Visiting Ketchikan, Alaska/Carlos Pueblo

Visiting Ketchikan, Alaska/Carlos Pueblo

After one day and two night navigation, the cruise ship arrive Ketchikan

, Alaska, an old gold mine town of 19 century now a sleepy tourist port,

and a salmon fishing center. During the first morning at sea, inside passage

of Alaska inner sea way, I watched whales with a young lady whale expert

from Portland, Oregon. I still remember this first port of our 2013 Alaska

cruise from Seattle, Washington. Ketchikan creek is the path for some trout

and salmons to return their original home for laying eggs. As a matter of

fact, there is a hatchery upstream not far away from the old red light section

of the town current day a business full of souvenirs stores. Along the creek,

residential streets are on the steps of the hills and you can see the streets

signs on every step up hills. All of the residential dwellings are frame structures

and I don’t see any of the brick veneers.

I stopped at a small yet very clean and pretty park next to a hatchery where we

had visited before. An employee at the totem library pointed the facility for me

and I got an opportunity to chat with someone in charge of the hatch operation.

Every other year, the fishes will come back from the ocean through the creek up

stream and followed the fish ladder to enter to the ponds and lay eggs. The hatchery

will release the small fishes back to the creek then to the Pacific Ocean. It is a

private industry which doesn’t obtain any grand from the governments yet he does

mention salmon’s return is a kind of reward. There was an innovation going on site

to replace some old structures.

The totem pole museum is nearby. The totem pole is very unique Alaskan art with

wood engraving on the pole. Ketchikan claims the largest collection of totem poles

in the State, later, I also saw some big ones in a state park on our way back. We walked

back to downtown along with a German couple from Hamburg, Germany. They were

very curious for a rundown section of the old town deteriorated frame building near

a middle campus and took some photos.

Ever since I was a child, I always like to wonder around downtown for doing nothing.

On our way back to Vancouver 10 days later, we walked again at Ketchikan downtown

and ran into a Taiwanese lady of a store keeper. She works for a Chinese stores owner

in Caribbean and Ketchikan during the cruise season. She lives in New Jersey off season

and is a professional artist.