July 27, 2013 Saturday
Day 20
Today we couldn't wait to get to town to snag a parking place and free, 24 hour parking spots tend to be sparse. We needed a space because we had booked a 1:30pm tour to Misty Fiords National Monument. Luckily we found a space right away, so we had time to visit the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center and the Creek Street area.
The Discovery Center, run by the US Forest Service, has sophisticated exhibits which illustrate native American cultural as well as the management of Tongass National Forest, our largest national forest at 17 million acres.
Next, we strolled around Creek Street which had been known as the "red light district" from 1903-1953, when their bordellos were in full swing. These historic buildings are now shops and restaurants along Ketchikan Creek, where salmon still run. Dolly's House, established 1919, is an old bordello, now open for tours. The women that work at Dolly's are dressed as "working girls" of the era and they stand out front, enticing visitors to take their tour. As we walked by, one started twirling her boa and flirting with Michael, saying, "Come on in for a tour, I'll show you a real good time". I said, "hey, watch it" she replied, "oh, you can come in too, honey, we can put you to work", haha! It was all in good fun. We declined their offer, though because we needed to get to our scheduled tour.
Our Misty Fiords tour was on a waterjet powered catamaran. Misty Fiords is a 2.3 million acre Monument in The Tongass National Forest. It is wild and remote, a temperate rain forest with 12 feet of rainfall yearly. It is complete with 3,000 foot vertical cliffs of granite, which were carved by glaciers and topped with cedar, western hemlock, and Sitka spruce trees. Some of the highlights of Misty Fiords besides the sheer amazing beauty of it all:
- New Eddystone Rock, a volcanic plug rising 237 feet out of the sea
- Pictographs - ancient "rock graffiti" etched into cliff walls by Natives
- Our guide - so knowledgeable, narrating and explaining during our 4 hour tour
- All the staff on the boat were so friendly, offering to take pictures of us with our cameras, feeding us pastries, hot chowder, hot & cold drinks
- A short film about the Alaskan salmon industry Note: "friends do NOT let friends eat farmed salmon"
- Yummy salmon samples after the film
- All the nice people we met on the tour
Back on land, we had local salmon at Bar Harbor -by far the BEST restaurant in Ketchikan. It is in an old Norwegian house, built in 1910 and has been a restaurant since the 60s. Eat there and you will know why it has been in business so long - DELICIOUS!!
Wildlife Sightings
Bald Eagles
Sea Lions