Day three of the 7 day cruise brought our first encounter with dry land. We were to arrive at Ketchikan, "Alaska's First City" sometime in the morning. Ketchikan gets its name from its location...the first city you arrive in when coming from the lower 48. The husband and I met a nice couple from San Francisco at breakfast and made plans to meet up while in town. She is a fiber fan (yarns, not grains) and I am a beading fan and there was a store in Ketchikan that just happened to cater to both.
Our first view of Ketchikan was this:
A quaint little fishing village on the inside passage and shopping nirvana. The rather large building at the bottom of the picture is the Tongass Trading Company. It's Ketchikan's answer to WalMart. If Tongass Trading Co doesn't stock it, then it probably doesn't exist in Alaska. It's a great store. It has everything you could ever want for outfitting yourself for an Alaskan adventure. AND it has lots of fun, inexpensive kitsch to take home to the relatives. Want a ball cap with a bill that looks like you were ravaged by a bear? You can find one at Tongass. You can also get supplies to smoke your fresh-caught salmon. That you can buy supplies to catch said salmon should go without saying. You can find stuff to repair a plumbing problem, goodies to send to Aunt Mable back in the Smokies or gear to kit yourself out with while preparing for an assault on the local Tongass Wilderness. It is one cool place to explore.
The fun and shopping don't end at Tongass. This is a shopper's haven. You can find all kinds of lovely Alaskan Jade and Inuit art at the local fancy shops. What you can't fit in your bag you can have sent to the ship or just shipped to yourself at home. The locals are very accommodating. There are lovely art shops, fur shops, Russian artifact shops (harkening back to Alaska's original owners and heritage), and tourist sites to explore.
My new friend and I went to the fiber/bead shop and I have to admit, although I did find a few things I found the clerk to be unpleasant. I would've spent more money if she had been pleasant to deal with, so her loss. She was an aberration, though, because in all the other shops and all the other towns we visited the clerks were most pleasant and welcoming. Maybe she needed caffeine...who knows.
After a quick shopping trip in the morning, husband and I returned to the ship to see if we could rouse our daughter and entice her into a little trip into town. Being a new college graduate, she was making up for four years of lost sleep, so her hours of operation were a little later than her dad's and mine.
The three of us set off for greater Ketchikan to see the sigh
ts. Our first excursion was to Creek Street. Descriptively named, it is a street right on a creek and is also the location of the red light district of bygone days. During the Alaskan gold rush days, certain types of ladies arrived in Ketchikan to help relieve the miners of the weight of all that gold and also to help comfort them if they were having trouble finding any. Those poor boys could always find a little something on creek street. The local saying was, "Where fish and fishermen go upstream to spawn." Now Creek Street is home to lots of nice galleries and restaurants. We learned a lot about the three "G's" of Alaska: Glaciers, The Gold Rush and Girls of negotiable affection (as they were called).
I didn't get a good enough picture, but we did see a harbor seal swimming up creek street. Wonder if he was trying to spawn?
Our first view of Ketchikan was this:
A quaint little fishing village on the inside passage and shopping nirvana. The rather large building at the bottom of the picture is the Tongass Trading Company. It's Ketchikan's answer to WalMart. If Tongass Trading Co doesn't stock it, then it probably doesn't exist in Alaska. It's a great store. It has everything you could ever want for outfitting yourself for an Alaskan adventure. AND it has lots of fun, inexpensive kitsch to take home to the relatives. Want a ball cap with a bill that looks like you were ravaged by a bear? You can find one at Tongass. You can also get supplies to smoke your fresh-caught salmon. That you can buy supplies to catch said salmon should go without saying. You can find stuff to repair a plumbing problem, goodies to send to Aunt Mable back in the Smokies or gear to kit yourself out with while preparing for an assault on the local Tongass Wilderness. It is one cool place to explore.
The fun and shopping don't end at Tongass. This is a shopper's haven. You can find all kinds of lovely Alaskan Jade and Inuit art at the local fancy shops. What you can't fit in your bag you can have sent to the ship or just shipped to yourself at home. The locals are very accommodating. There are lovely art shops, fur shops, Russian artifact shops (harkening back to Alaska's original owners and heritage), and tourist sites to explore.
My new friend and I went to the fiber/bead shop and I have to admit, although I did find a few things I found the clerk to be unpleasant. I would've spent more money if she had been pleasant to deal with, so her loss. She was an aberration, though, because in all the other shops and all the other towns we visited the clerks were most pleasant and welcoming. Maybe she needed caffeine...who knows.
After a quick shopping trip in the morning, husband and I returned to the ship to see if we could rouse our daughter and entice her into a little trip into town. Being a new college graduate, she was making up for four years of lost sleep, so her hours of operation were a little later than her dad's and mine.
The three of us set off for greater Ketchikan to see the sigh
ts. Our first excursion was to Creek Street. Descriptively named, it is a street right on a creek and is also the location of the red light district of bygone days. During the Alaskan gold rush days, certain types of ladies arrived in Ketchikan to help relieve the miners of the weight of all that gold and also to help comfort them if they were having trouble finding any. Those poor boys could always find a little something on creek street. The local saying was, "Where fish and fishermen go upstream to spawn." Now Creek Street is home to lots of nice galleries and restaurants. We learned a lot about the three "G's" of Alaska: Glaciers, The Gold Rush and Girls of negotiable affection (as they were called).I didn't get a good enough picture, but we did see a harbor seal swimming up creek street. Wonder if he was trying to spawn?
After leaving Creek Street we took the tram up to the side of a hill to the Cape Fox Lodge. You can look down and see the city or look out and see the water and islands. Great scenery. It also has a small collection of totem poles out front. Ketchikan has lots of totem pole scattered around town.
After taking in the great scenery of snow capped mountains on the front side of the lodge, we decided to forego the trip back down in the tram and took the trail. We stopped a few times for pictures and to take in the flora. Alaska has HUGE dandelions as this picture attests.
Some of the scenes returning to town:
And the fam on the walkway. The look on Husband's face is saying: wait a second. We got the stamp so we could RIDE the tram downhill, not walk! He was just joking, of course.
Closer to town, off Creek Street you can see the horse drawn trolley in the background along with the mountains and such. Ketchikan is a very scenic city.
Of course, there's lots more to do in Ketchikan than what we did. We chose to just wander and take in the shopping and scenery. The cruise ship has over 40 tours you can take. Everything from the horse drawn trolleys to touring the local rain forest, to touring the waterways for wildlife. There's even a lumberjack show right downtown. I think if we went back, we'd opt for a tour. We just wanted to get a feel for the place and we did.As the cruise ship set off for our next port, the naturalist got on the intercom and told us about some of the local wildlife, pointed out a bald eagle sitting on a buoy and also told us about this funny bridge to nowhere business. First I'd heard of it. Now I know more about that than I'd ever imagined!
Location of the Ketchikan bridge to nowhere. See my post from Dec 2 for more details on the bridge. Next up: Tracey Arm and glaciers.
No comments:
Post a Comment