Petersburg, Alaska
It is now 10:00 at night and we've had a very busy and rich day! In the early morning, before normal vacationing humans are close to awakening, the angelic voice of Bette Lu, our Expedition leader, came lightly over the PA system, "It's 7:00, 56 degrees and there are sunbreaks as we enter the beautiful harbor of Petersburg, Alaska." From that moment on, we have been bounding from one wonderful experience to another. The morning centered on Petersburg, a town of 3,600 people who mostly make a living fishing or serving the fishing fleet. Some of us took to the sky to visit the Patterson Glacier by helicopter while others visited the town or took advantage of two group outings. Shortly after breakfast, the first group boarded a yellow school bus for a 10-minute ride to an archeological site at Sandy Beach. Here Mark, a Forest Service archeologist, led a wonderful walk through 2000-year-old fish traps that were used for 300-400 years by Tlingit Indians. Most of the traps were made of stone but two were made of hemlock stakes driven into the sand. The stakes were shaped by stone age implements and short pieces were still visible above the water line after all this time. Later in the morning the second group took the yellow school bus about 20 minutes south of town to visit a muskeg bog and salmon stream teaming with spawning king salmon.
Soon after lunch we were underway northbound in Frederick Sound and within an hour sighted a breaching whale in the distance. It turned out to be a mother humpback and her calf of the year. It was wonderful to see the pair swimming back and forth in the Sound and passing very close to our motionless ship. As weather closed in, we set our course for the coast near Turnabout Island and listened along the way to a beautifully slide-illustrated talk by Sharon Grainger about the plant life of Southeast Alaska. About 5:00 we came out of the fog and mist and were soon greeted by about a dozen humpback whales cruising along the shore near Pinta Point. They turned out to be a group practicing cooperative feeding, one of many creative feeding behaviors that humpback whales have evolved here in Southeast Alaska. The naturalist staff told us that these whales use sound, bubble nets and flicking flippers to herd schools of herring toward the surface where they are consumed by millions of tons of whales clearing the water with mouths agape at 90 degrees. Some of us were skeptical until a hydrophone placed in the water allowed us to hear the extraordinary, haunting call of the herding whale and we saw the bubble net surface with our own eyes just as 9 to 11 whales emerged with their mouths open and throats bloated with food and water. We watched the whales repeat this unbelievable behavior over and over again into the long evening twilight. Finally, as darkness fell, the whales engaged in a "dissociation ritual" that consisted of a breach, two tail slaps, two final feedings and slow dispersal across Frederick Sound. After five hours of watching the whales we were ready to turn in and, no doubt, dream of haunting underwater whale calls and oceans filled with herring.
It is now 10:00 at night and we've had a very busy and rich day! In the early morning, before normal vacationing humans are close to awakening, the angelic voice of Bette Lu, our Expedition leader, came lightly over the PA system, "It's 7:00, 56 degrees and there are sunbreaks as we enter the beautiful harbor of Petersburg, Alaska." From that moment on, we have been bounding from one wonderful experience to another. The morning centered on Petersburg, a town of 3,600 people who mostly make a living fishing or serving the fishing fleet. Some of us took to the sky to visit the Patterson Glacier by helicopter while others visited the town or took advantage of two group outings. Shortly after breakfast, the first group boarded a yellow school bus for a 10-minute ride to an archeological site at Sandy Beach. Here Mark, a Forest Service archeologist, led a wonderful walk through 2000-year-old fish traps that were used for 300-400 years by Tlingit Indians. Most of the traps were made of stone but two were made of hemlock stakes driven into the sand. The stakes were shaped by stone age implements and short pieces were still visible above the water line after all this time. Later in the morning the second group took the yellow school bus about 20 minutes south of town to visit a muskeg bog and salmon stream teaming with spawning king salmon.
Soon after lunch we were underway northbound in Frederick Sound and within an hour sighted a breaching whale in the distance. It turned out to be a mother humpback and her calf of the year. It was wonderful to see the pair swimming back and forth in the Sound and passing very close to our motionless ship. As weather closed in, we set our course for the coast near Turnabout Island and listened along the way to a beautifully slide-illustrated talk by Sharon Grainger about the plant life of Southeast Alaska. About 5:00 we came out of the fog and mist and were soon greeted by about a dozen humpback whales cruising along the shore near Pinta Point. They turned out to be a group practicing cooperative feeding, one of many creative feeding behaviors that humpback whales have evolved here in Southeast Alaska. The naturalist staff told us that these whales use sound, bubble nets and flicking flippers to herd schools of herring toward the surface where they are consumed by millions of tons of whales clearing the water with mouths agape at 90 degrees. Some of us were skeptical until a hydrophone placed in the water allowed us to hear the extraordinary, haunting call of the herding whale and we saw the bubble net surface with our own eyes just as 9 to 11 whales emerged with their mouths open and throats bloated with food and water. We watched the whales repeat this unbelievable behavior over and over again into the long evening twilight. Finally, as darkness fell, the whales engaged in a "dissociation ritual" that consisted of a breach, two tail slaps, two final feedings and slow dispersal across Frederick Sound. After five hours of watching the whales we were ready to turn in and, no doubt, dream of haunting underwater whale calls and oceans filled with herring.
