Cruise to Alaska

 

Trip Log

A Family of 7 Travels to Alaska

Day 6 August 22 Ketchikan

Our ship was docked in Ketchikan today from 6am to 1pm. Not being a morning person - and travelling with my 3 children who love to sleep, I wondered if we were going to see Ketchikan at all! We managed to drag ourselves out of bed and up to breakfast, so that we were walking off the ship by around 9:30am. I thought that I had prepared myself for Ketchikan's infamous rainy weather, but the wind-driven cold rain that hit us as we got off the ship almost caused me to turn right back around! Luckily, the wind was concentrated right by the water, so once we were near the shops, we were merely chilly and damp. While Ketchikan may be called the salmon capital or the rain capital of the world, in our family we refer to it as the free gift capital of the world. We managed to rack up 7 free gifts in town - no purchase necessary - from cruise ship coupons and promotions. Perhaps it is because Ketchikan is a typical last stop on an Alaskan cruise - whatever the reason, we were delighted!

After collecting all of our free gifts, we headed away from the water up on Mill Street, which brought us to 3 beautiful replica totem poles, complete with story and meaning behind them. We crossed the footbridge, and spent quite awhile absolutely fascinated by the incredible show of nature put on by the salmon jumping upstream. While I knew that Ketchikan would have salmon, I really had no idea that we would be able to see thousands of salmon milling about in the calmer waters before leaping into the wild white water rapids and heading upstream. It was so incredible to watch, we even forgot that we were standing out in the rain! We continued to follow the stream upwards, while walking along the boardwalk of Creek Street, into the 'Married Men's Path' through the woods, and up to Park Avenue, where we continued to follow the salmon on their most difficult journey.

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