Blogs from Ketchikan, Alaska, United States, North America

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North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan October 12th 2023

This summer I spent four month in South East Alaska. While working on a cruise ship I had the chance to explore the beautiful Alaskan coast and even was able to explore a few of the towns we docked at. In my free time I went on quite a few hikes, but also was lucky enough to jump on a few excursions to see some of the beautiful landscape and wildlife that Alaska provides. While I managed to see quite a few whales and eagles, within the time spent up here, I had not been able to spot any bears within the last four month, so I was more than excited when our excursion team offered me to join one of bear viewing tours on the last week of our Alaska season. Of course it is ... read more
Black Bear
Salmon catching

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan June 24th 2022

Today was a top-notch vacation day. ? We awoke to beautiful, sunny weather in Ketchikan, Alaska. We have been so lucky on this cruise to have the most pleasant weather you can ask for in this region. Every tour we take they mention how lucky we are to have such nice weather and every day on the ship announcements the Captain will mention once again how lucky we are to have such clear surroundings. Occasionally, we will be enveloped in a white fog and the ship’s foghorn will go off for a couple of hours but then it clears in an hour and we can see the mountains again. Today we were off the ship at 7:30am. I had booked the Bering Sea Crab Tour directly with the owners of the Aleutian Ballad. If you’ve ever ... read more
Bald Eagles
Bald Eagle
Rock Crab

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan June 19th 2019

What an interesting day! We watched as we moored in the most scenic town (in my opinion) in Alaska. Mind you, this was the first time we’ve visited Ketchikan because it wasn’t on the itinerary of the 1999 trip. We met some lovely people from Devon at breakfast. After breakfast in La Terrazza we wandered to the deck above, to the Art Cafe, where we found a trivia quiz and a sudoku, and I drank my second coffee. Then we prepared ourselves and went ashore to check out the souvenir shops before our shore excursion. Unfortunately we didn’t find what I was most hoping to buy, so we will have to keep on looking. Tom took our purchases back to our suite while I chatted to our tour guide who was a high school English teacher ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan May 20th 2019

Day 15 20/05/2019 Ketchikan Rain Forest Sanctuary Walk, Totems & Eagles. Up at a reasonable time that allowed us to have a leisurely breakfast and watch us dock in Ketchikan. It is amazing the skill level the people steering the ship have. As we were moving toward the dock I noticed that there was 2 other cruise ships already docked and we were going to go in behind them. The first was the Golden Princess, then the Norwegian Joy. As we came closer I noticed that the dock had a slight bend in it and another ship the Island Princess also docked. The interesting thing is that we were docking in between ship 2 and ship 3. There wasn’t any room for error in doing this as you could not over run your space. With perfect ... read more
A Black Bear
A Bald Eagle
Ketchikan Rain Gauge

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan September 13th 2018

Close to Alaska’s southern tip, where the Panhandle plunges deep into British Columbia, lies Ketchikan, our final Alaskan destination. With a population of just over 8,000 it is Alaska’s fourth largest city. On board the ship there have been talks known as enrichment lectures about the geography, history and heritage of Alaska. Roisin and I didn’t attend any of these events but they were repeated on the stateroom TV. The lecturer referred to Ketchikan as ‘rainy’Ketchikan saying that if you spend enough time in this city, it will rain at least once. Mind you, you could say that about most of the cities in the North of England!! The Ketchikan locals refer to the rain as ‘liquid sunshine’ whereas us Northerners also refer to the rain as a liquid but not of the sunshine ... read more
Lonely house on a hill - Ketchikan
The Salmon ladder
The Salmon huddled together in a massive shoal

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan September 3rd 2018

The excursion that day was set for 10 AM, so the family decided to wake up at a more leisurely time. Appa went out early to run in the brisk air and nice little city. Pranav, Amma, and I woke up a bit later to walk around the town. After snapping a couple of pictures of various statues, totem places, and neat looking shops, we all convened to have breakfast, take a shower, and hit the road for the special event of the day. There was quite a bit of apprehension and excitement as we were signed up to ride in a seaplane to watch black bears feast on salmon. From the port deck, we were bused for 15 minutes to another area where there was a big hangar for the planes. This service is called ... read more

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan August 30th 2018

We awoke to another day of clear blue skies with wisps of clouds. Everyone slept until 8:30 this morning. I went onto the back deck for my morning coffee in the sunshine as we cruised down the inlet toward Ketchikan. As we got closer, sea planes started buzzing the ship, almost like a welcome to Ketchikan and likely a little advertising for plane excursions! The Ruby Princess was already in port so we tied up further down the pier. Grandma and the kids came up for breakfast then the kids wanted to “wander around” on their own so off they went, checking in every so often....quite independent! We left the ship about 10:30 as the kids were looking forward to disposing of the rest of their disposable income! Ketchikan is a small town, population of 800 ... read more
Downtown Ketchikan
Infamous Duck Boats
Our “discerning shopper”

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan August 28th 2018

Monday Aug 20 We docked in Ketchikan at 6am. After an early breakfast, we disembarked to look around the shops before our walking tour began just before 10am. With all the cruise ships here, as many as six by 1pm, the town more than doubles its 24,000 population! Yet it did not seem that crowded. Creek street is really cool. Where Alaska’s first city began, shops line the narrow creek, sometimes overhanging it. We saw seals feeding on the salmon trying to run up the river and across the waterfalls to spawn. As the sign on Dolly’s House, an original whore house, says, both salmon and men come up here to spawn. Our Ketchikan Rain Forest Sanctuary walking tour took us into the Tongass Rain Forest, the world’s second-largest, next to the Amazon. We saw bald ... read more
Dolly’s House
Bald Eagle
Tongass Rain Forest

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan September 9th 2017

Geo: 55.3542, -131.691... read more

North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan July 3rd 2017

Day 11 –Ketchikan Today we started our day in the port of Ketchikan around 10AM. We had an excursion planned to visit the Totem Bight Park. I had always read it as the Totem Bright park, but it is Bight. The Bight is the term referring to the bay area, that looks like a monster took a bite out of the land to make a body of water. The Totem park is a tribute to the native people that told their stories using totem poles, and each clan had their own poles. The term that I had always heard was “I’m the low man on the totem pole” meaning the least significant person. In fact, that is opposite of the meaning. The bottom man on the totem pole is the most significant. We had lunch before ... read more
Ketchikan looking to the inland.
Looking the other way in Ketchikan
Volendam




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