Ketchikan - 14th August

Clocks back an hour to Alaskan time gave us an extra hour’s sleep. Even so, we had to rise early to get breakfast early. We awoke to find ourselves docked in Ketchikan. This is a small town strung out along the coastline of a rugged tree-clad island. Ketchikan was the “world-capital” of salmon catching and canning in the 1920’s, but is not probably more reliant on tourism. Before 9:30, two other large ships slipped into dock, so there were plenty of tourists looking for something to do or buy.

Planes and boats are the travel choices here – Ketchikan has on 32 miles of road and isn’t connected to anywhere else by road. There is a ferry system – called a marine highway – operated by the government that connects these isolated coastal communities with the rest of Alaska and with the continental US. Otherwise, float planes are the local taxi service.

The island is a large lump of granite, with a thin soil covering. This means that things like water and sewer pipes can’t be buried, and even though winter is relatively mild, there is some chance that they will freeze in winter. Ketchikan has around 170 inches of rain a year and most people collect rain run-off into cisterns to provide their water. Currently, they are in a drought (a relative term), which means that individuals often have to buy tanker loads of water from the city council. For us, Ketchikan offered a warm, sunny day with mostly blue skies.

This was ideal, as we had booked a flight to a bear viewing area. This involved travel in a float plane

Boarding the float plane

for about 30 minutes, across the Tongass National Forest to land on a secluded shore. Our pilot was a local, Michelle, who has operated her air service for 20 years. We had great views. The flight was at low altitude, often travelling down valleys rather than over them, ending with a few sharp banks and then a beautifully executed landing through what looked like a narrow gap between the shore and an island to finish right at the landing pontoon.

A ten minute van ride brought us to the start of our short trail to the bear viewing platform. Bear safety is taken seriously – our guide carried a can of bear-capsicum spray and a 44 revolver.  The viewing platform is a “hide” located about 10 metres above a small waterfall on a creek. Large salmon were evident in the water, but apparently the low water level (due to the lack of heavy rain) meant that the fish could not jump further up the stream.

Then, patience, and quiet, was required. After a while we were rewarded as a large black bear wandered down to the stream, had a brief look around and wandered across the water and into the forest. At least we had seen a bear!

About 20 minutes later a female bear with two cubs in tow appeared. They didn’t seem too interested in fishing, but did poke around for a while before disappearing. One cub clearly had an injured back paw.

After a longer wait, mamma bear and cubs reappeared and nosed around the stream for a while, while we excitedly blazed away with cameras.

We had seen what we came for – we had spent about 2 hours at the viewing platform. It was back to the pontoon to see our plane appearing. We loaded on and headed back to Ketchikan, again weaving through valleys before a sweep over the town and a bank to drop down to the water by the dock.

We headed back to the ship for lunch, and then left the ship for a quick stroll around Ketchikan. An hour is plenty for this and, in fact, much of the shops seem to be various curio shops or jewellery stores. They must do plenty of business as large numbers of the passengers seemed to be returning to the ship laden with shopping bags.

At 4pm, our ship slipped its moorings and continued through the maze that is the Inland Passage in Alaska. Apparently, there are 5000 islands in this state, manner forming a jumble among this part of the coast where the eastern “tail” of the state forms the coast. We were told that while both black and brown bears are found on the mainland, each island will be all black or all brown bears. We were surprised to find that bears are hunted (and eaten) – the season opens 1^st September. The restrictions are that they can’t be hunted within a quarter mile of a stream or a road and there seem to be bag limits.

Anxious to avoid the main dining room, we have booked for the Le Bistro restaurant tonight. It turned out to be excellent. A starter of scallops was excellent, followed by duck and pinot noir. We selected the brulee desert and arranged to take it back to our room, to be eaten later after we had been to the show.

Apparently, entertainment is an important thing on cruises (so we are told by the people who have been on multiple cruises). Our ship has various entertainment areas, from pianos in bars to a nightclub and a large theatre (and the obligatory casino). We went to the theatre to see a one hour show by two acrobats who had been part of Cirque de Soleil. They were excellent.