Thursday In Ketchikan

BEAUTIFUL ALASKA!

This was our last stop in a port city in Alaska. We're not sure where the week went, we only know it melted by much too quickly! We will have to do the trip again and catch more of what we missed this time around!

Ketchikan was a lumber town supplying those venturing into the gold fields of the Yukon with the wood needed for sluice boxes and hopefully cabins on successful claims. It was also (like Skagway) a stopping point on the way out where men and women of ill repute would try and waggle those few successful adventurers out of their hard dug gold! In many cases it was the townspeople, never having stepped foot on Yukon soil, who "earned" more than those lured in by the possiblity of striking it rich! To this day those making a stop-over in these port cities are still being lured to spend their cash! But I guess if your season for earning is very short - you do your best to get what you can before the cold winds from the north stop even the bravest of tourists!



LARGE ...



... AND SMALL

Ketchikan has an International (yes, international!) Airport. Seeing as the airport is built between water and mountainside the taxiway is on one level and the planes have to advance up a ramp to the runway level! We also saw an abundance of small aircraft like we had seen in every port city so far (Kev will tell you exactly what they are!) For many of these towns/cities there is only two ways in or out - by sea or by air! This is really hard to comprehend coming from a province that has a widespread grid of roads connecting our vast collection of wayside towns and large cities together.



VIEW OF DOWNTOWN KETCHIKAN
FROM THE SHIP'S DECK

If you're going to go to a lumbertown what else do you do but go to a lumberjack show! Two teams squared off. The Canadian team from the "Dawson Creek Camp" competed for points against their American opponents from the "Spruce Mill Camp". It was all done in fun, but these were authentic men of the woods who enter real competitions, like you can see on TV on occasion. I'm happy to announce the Canadians won! As the men progressed from event to event the announcer (a lumberjack himself) explained the significance of the event in actual work in the forests. Sorry to say some of that slipped past me while I was cheering on our Canadians!



TEAM WORK



SPRINGBOARD ACTION



POLE CLIMBING



LOG ROLLING

After the show we we wandered around "Creek Street" to take a peek in the once former "houses of pleasure" turned into shops and cafes. The town had it's fair share of one time brothels housed in structures built on stilts on a back water in Ketchikan. This was actually very unique and interesting from a construction sense. Unlike anything we had seen before!



VIEW ALONG CREEK STREET



LOOKING TOWARDS THE SHIP
FROM CREEK STREET

Back on board that night for our evening meal we had a "Chef's Special" for supper. We all got to wear "Chef's hats" and our stewards danced around the room and performed different tricks between courses, juggling, spinning plates and generally entertaining guests.



IN OUR HATS



STEWARDS SHOWING THEIR OTHER SKILLS



YUDI AND HANS

During the late evening we started heading out to sea once again to make our way back to Canada and Vancouver Harbor. All good things must come to an end at some time! We have memories to cherish and pictures to remind us of our brief interlude, leaving behind the world back home and experiencing for a few moments a piece of the history of this last frontier as it came to be known.