By: Cody Thomas, a Marvelous Mouse Travels agent
Day 6 of my Alaskan cruise took us to Ketchikan, Alaska! This is a great port to visit and quickly became one of our favorite port stops. Ketchikan is known as the salmon capital of Alaska. You can find anything from fresh salmon markets to canned salmon and even salmon jerky. Ketchikan averages 153 inches of rain per year – and it rains on an average of 234 days per year. That’s almost thirteen feet of rainfall! We were very lucky that we had perfect weather when we arrived in Ketchikan.
Ketchikan is another great port for shopping and finding local handmade souvenirs to bring back from your journeys. As we were two women travelers we of course had to venture into the local shops and see what they had to offer. You could find almost anything and everything. This is also one of the best ports to find any medication or medical supplies as many Alaskan ports do not have this option.
Following a little shopping therapy we wanted to try the local cuisine. We found a little place in town and sat at the bar to enjoy the local beer and company. Everyone is so nice and many of them love to share their stories. We enjoyed a variety of fish options as it seems you can’t quite get enough while you are so close to the ocean.
After our delicious and very fresh lunch it was time for our excursion. We opted to experience the The Great Alaskan Lumberjack show. This was such a fun show for travelers of all ages. They not only feature their amazing skills and how lumberjacks had to use these skills back in their day, but they create a fun competitive story to get the audience excited and involved. We laughed a lot and held our breath even more. We got to see them throw axes, use different cutting techniques, climb up trees, and even have a little competitive fun trying to balance on a log in water. We are happy to share that our team won! After the show you can even get your picture taken with the team and visit their shop for some more fun souvenirs.
After our show our excursion continued as we boarded a trolley bus. On our bus was a local woman who was married to a man that was part of the local Tlingit tribe. This was great as she shared with us a lot about the town and local stories. We also got to stop at a river and see the salmon ladder. This was a “ladder” that the locals built to help the salmon get up the waterfall to the upper part of the river. It was such a creative idea and a unique thing to see. We ventured out of town and down to the area of Saxman. This was where we made a stop at the saxman tribal house. We learned about the local tribes and our guide shared with us the stories of the totem poles. She said because they are not written down it can be like the largest game of telephone and some of the stories may have morphed a bit over the years. She taught us how to tell the animals apart on the totems and the importance of a person and whether or not they have ears. After learning about the totems we got to peek in the window and see a team of professional tribal carvers working on two more totems and repairing one that had come down in a past wind.
Ketchikan was beautiful and we felt like it had a lot to offer family travelers.
Our night was not yet over as we enjoyed lobster dinner and an evening of Tango at the Aurora Theater. This was put on by the Royal Caribbean entertainment team and the tango dancing, live singing, and performances were just a delight! What a great way to end a great day. One more day left...
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