After 42 hours aboard the Royal Princess, we were ready to get on shore to do our first exploring in Alaska.
It was a cold and rainy day in Ketchikan, which turns out to be not surprising. We were expecting the cold (it IS Alaska, after all!) But the rain was pretty persistent, too. The southeast coast of Alaska, as we discovered on this trip, is a rainforest. Not a tropical rainforest, but a temperate rainforest. Apparently there is a big contest you can enter to guess the summer's rainfall amount and win a share of the pot. After spending the day there, I didn't have a guess but I knew it would be a lot!
Ketchikan is known as Alaska's first city, not because it is its oldest or largest, but because you come to it first on a cruise journey to Alaska like ours.
Ketchikan is known for several things. One is the totem poles that appear frequently throughout the city and especially at special places like museums and cultural centers.
Another of Ketchikan's claims to fame is its salmon fishing. The life cycle of a salmon is fascinating - the journey that individual salmon take from inland stream to ocean and back again at the end of its life for spawning is amazing! We saw many interesting sites related to salmon throughout our time in Ketchikan. Here we are taking the "salmon walk" on a boardwalk along the river.
Debbie is drawn to fast-moving streams and creeks. She loved them in the Smoky Mountains and she found them to be her same "happy place" in Alaska. Maybe she is part salmon?
The river in Ketchikan forms such an important part of the geography of the city that they have an area known as Creek Street that, yes, is built along the creek. It used to serve as the "red light" district of the town. Now quite sure how there got to be a "Preacher's House" there, though...
All in all, Ketchikan was a lot of fun to visit. The highlight was the Salmon Walk along "Married Man's Trail." After a little shopping at the tourist places at the pier, we headed back to the ship for a late lunch and to enjoy the rest of the day back on board. We went to another ship naturalist's talk - this one on glaciers - and got ready for our big day in Juneau.
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