the boat is always a smart idea.

Later that day Marcia watched intently while a 90 pound halibut was swiftly carved up into four portions by a professional from the local processing plant.

Both Friday and Saturday evenings we gathered as a group on the boats to have beverages, snacks and conversation. Weather permitting it was outside on the flybridge.

Don, Natala and Dave flew out on Sunday in a weather window ahead of an approaching weather front. Before leaving the area, Don flew east towards the coast range separating the SE Alaskan Panhandle from British Columbia.  They had beautiful weather for a flyby of Devils Thumb, a prominent peak visible from Petersburg.

The last Little Norway Festival event we attended was the Rotary Club Seafood Bake & Barbecue. The seafood served were ample portions of king salmon and black cod. The setting is at the Sandy Beach park which looks east out over Fredrick Sound.

We haven’t quite figured out when and where we’ll go from here.  Since we bypassed Ketchikan, we are “spending” those days we “saved” here in Petersburg.  There are places for Drake to play and for me to walk, so no hurry.