Sunday, July 22 – Ketchikan – Alaska’s First City

Cruise Day 6

Weather app says to expect cloud and a high of 23C today, yesterday we were promised sun for today!

We are docked behind another ship by 7am and we have until 12.30 to explore the town, so we better get started.  Crossing Guards with lollipops stop the traffic for ship passengers to cross the busy road.

Ketchikan is the southernmost port in Alaska and is the Salmon Capital of the World.  We see evidence of this in the town along with the mandatory diamond and jewellery shops (including one with my name on it which has been here since 1968).  Local 'Made in Alaska' totem poles, soap, coffee, and art and crafts are found all over. The infamous Creek Street area is built on pilings over the Ketchikan Creek and was once part of Ketchikan’s red light district.  Prostitution was legal in Alaska but subject to government regulations. One of the most successful proprietors was Dolly Arthur, her bawdy house opened in 1919 with rates of $3 for going upstream to spawn or 50 cents for a shot of watered down whiskey!

Creek Street

Dolly's where both men and salmon come up stream to spawn

As we are walking along the boardwalk between these shops there is a bald eagle right there in the built up area of the town.

Amazing majestic birds and we are lucky to see one co close!

We see a range of Duck Tours but fresh in our mind is the Duck tour accident which drowned 17 people including 9 from one family in Missouri last week.  They still seem to busy here though.

Alaska‘s inside passage is 500 miles long, 100 miles wide and has over 1,100 islands and 18,000 miles of shoreline, a boaty’s paradise – in summer!!  We see yet more eagles along the waters edge as we depart Ketchikan.

We have had delivered to our cabin a lovely bottle of Australian red wine and a plate of delicious chocolate covered strawberries.  They are compliments of the service desk as Kim let them know about all the extraneous noises we could hear from our cabin, the whistling from the services room across the hallway, the thumping bass coming up from the Follies Theatre below us on deck 4 etc.

HH, dinner at Truffles and the Show and it is time for bed!  Need to put our clocks forward one hour tonight too.