Alaska: Ketchikan - Misty Fjords and Seaplane Tour

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We got lucky again on this trip. Ketchikan is usually gloomy and rainy. Today we had a mix of overcast skies with a few sunny moments. Score! Today 4 cruise ships were docked in the tiny town. Dave's mood was much better this morning as he disembarked with a Diet Coke in-hand and received no hassle from ship security. Our morning was going to be spent fulfilling a bucket list item for Holly: landing on the water in a seaplane. We had a few minutes before our excursion pickup and headed over to the Tongass National Forest Visitor Center for our Passport stamp.

Ketchikan had all the charm of a turn-of-the-century frontier outpost mixed with tackiness that comes with being a tourist destination. The city did have a few very nice art stores.

We boarded our bus for the short trip up the main road (Ketchikan is isolated like Juneau is) to Taquan Air. The company has been shuttling goods and people by air for over 20 years. We were assembled with other tourists into a tent for our safety briefing before being divided into groups and assigned planes. Our pilot, Jess, was in his late-20's and moved to Alaska from Florida. Dave won the dispersing the weight lottery and scored the copilot seat.

Our 90 minute tour would take us over the Misty Fjords National Monument. As we've learned on this trip fjords are inlets sourrounded by rounded mountains created by glacial erosion. As we were flying Jess would narrate every few minutes then play some appropriate song from his iPod. The mountains were beautiful from our high vantage point and Jess gave us several up-close moments with the cliffsides. Our landing was in a long narrow stretch of the inlet. On the nearby shore was a brown bear grazing on some grass. Jess told us he's usually hanging around this time of morning. We got to climb out onto the pontoon for some better photos.

Thankfully take-off from the inlet and landing back in town were uneventful. We still had a few hours left on our shore leave so we decided to quickly take the Ketchikan Walking Tour allowing us to see Creek Street (old red light district), The Totem Pole Heritage Center, a salmon ladder, and totem poles placed around town.

We had a decent lunch at Alaska Fish House - more fried halibut. After lunch we frantically ran around town trying to find the perfect ulu knife and stone carving of an otter. We did well on the knife: we found one shaped like a bear made out of bleached caribou antler. We found a nice otter carving, but the perfect one was back in Skagway. If you find yourself in Ketchikan spend a few minutes browsing the family-owned Alaskan Stone Arts shop/gallery. After an exhausting tour of the shops we met up with the rest of the crew at a bar called Sourdough. It's a first-class dive that happened to be steps away from our ship's gangplank. It's worth a visit for all the photos of boats that have run aground (common in this area with the fog and changing tides). Thanks to Sourdough we boarded 15 minutes before departure.

The next time we'd set foot on land would be in Vancouver. We enjoyed our time in Alaska and we experienced many new things along the way. As luck would have it some killer whales decided to show up on our side of the ship a few miles away from port. Perfect!

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Alaska: Land Ho! Skagway

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We were so happy to finally get off the ship. We weren't seasick or anything, just happy to be able to roam freely (without human obstacles blocking us in narrow corridors) and experience food that actually had flavor.

Today's Skagway mostly exists to give tourists like us something to see other than ice and nature. The entire town is one shop after another - similar to a Disney Park Main Street. But unlike Disney's version, Skagway's downtown is filled with real turn-of-the-20th-century architecture and charm. As an added bonus, the town is also a National Park (Klondike Gold Rush NP).

In the late 1800's Skagway developed to serve prospectors adventuring to seek gold in Alaska and Canada. The city has a seedy history with booze, gambling, and hookers running rampant. Per Wikipedia, "Between 1897 and 1898, Skagway was a lawless town, described by one member of the North-West Mounted Police as "little better than a hell on earth." Fights, prostitutes and liquor were ever-present on Skagway's streets, and con man "Soapy" Smith, who had risen to considerable power, did little to stop it. Smith was a sophisticated swindler who liked to think of himself as a kind and generous benefactor to the needy. He was gracious to some, giving money to widows and halting lynchings, while simultaneously operating a ring of thieves who swindled prospectors with cards, dice, and the shell game." So this was our kind of place: old-timey charm with a few dank bars thrown into the mix.

Fortunately we had a 12 hour stop in town. Our kayaking/train excursion would start around 11:30 giving us about three hours to explore Broadway. We toured the National Park Visitor Center, browsed many shops, looked at the White Pass train display, and followed the historic trail showcasing original (or replica) structures from the late-1800's. The Red Onion Saloon opened at 10am - giving us a chance to enjoy sitting at the historic bar without all the crowds of cruisers that would be in the place at more respectable hours.

At 11:30 we boarded our assigned motorcoach and took a 45 minute ride up to Lake Bernard in British Columbia, Canada. We barely crossed the U.S./Canadian border to get to our destination. The dozen in our group were greeted by our guides and shown to our ruddered kayaks. We were given splash bibs to keep our legs and bodies dry from paddling. After orientation, and deciding on who would steer our kayak (Holly), we were launched into the gorgeous little mountain lake.

The paddling portion of our trip took about an hour. With some of the currents (lake was fed by a river) the last portion of the tour became quite a challenge. This excursion was a little out-of-the-box for us but we figured we would never go to Canada to kayak on our own. After kayaking our tour guides treated us to some light snacks inside a warm platform tent before walking us over to our private White Pass train car reserved for Packer Expedition guests. As an added bonus it was the train's caboose. The slow trip down very steep grades was filled with views of rivers, forests, gorges, waterfalls, and rock formations. We traveled over very high (and old) train bridges. The entire trip was narrated by a guide pointing out sites along the way. One odd sighting we had was two plastic Oswald dolls in a tree. No clue how anyone could have gotten there to place them.

Really?

Really cool house en-route to Distillery

Our ride ended around 5pm. We raced over to the Skagway Brewing Company for a proper late-lunch and beer. As expected it was crowded but we lucked into bar seats as a couple was leaving. We had some incredible halibut fish and chips here - the kind you dream about. While at the bar the owner of the brand new Skagway Spirits Distillery came in to talk to the bar about carrying his product. We had plenty of time left so we took a few block walk outside the tourist zone over to his business. We encountered the owner again and met his wife. At the time we were the only customers and spent some time getting their life stories over our cocktails. Many of the items in the lounge were relics from former businesses in town. We had a great time in there.

We wanted to hit one of the shops on the way back to pick up a carved otter. Surprise! The stores were closed while the ship was still in port. We thought they'd be open as long as the ship was around. Nope! We spent too much time in future ports trying to find a suitable substitute for that otter. Pro Tip: buy it when you see it. With limited things left to do in town we made the rookie mistake of getting back on the ship an hour before we were to weigh anchor. Surely we could have squeezed our way into the Red Onion or spent more time talking with the folks in the distillery.

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