Alaska Cruise - Day 4: Ketchikan

First port day of the cruise! When the biggest attraction is a lumberjack show, you know it's going to be a little kitschy...but really, secretly don't we all love a little kitsch? 

The plan for today was to do a little self-tour of Ketchikan downtown. We would be following a route called the "Salmon Walk," which basically just connects together a bunch of attractions in a loop. To give you a sense of how much the local economy is dependent on cruise ship tourism, Royal Caribbean actually put up all the signs for the Salmon Walk. It would include a stop at the salmon ladder, some museums, some totems, and then end with the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. The boat was leaving at 2:30 so it was going to be a fairly short port visit.

Before we got to all the sights though, our priorities were clear -- no trip these days is deemed to be complete with an order of boba. I'm happy to report that this requirement was met in Ketchikan (even though I'm told the quality was a bit lacking).

With that out of the way, we could focus more on culture and learning. Here are some of the impressively preserved totems from the Totem Heritage Center. 

And the salmon ladder! 

The twins actually learned about salmon ladders in school this past year -- apparently they were started because of dam construction -- a manmade way for an salmon to continue their uphill swim when a dam otherwise blocks the river entirely.  The salmon run was just getting started so we actually got to see some salmon jumping out of the water and making their way through the ladder. 

Here is a shot of Creek Street, basically the heart of Ketchikan. Back in the gold rush heydays, this was also the location of the red light district. "Where men and salmon came upstream to spawn," as the saying went...

We also spent a good bit of time at the Ketchikan visitor center. The highlight I thought was actually the hands-on rope tying activity. I generally think of myself as fairly good in terms of following diagram instructions (ie, making art projects). But I had a really hard time with some of the instructions (like the square knot even!).  The twins on the other hand made it through all of the knots with no issues. You might say they are knautically talented...while I was knot. 

There was also what I thought was a pretty good exhibit showing you the size of the infamous "Old Groaner" - the brown bear would make an eerie groaning noise because of injuries to his jaw. 

Another totem, this time displayed outside and with paint intact. 

The kids, thanks to the boba hit, were generally good sports about walking around town catching all these museums. I even convinced them to strike silly poses with the various sculptures. 

I would have appreciated more stops at the various artwork shops...sadly no one was really interested except me. Aren't the carvings pretty cool?

The true highlight of the day was of course the lumberjack show. I hear that lumberjack shows are somewhat of a known tourist thing (ie, they aren't unique to Ketchikan, others exist in Oregon, Washington, other parts of Canada, etc). This one was done competition style, with two teams of two contestants each, trying to be the first to do various athletic/timber-sports activities (like cutting through a log, running across a log, climbing a log, throwing axes at a target, etc).

I thought it was interesting how all of the contestants were a bit on the shorter side. The guy in the center below was the announcer, who wasn't extremely tall himself -- the four contestants around him were noticeably shorter. Perhaps center of gravity being lower gives you an edge on some of these activities?

All in all, don't think I'd go again, but would recommend it as a one time activity for sure. Very entertaining. 

As we walked back to the ship we also caught a really big jellyfish in the water. Only living animal sighting of the day, but still pretty cool!

Today we were also celebrating the twins' birthdays, so we booked a dinner at the speciality Italian restaurant on the ship. Six courses! And no, the twins did NOT pace themselves. I think they had about 7 pieces of bread to begin. In their defense, the bread was quite good, but then the appetizer came...and then the minestrone soup...and the burrata tomato salad..and the truffle fettuccine alfredo...and then the steak/lasagna secondi...and then the huge "rocher" hazelnut dessert...and then a chocolate birthday cake! Suffice it to say they were a bit stuffed by the end. 

Only day 4 out of 11 down -- tomorrow we dock at Haines!