Sat July 12, 2025
Hi Folks! Today we are docked in Ketchikan, Alaska. Not only is it the salmon capital of the world but it’s also the rain capital of the world! So that’s why it rained all day!?! But even with the rain it was beautiful!
Ketchikan is the state’s southeasternmost major settlement and has a population of approx 8,200 people (not counting the bears!). Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic Landmark District. It was incorporated in 1900 and located on Revillagigedo Island.
Ketchikan has the world’s largest collection of standing totem poles found throughout the city. The Chief Kyan pole in Whale Park in the city center is one of the featured background images in most US Passports.
Ketchikan’s GPS geographic coordinates are slightly south of Copenhagen, Denmark and Glasgow, Scotland (both of which we visited in the last few months!). It is surrounded by the Tongass National Forest. Due to its steep and forested terrain, Ketchikan is long and narrow with much of the built-up area being located along the waterfront.
As I mentioned before, we’ve been here several times and have done most of the excursions offered so we decided to rent a car for the day and what a great idea that was. It gave us the freedom and flexibility to venture off the beaten path and go anywhere we wanted and stay as long as we wanted. Can’t do that with a ship’s excursion.
We drove from one end of Ketchikan to the other and stopped at cool places like Settler’s Cove, Herring Cove, Refuge Cove State Park,
Ward Lake and even did a stop at Walmart to load up on Coke Zeros, our drink of choice!
Throughout our drive we saw lots of beautiful scenery but also saw Bald Eagles, Seals and several Bears! Our first bear sighting was a bear cub crossing the road right in front of us but we couldn’t get our cameras out in time to grab a pic. But when we got to Herring Cove we saw a fairly good sized bear walking down by the water’s edge. I included a few pics but it never captures how cool it is to see them in person!
We then dropped the car off and boarded the ship around 3:30 PM. We went up to the Commodore Lounge and listened to the Naturalist, Dr Rachel Cartwright, review what we’ll see sailing out of Ketchikan and some info to prep us for our scenic cruising around Glacier Bay National Park tomorrow. She is really good and so knowledgeable and such a great presenter. Very impressed with her.
We then got ready for dinner. I’ll do an update tonight after dinner. Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!
The Wandering Italian 