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.

In the nineteenth century, Peter Buschmann, a Norwegian immigrant,[6] settled here, building a cannery, sawmill, docks and early structures.

[7] The town had attracted mostly immigrants of Scandinavian origin, thus giving Petersburg the nickname "Little Norway".

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.

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.

The shareholders, including Board members Fred File, Fred Haltiner, Jr., Robin Leekley, Jeff Pfundt, Aril Mathisen, Bud Samuelson and many others (Hofstads, Otness, and Petersons to name a few) began their work to create, improve and institute the fisheries that sustain Petersburg and many other coastal communities in Alaska today.

[5] Petersburg is located on the north end of Mitkof Island, where the Wrangell Narrows meets Frederick Sound.

The Narrows provides a somewhat protected waterway for boats, and opens on the south end of the island into Sumner Straits.

While there is a vibrant salmon troll and gillnet fleet, as well as participants in the dungeness crab and dive fisheries, the main producers in Petersburg are the 58-foot limit 'seiners'.

Many of them travel west to trawl, longline and pot cod in the western Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.

Currently making a comeback in the worldwide salmon markets, the 58-foot fleet now boasts crew jobs that can approach six figures.

Petersburg Vessel Owners Association, resurrected by Gordon Jensen in the 1980s, is the lead association that ensures that all seafood harvested by the Petersburg fleet is done so in a sustainable manner, consistent with the conservation principles embodied in the state of Alaska constitution.

Over 75 Petersburg residents travel each summer to fish commercially on around 35 Bristol Bay vessels in Naknek, Dillingham and King Salmon.

Petersburg is a stop on its Inside Passage route that sees scheduled service both southbound and northbound to other Southeast Alaskan communities, Bellingham, Washington and Prince Rupert, British Columbia Canada.