Day Five

Petersburg is a small fishing town of 3000. There are a few stores along the main drag. We visited the museum in town and the visitor's center. The people are friendly. Petersburg was founded by the Norwegians. 

There was a picture of the largest halibut - 125 pounds. We got to see the tide at its lowest and see it come in. The boats were varied and fun to watch going about their work. 

We took an amazing tour with Sal out to the farthest south point of Mitka where we could see Wrangell. Sal is a retired nuclear physicist who was also a patent issuer for the federal government. He lives in Virginia during the winter and lives in Alaska with his mine claim during the summer. Somehow the claim is a tax write off. 

We had the unique opportunity to surface mine for garnets. It involved hammering on rocks "for as long as you want."  It was a 45 minute ride through Alaskan wilderness on a gravel road. We were glad that we brought a granola bar. 

For 125 bucks we chiseled out a nice handful of garnets. They say there's one born every day. Today there were two.

A friendly place.