Sitka to Petersburg - Alaska 2014

this is real 'catch & release' fishing!

After our last visit to Salmon Creek in Juneau watching thousands of salmon trying to swim upstream to breed and catching one by hand next to the shore, we headed out to the terminal to catch our ferry to Sitka, Alaska as the trip map below shows.

MV Columbia was departing Juneau at 1:30am next morning (!!!), but fortunately for us, it arrived before midnight enabling us to board early and go straight to our cabin and bed.  When researching the trip and looking at ferry routes, this one stood out and motivated me to be up again at 6:30am next morning.  

Why… we were likely to be going through narrow channels and we did, sailing through one of the narrowest channels of the entire ferry network called Sergius Narrows in Peril Strait.  At around 100 mtrs wide and our ferry at 26 mtrs wide, there was only 74 mtrs to play with, exciting because the tidal currents which surge through this narrow opening makes manoeuvring interesting or so we were told by crew.

view from our balcony

We arrived early into the Sitka ferry terminal located about 8 kms out of town and tried to catch a taxi, but they were all busy due to cruise ships being in port, so we caught ‘The Ride,’ a $2 per trip community bus system which dropped us off almost out the front of our accommodation at the Cascade Inn.  The room was spacious and very comfortable, with a private balcony overlooking expansive views of the ocean, small islands and a dormant volcano in the distance, along with a constant stream of fishing boats passing by.  This place had a small kitchenette, so we dropped off our bags and went back to ‘The Ride’ bus stop for another trip, this time downtown to find essential groceries.

The area around Sitka was originally inhabited by the Tingit people for around 10,000 years before, and like many parts of Alaska the Russians arrived and settled in 1799.  There was a lot of tension between the two groups leading to a massacre of Russians by the Tingit in the early 1800’s.  By around 1808 however, the Russians were back in control after more fighting and continued their rule, until Alaska was sold to the USA and that transaction actually took place in Sitka. 

Sitka was then the capital of Alaska, until 1906 when it moved to Juneau and is one of the few larger Alaskan towns directly facing the open ocean and has a population of about 9,000.  It is also one of the nicest looking towns so far, with many very expensive looking houses in and around it, many with great views out to the ocean and enjoying westerly sunsets, if the sun is actually shining.

We got lucky, as after nearly 50 minutes still waiting for the next bus that Alaskan friendliness kicked in.  A small car with a largish indigenous bloke driving it, pulled over and asked us if we were okay and did we need a lift anywhere.  “Sure” we said, so Rob got in the back next to the child seat and I got in front.  Our good samaritan explained he had seen us earlier on his trip out of town to go looking for deer or brown bear, there was that bear word again, and saw us still waiting on his way back.  He was a very chatty person and decided to give us a mini tour around town before dropping us off in the centre.  “What’s your name?” I asked, “Billy Bob” came the reply, “welcome to Sitka and have a great time” soon followed as we shook hands and after thanking him, off he went.

During our time in this part of Alaska we have noticed that the sun doesn’t actually come out too often during what they all call ‘summer’, so when the sun does shine you must make the most of it and on our first day in Sitka, the sun was shining.  After a quick lunch we went searching for the Alaska Raptor Centre, a place which nurses injured raptors back to good health and releases as many as possible back into the wild.  They also have some resident raptors which can’t be released due to permanent injuries and it was amazing to see so many and photograph them at close quarters.

bald eagle up close - Alaska Raptor Centre

The weather forecast for the following day had it being sunny in the morning  and cloudy later, so again with the ‘use the sun’ principle in operation and having picked up a rental car, we headed out of town to find ‘Fortress Of The Bear’, this time a place which looks after orphaned bears and releases them if possible.  There were 3 very cute and young black bears along with 5 full grown brown bears, one weighing in at 500 kgs.  To watch the behaviour between each other whilst being very very close to such large animals especially when being fed, was quite something.  It was also a good opportunity to keep practicing our bear photography.

Fortress Of The Bears

Well the cloudy skies did return during the afternoon along with some light rain which continued into the following morning.  We had booked a wildlife tour with Captain Black Bart on his smallish boat.  We have enjoyed our trips out on smaller boats and with us were Rick & Robyn from Phoenix.  Captain Black Bart’s real name is Mitch and he was a loud talking entrepreneur who revelled in telling anyone who would listen, what his next set of plans were. 

yet another tail...

When booking this tour, we told Captain Black we were keen to go searching for whales, sea otters, orcas and visit St Lazaria Island, a bird sanctuary about 30 kms from Sitka.  There are no landings permitted on this island because it is used by numerous species of birds including puffins for nesting.  It was the puffins we were hoping to get a little closer to.

we got closer still... see link

The sea was amazingly calm and the light was pretty good for photography as Captain Black charged out into the bay looking for wildlife.  Captain Fred (Valdez) and Captain Black would make a great team, boy they sure both can talk.

Wasn’t long before we came upon a humpback who was reasonably relaxed with our presence, went looking unsuccessfully for brown bears along the coastline, found some large ‘rafts’ (groups) of sea otters bobbing around amongst kelp and did mange to get closer to some puffins.  

St Lazaria Island is very different indeed and obviously volcanic in origin.  Captain Black also shared some of his home smoked king salmon with us which was very tasty as the weather around us began deteriorating very quickly, so we turned back towards Sitka for a fairly bumpy trip.

Around 4 am next morning, Sitka shared another regular Alaskan experience.  The earth moved for us, the bed shook and the glass door opening onto the balcony rattled.  The sea also made noises Rob hadn’t heard before, all caused by a 4.7 size earthquake centred about 150 kms away from us.  Unfortunately I missed all the excitement, just slept through it and heard about it from Rob, then the owner of the Inn next morning, who also told us there had been a further 10 smaller aftershocks since the first shake.  

After our vibrant start to the day and the return of very steady rain, we drove to the end of both roads out of town, 22 kms in one direction and 13 kms the other, Sitka yet again is another Alaskan town which can only be reached by boat or plane.

We flew out of Sitka early the following morning as the next trip map shows, travelling via Juneau on a 20 min. flight, changing planes and then another 40 mins to reach Ketchikan where we were greeted by steady rain and dark cloudy skies.

Please note - the trip maps also include the touring (foot, car or boat) occurring in each town.

After collecting baggage we went outside looking for transport, a taxi in this case.  We then learnt how the Ketchikan Airport is different to any others we have been to, its on an island and Ketchikan is on another island.  Rather than catch a taxi, we first had to catch a small commuter ferry over to the other island and then catch a taxi into town.

Our accommodation,  a large one bedroom apartment located on top of a small business overlooking a small boat harbour and then the docks where the cruise ships berth, was a very nice surprise and really comfortable and whilst settling in enjoyed the large ‘Disney Wonder’ cruise ship berthing directly in front of us.

Disney cruise ship berthing out front

So how did Ketchikan start life, well it wasn’t because of the Russians and fur.  Ketchikan started life around 1883 when some bloke called Snow decided to build a salmon saltery which grew and then later others came to the region to start mining and also cutting timber.  With all the men around the place, Ketchikan developed a now famous and very active red light district on Creek and Stedman Street.  

Creek St is about 100 mtrs from where we’re staying on Stedman St, so we were right in the heart of all the former action and now historic area.  There is a bridge close by on Stedman St crossing Ketchikan Creek and the coho salmon run was definitely on whilst we were here as we watched people catching fish off the bridge every day.

Ketchikan is essentially located on a narrow strip of land looking over the passage between two islands with steep mountains directly behind it.  There are many buildings here either built up the sides of the mountains and there are numerous long and steep staircases with street names for the residents.  There are even roadways built on pylons on the side of the mountains but much of Ketchikan, including all of the downtown area sits on pylons over the ocean, such is the shortage of land for the city.  It all adds a unique character to Ketchikan.

liquid sunshine guage

The first few days here were a little limiting because it rained and rained and rained and rained.  Did I say it rained!!  Ketchikan is famous for its rain, in fact outside the visitors centre there is a ‘Liquid Sunshine’ gauge. In Alaska because of the wet weather and snow, you see LOTS of people wearing light brown gumboots everywhere, onto planes, around town, in restaurants and the locals call them ‘Alaskan sandles’.  There were a lot of them to be seen in Ketchikan where the annual rainfall average is around 4 mtrs and the locals we talked to simply said the rain we experienced was pretty normal, we just hope it doesn’t impact a tour we have booked to Anan Creek.

'Alaskan sandles' also in Petersburg

It was only drizzling rain with thick low cloud when we woke for our final day in Ketchikan and eventually made our way to the pick up point for our seaplane trip to Anan Creek, regarded as one of the better bear viewing locations in Alaska.  Michelle, our pilot and owner of the tour company advised us however that they couldn’t fly into Anan because of the low cloud cover and had contemplated cancelling altogether, but believed they could get us into another place called Taylors Cove and a viewing site on Margret Creek.  The other good news was that it would be cheaper due to the much shorter flying distance.

There were 5 of us in a tour group and we were all keen to give it a go, so off we went with a few bumps and one shriek from Rob along the way.  The coastal scenery around many of these towns is truly beautiful.  We were all briefed by our pistol and bear spray carrying guide on arrival, and about what to do if we came across a bear on the trail, and that we would only be seeing black bears, and away we went.  It was raining, not heavily but annoyingly if you were keen to take photos.

There is a viewing platform run by the Foresty Dept. and below us was a raging river due to all the recent rain and there was a big black bear standing on rocks near the water waiting to grab a large salmon, which it eventually managed, but soon took its catch under trees out of sight.  The lighting for taking photos was poor because of the thick clouds, a bear which is black and the rain.

Then we waited and watched and a bald eagle high up on a tree watched with us and we waited and waited and waited.  The plan had us staying here for about 3 hours so we hoped some more bears would turn up.  Waiting, waiting, waiting… no more bears, so we took photos of the solitary eagle.  After nearly 2 hours, things started to happen. First with one bear who arrived and very quickly caught a fish and proceeded to eat on the side of the bank.  Then the skies opened up and it teemed with rain!

After a while the rain eased and another bear came to the creek on our side directly below us and caught itself a salmon next to the fish ladder, started to devour it but again disappeared under a bush, maybe the bears don’t like the rain either.

The bear on the other side of the creek had almost finished its fish when another bear headed down the bank towards it and the first bear wasn’t very happy about it because it couldn’t make an easy escape.  With the rain still falling pretty heavily, the two bears sized each other up, bared their teeth at each other and even had a few quick swipes across the face with those large clawed paws.  Was fascinating to watch as they cautiously closed the distance between each other and eventually, the first bear was able to get away.

The new bear got on with the business of fishing and catching a fish then a few other bears came down to feed, one of them launching its head into the creek and causing a swarm of fish to madly swim away from the bank into deeper water but eventually it also caught a fish and ripped it to pieces and ate its fill.

Finally it was time to leave and we headed back down the track.  Rob was up near the front of the group and had a ‘pleasant’ surprise along with a few others when they came upon a bear sitting on a log right next to them.  Having realised there were people next to it,  the bear very very rapidly sprinted off into the forest and all I saw was the black backside as it disappeared.  Rob the bear whisperer, may have lost her touch, fortunately perhaps!

There had been other groups of people from other planes on the platform for shorter periods than us and when we reached the small jetty, two planes and the people were still there waiting to take off.  All the rain we experienced whilst watching the bears was from a change of weather, higher winds and even lower cloud.  Michelle had not been able to return to pick us up either, we instead would be returning to a point for collection by van in a jet boat, which we saw coming our way on the horizon.

We did have an interesting and very choppy ride back with plenty of spray hitting us from the small and very messy white caps all around us.  The trip back had many upsides though.  First, if we had managed to fly back, nobody would have enjoyed either the shrieks or words that would have come out of Rob’s mouth as the plane bounced around.  We also went past a nuclear submarine test facility moored in 400 mtrs of water.  Nobody knows when and if submarines are there because all the sound leakage testing is done below the surface.  On our trip back, we also travelled close to the shores of a few islands and seeing the coastal rainforest up close was a delight.

Our bear viewing tour, despite a very slow start and a lot of rain, had turned into quite a memorable experience indeed.

It was time to leave as yet another trip map shows and this one has us back on the ferry system, this time aboard the MV Matanuska for an overnight trip from Ketchikan to Petersburg, Alaska.  The ferry trip was very smooth because the route goes amongst islands and along relatively narrow channels and meant backtracking north a little.

Petersburg is located on Mitkof Island overlooking the Wrangell Narrows and began in the nineteenth century when a Peter Buschmann from Norway settled there, built a cannery, sawmill and docks and the settlement was named Petersburg after him.  There are only about 2,500 people living on the island and we came here because we thought it might be a little different because of it's mainly Norwegian versus Russian heritage.

It's a very neat town, different in that it wasn’t spread all over the place like many in Alaska are, requiring people to own cars, even if there is only an entire 50 kms of road in a town.  The other noticeable difference with the ‘neat’ description, there wasn’t a lot of junk in the yards of most of the houses, again something we have seen throughout Alaska especially.

our B&B

Our accommodation was in the Waterfront B&B, a very short walk from the ferry terminal, where we were joined by two American couples who had arrived on the same ferry as us.  Our room was right on the waterfront overlooking views of the terminal and mountains on the other side of the channel and it was very comfortable indeed with plenty of room.  Leroy, the owner of the B&B with Sammy, enjoys feeding the bald eagles which nest nearby, by leaving fish for them to swoop down and snatch when there aren’t too many people around.

bald eagle swoops above us at B&B

Our first day was spent walking and exploring the town after visiting the visitors centre.  We were immediately struck by the friendliness of the locals, being greeted constantly by “hello”, including from people walking on the opposite side of the road.  Others we either met on our side of the road or in a shop would quickly ask, “where are you from?”, then follow with multiple other questions, ask how we were enjoying Alaska then typically finish with, “welcome to Petersburg”.  Nice!

Whilst walking along the narrows heading out of town and admiring many of the timber homes either built over the water or with magnificent water views, spotted a familiar shape in the distance and they were heading our way… orca.  There were two of them quietly cruising down the narrows causing many of the locals to stop and also watch or complain bitterly about not having a camera with them.  Even though quite a distance from us, they are an animal with an amazing presence.

transient orca in the narrows

We had heard that the weather was meant to clear up for a bit so our next day was spent on yet another smallish boat, no not looking at glaciers, we were out looking for whales.  Petersburg is very near Frederick Sound, renowned for the large numbers of humpbacks that migrate into it from Hawaiian waters each year.

The boat is a purpose built jet boat with large viewing windows and seats 14 passengers but there were only 6 others out on the water with us.  It had stopped raining but at the start of our trip, there was a lot of fog hanging about.  One of the other passengers turned out to be a UK photographer who runs photography learning tours for small groups.  He had 6 clients heading out tomorrow with him, but this was his personal fun day.  He was very willing to share how he goes about taking wildlife photos, so I enjoyed picking his brains.

There are a lot of whales in this area at this time of year and as the fog lifted to a perfectly clear sunny sky and at times an almost perfectly flat ocean, we found the whales, at times though it seemed like they found us.  At one location we sat for over an hour just drifting, surrounded by 10-15 feeding whales at a time with a constant stream of them passing through.  One decided to check us out, re-surfacing without us knowing it was there, less than 3 metres directly next to us and scared the crap out of most of us.  Later in the day, after spending time watching a colony of sea lions, we found a pair of humpbacks briefly enjoying themselves breaching before continuing on with their feeding.

We always know when we have had a really good day by the number of photos we have taken and Rob cracked an all time record for her with over 800 photos to wade through at the end of the day after dinner.   I only had 400 odd to go through and cull!

Our last few days in Petersburg involved hiring a car for one day and driving to the end of both roads out of town, including an early evening visit to some rapids a local told us about.  The salmon run is on here as well, and bears are meant to come down to the rapids to feed.  We were also told that Petersburg has both black and brown bears, so with bear spray handy, we headed to the rapids.  It was a lovely setting with plenty of fish again trying to get upstream and on the opposite bank a good distance away was a black bear and cub.  They weren’t too fussed by our presence but another noise spooked her and she sprinted off back into the forest, cub close behind her.

At long last we also experienced something missing for many months… a sunset!  Behind Petersburg in the distance on the other side of Frederick Sound is a range of snow capped jagged mountains including one called Devils Thumb.  With the sun setting and near cloudless skies, it was an excellent opportunity to get photos of the fishing and seaplane harbour near town.  It was so nice to at long last see some ‘golden hour’ colours on scenery again.

Devils Thumb in background

But our time in Petersburg was at an end as we boarded the ferry MV Taku to now leave Alaska altogether and continue our southwards journey back into British Columbia, Canada.  As we pulled away from the dock, Leroy and two fellow American travellers we had hit it off with, waved us goodbye, which was a very nice way to depart.  

MV Taku in front of B&B

This trip shows using different colours our routes to each of the 3 towns.

Juneau to Sitka = blue
Sitka to Ketchikan = red
Ketchikan to Petersburg = green

Alaska is an amazing part of the USA, with fantastic scenery, laid back and very friendly people, very changeable weather and the constant feel of the great outdoors.  It is truly well worth a visit.

Just click the link(s) below to view any of the additional pictures:

CLICK HERE for more photos - Sitka <> Ketchikan <> Petersburg 2014


CLICK HERE for more photos - Humpback breaching, Petersburg 2014