Petersburg

History

Tlingits from Kupreanof Island had long used a summer fish camp at the north end of Mitkof Island. Earlier cultures of Indigenous people also used the island: remnants of fish traps and some petroglyphs have been carbon-dated back some 10,000 years. Shell middens have been dated to 1,200 years ago. European explorers to Mitkof Island encountered the Tlingit. In the 19th century, Peter Buschmann, a Norwegian immigrant, settled here, building a cannery, sawmill, docks and early structures. The settlement was named Petersburg after him, and it flourished as a fishing port. Icebergs from the nearby LeConte Glacier provided a source for cooling fish. Petersburg originally incorporated as a town on April 2, 1910. The town had attracted mostly immigrants of Scandinavian origin, thus giving Petersburg the nickname "Little Norway". The Sons of Norway hall was built on one of the piers. Three other canneries were built and the four have operated continuously since. With the establishment of the cannery, Alaskan Natives, including Chief John Lott, began to work there and live year-round at the site. The 1939 Slattery Report on Alaskan development identified the region as one of the areas where new settlements would be established through Jewish immigration. This plan was never implemented. Fisheries were the mainstay of the economy. In 1965, Petersburg fishermen founded Icicle Seafoods. Fishermen Gordon Jensen and Magnus Martens teamed up with managers Tom Thompson and Bob Thorstenson, Sr. to organize a group of fishermen to purchase the Pacific American Fisheries (PAF) plant (the original Buschmann cannery) at a time when the seafood industry seemed in decline. PAF was traded on the NYSE and had been one of the largest processors in Alaska for a half century. The…

Geography

Petersburg is located on the north end of Mitkof Island, where the Wrangell Narrows meets Frederick Sound. Petersburg is halfway between Juneau, to the north, and Ketchikan, to the south. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it (4.74%) is water. Mitkof Island is largely covered by low mountains. The lowlands are mainly made up of muskeg, a type of soil made up of plants in various states of decomposition. It is approximately 20 miles from its north end to its south. The western side of the island borders the Wrangell Narrows, one of the six listed in Southeast Alaska. The Narrows provides a somewhat protected waterway for boats, and opens on the south end of the island into Sumner Straits. Mitkof Island has many creeks that empty into the Narrows, including Blind Slough, Falls Creek, Twin Creeks, and Spirit Creek. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the town is the 15th-most lucrative fisheries port in the United States by volume. In 2011, 101 million pounds of fish and shellfish passed through Petersburg, with a dockside value of $65 million. That year Petersburg ranked as 13th in the nation in terms of the value of its catches. The climate of Petersburg is oceanic (Cfb) under the isotherm or humid continental (Dfb) under the isotherm, closely bordering a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc) and subarctic climate (Dfc). On January 16, 1981, Petersburg registered a daily maximum temperature of , the highest ever recorded in the month of January in Alaska. Eleven years later, on February 27, 1992, a high of was observed, also setting a monthly state record high.

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• Rae C. Stedman Elementary
  Elementary · Petersburg · 209 students · 12.3:1 ratio
• Petersburg High School
  High · Petersburg · 123 students · 11.2:1 ratio
• Mitkof Middle School
  Middle · Petersburg · 106 students · 13.3:1 ratio