Day 13: Ketchikan

 

Our last port of call before Vancouver was Ketchikan.  Ketchikan is the first Alaskan city you hit on your way north to Alaska (or the last one on your way back south) and so was an important stop for steam ships during the gold rush.   Ketchikan gets and average rainfall of 150 inches a year.  And we were there to see quite a few of those fall. 

 

 

We went on what was billed as a “Rainforest Sanctuary and Crab Fest Tour”.  Well, the rain forest sanctuary part of the tour pretty well sucked.

 

The trail through the part of the Tongass National Forrest that this particular tour company had access to was probably 50 to 100 yards long. 

 

The “points of interest looked staged (like this bear's den that happened to open up right on their walking path), and the bad jokes were delivered by a guide that sounded like he was reading from a piece of paper.

 

After the forest part, we emerged on a boardwalk overlooking a tidal estuary and a salmon hatchery, where we saw

Glaucous Winged Gulls 

 

 Mew Gulls

(again the guide was no help here. the called them all "Sea Gulls, also known as rat with wings")

 

A Harbor seal

 

And the butt end of a Black Bear disappearing unto the brush

If you can’t see the bear butt, I’ll give you a little hand

 

To fill out the tour (which only would have been about 20 minutes without them) they tacked on several other things they had clustered around their gift shop, including

Some reindeer in a pen who were rescued from a sausage factory in Fairbanks (I kid you not)

 

A broken down old sawmill 

 

A raptor rehab center where they took us in a gage and we saw an injured Great Horned Owl and Bald Eagle

And a native totem pole carver

 

After a brief tour of their gift shop, we were off to the Crab Fest of the tour, which was in a water-side cabin.

 

Harry making like a Pirate 

 

On the way back we picked up a fishing tour that had their boat damaged in the strong winds that had developed while we were eating crab.  They had to abandon their tour and put ashore at the nearest dock, which happened to be where the crab shack was.  The fishing tour and the “Misty Fjord” tour that our companions were on were both called off due to strong winds and high seas.  The rain and wind were too strong for us to our the town, although some of our hardier friends ventured to the Creek Street area which is a street built in pilings over the river that used to be famous for rum running during prohibition and houses of ill repute.  It’s now lined with stores and gift shops.  As Harry and I had a few drinks in the hot tub on deck, our ship’s departure was delayed by winds strong enough that our side thrusters could not move us off the dock.  But eventually we were on our way, and the seas were a little rough that night.