Tareq Haluh and Angele McDonald

Tareq Haluh and Angele McDonald met in 2008 in Petersburg. Angele was working checkout at a local grocery and Tareq was on a student visa in Petersburg, working in a cannery for the summer. They later married and now have a young daughter, Jude.

In this Listening Project conversation, they chatted with Matt Lichtenstein about their lives in Petersburg and Jordon, Islamic faith and culture, and their thoughts about the Arab Spring movements in the middle-east and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Click here to listen to their conversation.

Dieter Klose & Dylan Klose

In this interview Dieter Klose talks with his son Dylan about growing up in Virginia and discovering climbing, Dieter’s life passion, at the age of 13. Dieter recounts a climb in Yosemite National Park and nearly slipping off the top of Bridalveil Falls, only to be rescued by his climbing partner. He tells Dylan about coming to Petersburg and meeting and marrying Dylan’s mom. Father and son also recount remember hiking together in Nepal and climbing together around Petersburg. One of their favorite memories is of witnessing a giant rockfall in the Witches Cauldron below Devils Thumb.

In another story, Dieter recounts surviving a storm in the Gulf of Alaska in a 32-foot sailboat

Dieter, a carpenter and designer, also talks about the homes and other buildings he’s constructed in Petersburg, including the bridge and troll house on the trail at Sandy Beach.

He also recounts some of the history of climbing on Devils Thumb and some of his climbs on the mountain, including his biggest accomplishment in the mountains, surviving an attempt on the dangerous northwest face of the Thumb.

Click here to listen to their conversation

Florence LeRoy & Linda Ensign

In this interview Linda Ensign talks with her mother Florence LeRoy about growing up in Canada and training as a nurse. Leroy graduated nursing school on D-DAY in 1944. She eventually came to Petersburg in 1960 and took over as the superintendent of Petersburg’s hospital. But before coming to Petersburg, she moved with her new husband to Craig and was working for a fish processor, when local residents started calling on her to help deliver babies. She had to put her nursing skills to use immediately after giving birth to her second daughter, Debbie, instructing the doctor and attending nurses how to assemble an unused incubator to save her daughter’s life. Leroy also talks about running Petersburg’s hospital, adding long-term care in the facility and the doctors and other nurses who worked there in the 60s and 70s.

Click here to listen to their conversation

 

 

 

 

 

Erling Husvik

In this Listening Project conversation Erling Husvik talks about what it was like growing up in Petersburg in the 1920’s.  He describes a favorite local pastime of heading up Petersburg Creek or out to Sandy Beach for a picnic, fishing up the Stikine with his dad, and going to the movies on Main Street.  The interview continues into his 20’s when he voluntarily enlisted in the Navy to serve during WWII.  He describes the scene of what it was like for a Seaman First Class stationed in Washington, San Francisco, and Pearl Harbor.  He recounts a particularly harrowing tale of survival and courage during a typhoon, Japanese invasion, and missile attack ultimately sinking his vessel, the USS Hoel.   Erling and the other survivors spent 48 hours drifitng on rafts. On October 26, adrift off Samar, he turned 21 years old. Erling was decorated with the Purple Heart for being wounded in the battle.

Click here to hear the excerpt that aired on KFSK Public Radio.

Click here to listen to part 1 of the full  interview.

Click here to listen to part 2 of the full interview.

For more information about Erling’s experiences and the USS Hoel, watch When the War Got Personal: The Story of the Men of the USS Hoel, available for check out at the library. In October 2007,  four Petersburg High School Students and their teacher, Mr. Engel,  accompanied Erling Husvik, to Tucson, Arizona. The documentary crew shot over 10 hours of video including interviews with survivors of the USS Hoel (DD 533) which was sunk on October 25, 1944. Running time 83 minutes

Karen Hofstad

In this Listening Project conversation Karen Hofstad talks about what it was like being a woman on a fishing boat in the 1960’s, just after Alaska Statehood.  She describes a typical day on the boat as a newlywed having just moved to Petersburg, as well as her growing family working together on the boat as the Fish and Game strives to restore depleted fish runs.   The interview continues to the present, now just after her 71^st birthday, as she continues to expand her salmon label and can collection.  She has accrued over 250 salmon tins and thousands of paper labels, as well as other ephemera, maps, and voyage documents.

Click here to listen to an excerpt from the interview that aired on KFSK Public Radio.

Click here to listen to the entire interview.

Ethelyn Lopez & Brenda Louise

In this Listening Project conversation Ethelyn Lopez talks with her friend Brenda Louise about growing up in Kake in the 1930′s and 1940′s, meeting her husband and raising a family, and teaching Tlingit culture in Stedman Elementary School in Petersburg. Click here to listen to their conversation.

DJ Roundtree and Heidi Lee

In this Listening Project conversation D.J. Roundtree speaks with her friend Heidi Lee about the Roundtree family cabin in Beecher’s Pass, built in 1927 with logs from Thomas Bay. The cabin was owned by several families before Izzy and Claude Roundtree, D.J.’s inlaws, purchased it in 1956. D.J. describes the cabin and the improvements her family made like a sleeping loft with a trapdoor, a water catchment system and electric lighting.

She and Heidi also share memories of times at the cabin, including the wedding ceremony and party for D.J.’s son Patrick. Four generations of Roundtree family and friends have made many memories in Beecher’s Pass. D.J. remarks that family of all ages spent time there and always worked hard to keep the place clean and homey. She also remembers the wonderful silence of the remote site and the panoramic view of Duncan Canal.

Click here to listen to their conversation.

 

Calling all Veterans!

The Listening Project is looking for stories from local Veterans. Stories will be archived at the Petersburg Public Library and with the Library of Congress’s Veteran’s History Project. The Veteran’s History Project collects first ­person accounts of military service in World War I, World War II, the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf, and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you or someone you know has a story to tell, contact the library at 772-3349 to schedule.

Ty and Martha Cummins

Danya Davis interviews Ty and Martha Cummins about the challenges and satisfaction of building their own home in Petersburg.

Click here to listen to their entire conversation

Click here to listen to the excerpt that aired on KFSK

Jackie Loucks and Carli Byrer

Carli Loucks Byrer was in second grade when her family packed up and left Ceour d’Alene, Idaho to  live and work at a logging camp in Rowan Bay on Kuiu Island, west of Petersburg.

Byrer reminisces with her mother Jackie Loucks about that first flight into the forest of Southeast Alaska and the small community around the logging camp. The family moved into one trailer at the camp and Byrer started attending school there, made up of two trailers pushed together for the 30 kids in kindergarten through eighth grades.

Byrer has fond memories of the people in the camp, the other kids and playing on the beach and the surrounding woods. In one story she tells of riding her bike with her younger sister on the front. Her sister fell, caught her leg in the wheel of the bike and ended up breaking it, leading to a float plane ride to the hospital in Sitka.

Byrer has no regrets about growing up in a remote logging camp, other than moving from place to place. She frequently felt like the “new kid” at the camps and the newcomers were stuck in the worst housing in the community. She also talks about what people did to pass the time, reading many books, watching taped movies, listening to the radio and playing endless board games.

Byrer and Loucks also talk about moving to another camp at Port Alice on Hecata Island, and then to a larger logging operation at Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island.

Byrer moved to Petersburg in 1988 and spent three years in high school here. She’s now raising her kids in Petersburg and working in the Petersburg schools

Click here to listen to their conversation.