Our last stop in Alaska- Ketchikan.

It rains a lot it Ketchikan:  between 10 and 15 feet per year, about 95% of the time.  So we feel very lucky that we had such a beautiful day for our last stop in Alaska.  As we sailed into town, a sun shower created a rainbow on the water, as if to welcome us….   

 

 We could not dock the boat and instead had to and had to go to shore by tender (small boats), because the dock had been damaged last week by one of the huge cruise ship ramming into it in 45 miles/hour winds (as I said, we lucked out with the weather!).

 The island of Ketchikan has 14,000 inhabitants, most of which live in the town.  After the tiny towns we has seen, this looks like a  real city!  It even has a Mc Donald and a Safeway!  

It is a city carved from the rock that is the island.  There is no land at all on Ketchichan- it’s all rock.

 While it is covered by a lush forest, the tree are growing on moss and lichen and the roots are unstable- one often sees entire hill sides where all trees have fallen down.  That means that everything on the island has to be brought by ship – every piece of food, every consumer item, all construction material, etc….

 Some of the stair cases that link apartments are named streets, maintained by the town as any other street.  Our driver mentioned that if you use GPS for driving directions, it will sometimes tell you to turn up one of these.....

 

 What makes it worth bringing all of this stuff to this remote island is salmon.  Salmon built Ketchikan and is still its prime industry.   (I had to buy some smoked sockeye- I think it's the law.....).

  The second one is now tourism, which has replaced – literally – the brothels:  All of the little houses  in the infamous Creek street are now touristy boutiques- although very nice ones. 

In the afternoon, we took a sea plane to go to the Misty Fjord National Monument, at the edge of the Tsongass national forest.  What an amazing experience that was! 

 The plane itself was almost exactly my age- which I did not realize until we were back on solid ground....  note the date on the plaque- Sept 18th, 1957!  (the pilot said that they have to keep using them because no one manufactures this type of sea plane anymore, with very wide wings, enabling it to take off at 55miles/hour- if your car had wings like that, it would take off too!).   

I lucked out and got to play co-pilot......

We landed at the end of one of the fjords and got to frolic on the plane floats – carefully, because the water is cold (although I was tempted…..).  The entire thing was magical!

Of course we got to see some more magnificent landscapes on the way, including this water fall, 

and this glacier cirque.   

We got very close to the rocks that at some point go straight up 3000 feet from the sea, making the vertical striations left by the glacier very clear.  

On the way back to town, we noted that indeed, bald eagles are the “Alaskan Pidgeon”:  They sit in bunches in the trees by the electrical wires everywhere…..  

 We also were careful to note where the tsunami evacuation routes were, but I’m happy to report that we did not have to use them (this is a very active part of the “ring of fire” that surrounds the pacific ocean.

We left Ketchikan in glorious sunshine, sailing all day tomorrow toward Vancouver, were we will rejoin reality….

Since we are now south enough, the sun sets early enough that we stayed up for it - it was worth it!