Eagles and Seals and Bears, Oh My!

We didn't get the wake-up call, but apparently my phone caught up to ship time, and my alarm was accurate.

I'd been ignoring the pain in my foot for a day or so.  I didn't bring the CAM walking boot or my walker because I just don't want to have to keep taking them on vacation with me.  I mean, I spent all summer doing physical therapy, learning to use other modalities (like TENS unit, self-accupressure, etc) to try to be able to function every day and with little to no need for a walker or a walking boot.  By the time we got to Ketchikan, it was starting to hurt pretty bad, but I was determined.  I had been standing on the balcony doing my physical therapy, taking my new set of meds (a combo of anti-convulsants and anti-inflamatories), and using the pressure techniques I had learned this summer.  I was in pain, but I was still functional without having to use bulky, awkward assistive devices.  

We disembarked early and checked into our first excursion, a duck boat tour of the harbor and city.  I had never been on a duck boat before, so I didn't know what to expect.  We drove through town and heard a lot of the history in a sardonically humorous sort of way.  Then we went out to the Tongass Narrows with entry from Bar Harbor marina.  It was a nice little float around, and we did see a nesting pair of bald eagles.

It was a pleasant excursion, but I think I'll pass on doing another one.  I'd always rather go out farther.  I did get a little purple duck to go with Duck Holiday (from Dodge City, KS) and my Deming Devil Duck (from my high school reunion).  I'm going to have to come up with a name for him, but for now, he's the third in my duck collection I seem to be accidentally accumulating.

We had some time between the end of our duck excursion and our wildlife excursion, so we walked around town a bit.  I got the iconic "First City" sign before heading over to Creek Street.

Loved the no smoking sign in the bathroom of the visitors center!

Eventually, we made our way to Creek Street.  Creek Street is a street with no solid ground underneath.  It is a boardwalk on stilts with buildings built on the boardwalk (and sometimes their own stilts).  It sits over Ketchikan Creek and was the former home of the red light district.  Dolly's House is the yellow house on the right.  Dolly was the most famous "sporting woman" in Ketchikan and lived in the house until her death in 1975.  It's a museum now.

We walked around Creek Street and checked out some of the shops.  I always like to sample new jams and similar, so we picked up a small bottle of chokecherry birch syrup from Sam McGee's gift shop.  I put it on my waffles this morning, and it was delicious.  I had never heard of birch syrup, but it sems to rival the taste of maple syrup.  When we go back, I think I'll have to get some more, this time plain birch syrup so I can make a fair comparison. 

People are not the only ones who like Ketchikan Creek.  Ketchikan Creek is one of the natural spawning locations of salmon.  One of our tour guides called it the "end of the line" for the salmon.  You could see (and smell) the dead salmon on the banks of many of the creeks and you could look at the water that was black with all the salmon swimming upstream.  And where there are salmon, there are harbor seals!  I'm not sure whether these guys were hungry or just playing with this slow-moving salmon, but they were interesting to watch!

Harbor seals were all over the creek!

After Creek Street, we went back to the pier to catch our next excursion.  This one was another city tour, a wildlife viewing, and Saxman Village.  The city tour portion stopped at mostly the same sites as the duck tour did.  Our guide was very opinionated and a nice guy.  He talked about history and current politics, including relaying how he was called out of order twice at the city council meeting about buying a new ladder truck.  Apparently, the council believed the fire chief instead of him, and they got the fire truck he doesn't think they need!  He was a nice guy, though, and we learned a lot about the history of the city and the meanings of the various totem pieces.

One of the unique things about Ketchikan is their "stair streets".  They seriously have huge stairway/boardwalks throughout town that have street names.  Entire neighborhoods that don't have roads for driving.  You park at the foot of the stairs and climb to your neighborhood, taking the connecting stair streets as you need!

Obviously, these neighborhoods aren't for me! We stopped by a salmon ladder,

and drove by the AVG child care center (I just thought it was funny.  The street sign said A.V.G. insteead of just avg),

before heading out for some wildlife viewing at what I think was Herring Cove.  We stopped in a little spot to a creek that comes up from Herring Bay (or whatever bay we were at).  You could see the salmon swimming upstream, but the sun was too bright to really get any decent pictures of them.  As soon as we got out of the van, I spotted a juvenile eagle perched regally on a tree.  The sun had him backlit, so I walked around to get some decent shots.

After a few shots, far fewer than I wanted, our guide chastised me for leaving the group. He did it very nicely and just mentioned that everybody should stay together, so I behaved myself and came back. Thankfully, I did get a couple of good shots of him. There was also an adult flying around. I think I need to upgrade my camera so I can get a telephoto lens, but my little mirrorless bridge camera did a decent job catching a clean-ish picture in flight. And I'm learning a bit about that shutter speed thing, too.

As our guide was finishing up his spiel, a little black bear came sauntering out from the direction of the bay, following the salmon. He had no interest in us, and I had a very difficult time finding a picture that showed any part of his face, even though I took TONS of them!

I started the video as he seemed to be ready to pounce, and I was right on it!

 

Our guide let us stay until the bear headed into the grass to lay down and eat his catch.

We then headed to Saxman Village.  Saxman Village is a native town where the native ways are practiced.  There are totems, a carving room, and a lodge.  Our guide donned his native headdress for his clan and his talking stick for this portion, and he described the meanings of the various parts of the totem and some things about how they are carved and the history of the area.  When some people from a different tour asked to take their picture with him, we thought we were going to have to talk to him about leaving the group (LOL)!  But he made his way back to us, and we headed back to town.

My foot was killing me, but it was an amazing day. We only had minutes to spare to get back to the ship, and I was wondering if we might need to take advantage of the guarantee of a flight to our next port of call, but we made it!