Petersburg, The Town that Fish Built

Since Peter Buschmann founded the community that bears his name a century ago, Petersburg has been purely and simply a fishing town. Buschmann’s cannery ventures collapsed during the robber baron era of frontier capitalism, but the town referred to as Alaska’s little Norway continues to thrive with an economy built almost entirely on fish. When Seattle-based Pacific American Fisheries Company threatened to shut down the town’s largest cannery in the Nineteen Sixties, the local fishermen bought the facility and went into business for themselves. Today, this community situated among the glaciers and fjords of Southeast Alaska is not only remarkably prosperous but uncharacteristically independent. Thirty minutes. DVD-Video

Alaska History Series