Day 7—Ketchikan

 OK, let’s start with a pop quiz.  Theresa had trouble finding one shoe in the closet.  Does this mean:

A.  She has too many shoes! (more than 3 pair)
B.  The closet is too big!!  (enough to lose something?)
C.  Bill is a genius/hero for having a flashlight with him at all times!
D,  All of the above.

Welcome to the Salmon Capital of the World!

Ketchikan calls itself the “First City in Alaska”, not in time, but coming up from the lower 48, it is the Southeastern-most city in Alaska.  But it also boasts the most totem poles, with several hundred.  In fact, if you have a US Passport, check out page 23, and you will find one that is in the City Square. 

All of the food comes in by ship on Tuesdays, so grocery stores have fresh fruit pretty much just Tue/Wed, and then, well… come in earlier next week!  When they got the first McDonalds here, they sold over 10,000 cheeseburgers on opening day, and then had to close for 6 days until the next shipment came in!

Ax throwing!

After a slow and easy start, we went to a late morning show…A lumberjack show.  Ok.  This one was ALL Theresa.  The first guide told us to cross over town and find the next guide “shouting to line up in plaid”.  Uh, no plaid here.  But there was a lot of plaid there!  Actually, it was a light and entertaining show.  They divided the crowd into two “teams”, US and Canada, and then had a series of “competitions”, including axes, rip saws, chain saws, and pole climbing.  There were some laughs, some groans, and a lot of saw dust.

Yeah, I could do that!

Nice!!  :-)

A cannery operated by Libby, from 1915 to the late 60s.

We returned to the ship and grabbed a light lunch.  We found a ping pong table, so played a little.  There was some debate over the proper serve, so Theresa looked it up on her phone and it was cryptic and more importantly, also wrong.  But that’s ok.  We had fun and while it was a split decision (since no one was keeping score very well), I think we can all agree that Bill won.  (You know what they say about writing history?  J)

For the afternoon, we took a cruise on the water, taking in some amazing sights, and seeing a bit of wildlife.  The water, although an inland waterway of the Pacific, was as placid as a lake!  We saw a couple of bald eagles flying around and even spotted a juvenile one just before the tour.  Apparently, the main cause of death for bald eagles is drowning, because they grab a fish that is too big for them and get pulled under.  (Not sure why they don’t let go?)

Bald eagle circling for food.

Got it!!

There was a lot of rope to pull hoisting that pot up!

Then we came up on a crab pot, and of course, pulled it in.  Well, they asked for some help hauling it in, and having watched a few seasons of “Deadliest Catch”, I felt trained and ready.  After pulling a pot up about 50 feet, there were four crabs in it, two male and two female…and a moon jellyfish sitting on top of the pot.  Our guide showed us how to handle the crab, tell male from female, and so forth.  Then we threw them back in for another tour.  (Apparently, they eventually kick them out of the pots and reset, but for the day they just make sure there is something to be found!) 

It's too late, buddy!  (No, she's going back in later.)

Mmmmm...Crunchy!!

Four crab and one jelly fish.

After half of our table of eight.

 After the cruise, we went to a Crab Feast, with as much Dungeness crab as we could eat in about an hour.  It was good, but sort of a frenzy.  But they didn’t skimp, so can’t really complain.  It did sort of blunt any interest in dinner, though!  First world problems, right?

A juvenile bald eagle. (still has his hair!).

I wonder what he's looking at there?