2022-05-15: Ketchikan, Alaska

We woke up around 7:30am this morning. The ship was already docked in Ketchikan. Ketchikan is a town situated where Ketchikan creek meets the Pacific Ocean. The creek is one where salmon traverse upstream to their spawning grounds. It was an overcast and foggy morning. There were a couple of other ships docked in front of us. The Celebrity Solstice which we saw following us last night and the other was the Carnival Splendor. We went up to the Oceanview Cafe for a quick breakfast and then we headed off the ship.

We stopped in a couple of stores by the dock. One was a jewelry store that really put on the sales pressure. It was quite uncomfortable. We made our way to Creek Street. This is a neat area that used to be the local red light district when the sex trade was banned in the town North of the Creek. The buildings on the South side of the creek are built on a boardwalk of stilts above the creek. We perused the shops that now inhabit the buildings.

We made our way through town to the Totem Heritage Center which is a museum dedicated to the history of totem poles of the area. It includes artifacts up to 200 years old from the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian cultures. It was quite interesting.

We walked back to downtown Ketchikan as it started to rain on us. There was another museum called the Tongass Historical Museum by Creek Street. It showcases the history of Ketchikan mostly focusing on its history as a fishing village. They also mentioned that towns like Ketchikan housed people evacuated from the Aleutian islands during World War II. Once we finished walking through the museum, we continued to walk the streets of Ketchikan and poked through some of the stores.

We made our way back to the ship at about 1:15pm. We grabbed some lunch and then watched the ship pull away from the dock at 3:00pm. Amanda had some school work to do so she worked on that in the stateroom while Darrell attended an educational lecture on the Alaskan wildlife we might see over the next few days. He learned a few things such as bald eagles heads turn white once they are seven years old. Before that, their heads are brown. A caribou’s left antler has a section that drops in front of the face as protection. It’s always the left antler that does this. The male caribou lose their antlers in the Fall and regrow them in the Spring. One could argue that means that Santa’s reindeer are all girls since they still have their antlers in the winter. But, they are magical reindeer that fly so the same rules may not apply…

We headed to dinner around 7:00pm. We both had salad, escargot, veal loin, and chocolate lava cake for dinner. It was very tasty, but the lava cake was more of a fudge than a lava cake. There was no molten chocolate in it which was a little disappointing. We sat beside an older couple from Florida again this evening. She was originally from Brazil. There were interesting folks. They were obviously Trump supporters and had no qualms about bashing the Biden administration.

After dinner we headed to the show in the theatre. Tonight’s performance was a group called The Company Men. They are a group of four guys who sing song mashups. It was a mediocre performance in our opinion. After the show, we headed down to Cellar Masters where Supernova Duo, the group we listened to before bed the night before, was performing. The did a “mellow Beatles” set this evening. We didn’t enjoy the set as much as then night before, but we still enjoyed it. We really enjoy their sound. We found out they are from the southern end of Argentina and have been working on cruise ships for a while. They just spent 6 months in the Caribbean and are ready for the cooler weather in Alaska which is closer to the weather at home. I’m sure we’ll track them down again later in the cruise. After listening to their set, we headed back to the room and called it a night. Tomorrow we are in Icy Strait Point. The weather forecast is looking wet again unfortunately.