Day 6 – Ketchikan

We woke up the next day in Ketchikan, the self proclaimed Salmon capital of the world.  We had one excursion planned for the day, but it was in the afternoon.  We decided to walk around the town in the morning, have lunch, then return to the ship for our afternoon excursion.  We knew the town had Creek Street, so that was going to be one of our stops.

The downtown isn’t very big, but had lots of little shops to look at.  We also stumbled across the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center.  We took a quick tour of the exhibits and really enjoyed it.  I don’t remember how much the admission was, but it was worth it.  Lots of nice exhibits.  We also enjoyed getting out of the rain.  I think this was the only day of the trip that it rained, but someone had told us it always rained in Ketchikan.  (One nice perk of the day was that the Disney Wonder crew were handing out Disney Parks ponchos as we exited the ship — these helped keep us dry despite the rain!)

Our next stop after the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center was Creek Street, which used to be the red light district in Ketchikan.  The brothels were banned from the town and moved “across” the creek.  It is now a street that is mounted on a boardwalk.  We strolled down the pier and looked into the various shops.  It was definitely interesting to see and not very crowded, probably because of the rain.

After Creek Street, we walked around a bit more and decided to have lunch.  We eventually found the Cape Fox Lodge, which perches on the side of a hill with a view of Ketchikan on one side and the Tongass National Forest on the other.  We used a funicular (an enclosed lift, like a ski gondola but mounted on a track) to get up there, but ended up walking down after lunch.  We ended up having to sit in the bar, which was a smoking section.  We found the food good, but a bit expensive.  The view was nice though, so we made the best of it.

After we were done, we hurried back to the ship for our excursion.  We had booked the Bear Country and Wildlife Expedition.  We boarded a shuttle bus and traveled to the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary.  After a quick safety briefing, we headed off to a series of elevated platforms and bridges.  The bridges and platforms are suspended over a salmon creek.  We weren’t very far onto the structure when we started to spot our first bears.

The first bear we spotted was busy eating salmon right out of the creek.  We got to watch it for a good 10 minutes, with everyone remaining fairly quiet (for a group of about 12 people, including children).

The next bear had a small companion with it.  The cubs that we spotted (there were others), were usually happy to just trail behind the mother, stopping to grab a fish occasionally.

At some point, something spooked the pair and the cub immediately headed up the nearest tree.  The guide with us indicated there might be males in the area, so the mother bear would send it up the tree.

The next group of bears we spotted was a mother and two cubs.  Our youngest promptly named the cubs Nacho and Taco, but couldn’t explain why she named two Alaskan bears after Tex-Mex dishes.  Possibly bad parenting.

After we left the platforms and bridges, we headed into an Alaskan sawmill.  If I remember correctly, it was used as a carving shed, with various totem poles and other wooden objects on display.  We then headed into the aviary.  They had an injured bald eagle and an owl there as well.  We were also given some lettuce to feed some reindeer as well.

As with any Disney experience, we ended up in a gift shop were we were offered hot chocolate and snacks while we waited for the shuttle bus back to the ship.  The entire tour took about 3 1/2 hours.  We really enjoyed seeing the wildlife up close (but not too close).  Watching the bear walk down to the creek and eat was amazing.  At dinner that night, we agreed that the whale watching trip the previous day was a better wildlife experience, but we all really enjoyed the bear excursion.

Planning | Travel | Boarding | Sea Day | Tracy Arm | Skagway | Juneau | Ketchikan | Sea Day | Disembarkation

 

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