May 30--Sitka, Alaska

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Monday May 30, 2011 Memorial Day in Sitka, Alaska Bright sunny day.

Set off walking toward the Raptor Rehabilitation Center. On the way, looked at the Sitka National Cemetery, which we thought appropriate for this day. Found the Raptor Center after a bit of an uphill walk. Extremely well run, clean and modern center for the care of all injured raptors, eagles, falcons, owls etc. They have many caged birds that are used for educational purposes as they can’t, for one reason or another, be returned to the wild. They had several birds in two inside flight runs that are being trained to return to the wild.

The center takes in about 200 birds a year and returns about 40% to the wild. While we were watching outside, a wild eagle came and perched on a near by tree top. Boy, did that ever set up the squawks of the caged eagles defending their territory. One of the outside cages had some injured ravens in them and in the near-by tree was some wild ravens. The guide told us that the wild ravens bring the caged ravens shiny items in return for the caged ravens giving them food through the wire.

We walked about a block and turned toward the harbor though the Sitka National Historical Park. Here we looked at the collection of Tlingit Totem poles around the visitors center and then toured the museum. There was a collection of Tlingit and early Russian items and photographs.
After that we walked back into town along the harbor looking a various churches and buildings, homes, flower gardens and the view of the Sitka Sound with its busy boats coming and going. As we walked down main street we encountered the city’s Memorial Day parade so, paused for a minute, to watch it go by.

We had called earlier and left a message for the bus company to take us to the ferry. When we had waited into the time we were supposed to be at the terminal, we called a taxi to get us there. We recognized him as guitar player from the Larkspur the previous night.

Caught the ferry to Juneau at 1:30 and spent the rest of the afternoon riding back through the Lynn Canal. We were met by the motel van and taken to the Best Western where we had stayed before. We then walked a few blocks to a restaurant for a very good dinner of sea food pasta. It was so much that we decided to share the pasta and take Valerie’s dinner of fried chicken with us to eat the next day on the afternoon ferry back to Haines.

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