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We managed to get back to sleep for a while and then finally got up and had breakfast. We needed to get a couple of things at the WalMart so we went into the store. Here’s the view from the WalMart parking lot—proof that nearly everywhere in Alaska is stunning.
We were both tired and would have liked to just find a campground and have a down day but it was such a gorgeous day and this is Ketchikan where it’s supposed to rain 366 days a year! So we headed south into town instead. First stop, the Safeway for groceries. It was a very upscale Safeway with a huge deli (with a great view of the harbor) and the biggest salad bar I’ve ever seen in a Safeway. The night before when we came in there weren’t any cruise ships in port. But as I was getting into the pickup I spied at least one in the harbor. We went over to the edge of the parking lot and low and behold you could see 3 of the behemoths (there was a fourth one docked behind the others).
The float planes you see in the foreground were taking off one after another taking cruise ship passengers on flightseeing tours. While I was taking photos of the harbor I accidently shot this photo of one who got into my field of view. I could never have done this on purpose, my trigger is too slow.
Here’s the view I was trying to shoot when he got in the way. Can you imagine this being the view from your grocery store parking lot?
As we were driving out of the parking lot I spied this group of ravens on a roof nearby and couldn't resist getting a shot of them.
From the Safeway we drove further south through the old town section of Ketchikan. This has been turned into a Tourist Trap of the highest degree. On a beautiful day like we had it was literally crawling with folks off the cruise ships (somewhere between 6 and 8,000 of them). There’s no way to bypass this mess so we just sat back and were amused by the flow of folks as they crossed the streets looking for things to buy.
A little south of town proper (they say it’s a 15 minute walk from the ferry docks) is Saxman Totem Park. This is another tourist heaven. It has been put together by the local native clans. There are over 20 totem poles in this little park. They charge the tourists $5 a head and use the money to support native artists who are replicating old poles that have begun to rot. The intent is good but the place feels really cheesy and has not very good energy. Nevertheless we did visit all the poles and take photos of all of them. They come in all sizes from fairly short ones to really tall ones with figureheads on top.
Here's a sign explaining the history of the park.
This pair were in front of a re-creation of a clan house where they hold dance performances that they also sell to the cruise ship folks.
And here's the front of the clan house.
Some of the poles are really tall. Here's Walter standing next to the lower portion of a pole and a photo of the complete pole next to it.
Here’s the view from the top of the park looking out into the harbor. You can see that they only carve the front half of the log and them mount it on a pole. This is the traditional method that we’ve seen over and over for the whole trip.
The collection of totems goes on and on.
I love the detail work on some of them.
A number of the poles had figures at the very top like this eagle.
Walter had a lot of fun posing with this guy who was having his hand eaten off.
The figures come in all sorts and varities.
Here's Walter hamming it up with his fellow totem.
They were in the process of repainting all the totems. Having seen other totems this trip in more natural settings, I suspect these folks repaint every year to make sure everything looks new and shiny for the tourists fresh off the boats. I asked what kind of paint they use and they said “water based” (as in latex). They had scaffolding up around several of the poles which made it hard to take decent photos (so you're spared seeing those).
This beaver totem is in front of the gift shop which was overflowing with tourists.
This lovely orca pole is on the way to the parking lot where we were the only RV parked (along with many tour buses).
Did you catch that it was a repeat? Me either and I was the one who took them all!
It was lunch time by the time we’d made it though this park so we drove south on South Tongass Highway in hopes of finding a place to park with a view. We missed the turn-off for the place we were looking for but that was all good because in the end we found a spot where we could point the trailer in such a way that we had a view out the window at our kitchen table.
While we were finishing up lunch a truck drove up and a guy in a wet suit started unloading gear. Then a van drove up and disgorged a group of women in wet suits. A while later after we’d driven to the end of the road and back we saw them out in the water snorkeling.
We drove out to the end of the road because our Milepost guidebook said that there were two scenic waterfalls out that way. The first one had a tour bus, a paramedic truck and a group of volunteer fire people gathered around someone lying on the ground. We drove past and went on to the second waterfall. It wasn’t very big, but it was nice.
By the time we got back to the first waterfall, the tour bus was gone, the aid car was packing up and the volunteer fire people were driving off. The waterfall had some big boulders you had to climb over to get a view. I suspect someone fell and the tour bus driver called the medics. In any case it was a nice waterfall about 20 feet tall.
By this point we were tired so we worked our way back north stopping to take photos as we went. This is a view just a little ways from the waterfalls.
This is a view of Herring Cove, a little community near the end of the road. I was driving and I just stopped the truck in the middle of the bridge over the creek and took this shot out my window. No traffic either way for the entire procedure.
We then made our way back through the crush of tourists in town to North Tongass Highway. There was a view point where I took this panorama shot.
We opted to stay the night at Clover Pass Resort which is the only RV park in Ketchikan and thus the only place with power and Wi-Fi. It’s focus is really charter fishing and boat rentals so the RV portion of the place is very secondary. But the view is wonderful from the deck in front of the waterfront RV sites. The non-waterfront sites are in a parking lot behind a big barn of a building so we paid the extra to at least be near the view.
We took showers (ugly water the color of over-brewed tea and lukewarm to boot) and had a nap. When we’d arrived the tide was in and lapping at the rocks outside our rig (and those big RV’s in this photo) When we woke up from our naps the tide was out.
They have a huge tidal variation here. Besides that it was a full moon which made the low tide lower than usual. Here’s Walter next to one of the dock poles. The water would have been up to that green mark way above his head earlier in the day.
There were lots of wonderful boats with all sorts of fishing gear on them and HUGE (as two in 350 HP) outboard motors.
Here’s the view from the end of the dock.
While we were walking on the dock we heard some screeching and cawing and looked up into the trees to see bald eagles perched all over the place. That evening someone in one of the RV’s counted 20 of them. The ones in the evergreens were hard to photograph but this guy on a snag stands out.
This one was out on the rocks pecking at something and I managed to get a shot of him not eating for a moment.
We climbed back up the VERY steep gangway from the docks (funny it wasn't that steep when the tide was high) to the restaurant (not open until June 11th) and hung out on the balcony watching the birds.
When we turned to leave I realized that the windows were mirrored so I took a couple of photos of us. Happy campers in Ketchikan Alaska.
This one isn’t as good a photo of us but it has a better picture of the view.
One of our fellow RV campers took some fish guts (spines of salmon caught on a charter earlier in the day) and put them out on the rocks in front of the RV’s hoping to attract the eagles. A few came a sat around and looked at it but none came down to feed so we went in to make dinner. Of course while we were doing that 20 eagles arrived to fight over them. There were still a few eagles out on the rocks when we came out later but the light was going and so it was hard to get good photos of them. This is the best of the shots from the evening.
We sat out on the deck and watched the sunset which lasted for well over an hour. Early on it had oranges and pinks.
At the end it was all rosy glow.
It was a full day and we both slept like rocks. In Part 5 we’ll show you more of Ketchikan.