Inspirational Thoughts: Alaska Cruises in the Summer

Day 9 (August 2, 2023) Crown Princess docked at Ketchikan from 7 am to 4:45 pm. This is my second time to the city. To recap, Ketchikan is known as “The Salmon Capital of the World” and the population there in 2020 census was 8192.

Here’s the view from my stateroom. The first building I noticed was the First Lutheran Church!

Now you know my routine, breakfast in Horizon Court. I like congee, this time I added other vegetables such as chopped celeries to my congee 😊I also enjoyed the view from another side of the ship, the one opposite to my stateroom. There was a small cruise ship Hanseatic Nature in the middle of the sea, I wondered what other cruise ships would be there with us🤔

I revisited Ketchikan and the weather was much nicer 🌞 今次唔會做落湯雞😁

Since we purchased the tickets for Home | Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show on our cruise, we were asked to get on a mini bus once we got off the ship. We booked the earliest show that began at 9 am and the ticket was $39.95 USD each. This included a ride to the venue.

Lots of audiences continued coming. We just sat at wherever was unoccupied. Once the seats were full, newcomers were told to sit at the next unoccupied section.

Basically, there was one MC and four performers.

Oh … there were Canadian flags and American flags?

Oh no, we were sitting at the boundary! The other side was Canadian team. That meant we belonged to American team😟

弊! 坐錯邊! 隔離先係加拿大隊。

The American and Canadian teams were competing ⚔ ...

When US won, we should say “Yay!” When Canada won, we should say “Hurr!”

But my heart went for Canada. 身在花旗心在楓葉 🍁🍁🍁

Anyways their performance was incredible. 哇！有水上輕功表演!

Both teams did a very good job! 大家一團和氣! 不如影張大合照😃

Although we could take the mini bus back to our cruise after the show, we decided to stay and walk around. We still got plenty of time to do shopping. There are many shops nearby.

I believe I have seen this animated map before but I was still attracted by its design.

I saw different local excursions available. Ride the Duck sounds fun. It travels on land and in water, cool!

Ride a trolley can be another option, it includes city tour, totem park and wildlife/Saxman tour. This reminded me of my Saxman Native Village and Ketchikan City Tour that I joined last time.

But I enjoyed browsing around leisurely in souvenir stores.

Last time, I was taking pictures in pouring rain ☔ This time the weather was sunny 🌞 let’s do that again!

Finally I was able to have a picture in front of Ketchikan sign in its downtown area ✌

This is Ride the Duck – Ketchikan Duck Tour. It matches very well with the cruise ship behind in this picture. Both have light blue and yellow colours.

It was Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas, no wonder it looked so giant and occupied two berths.

The ship behind Quantum of the Seas and in front of Crown Princess was Celebrity Millennium.

Let’s go back to our ship for lunch in Horizon Court.

After lunch, it was around 1:00 pm. I would like to visit the attractive place that I missed last time. Below was the only photo I had. When I showed it to the customer service at visitor center, I was told this is called Creek Street.

Although it is within walking distance, I preferred to take the free shuttle (BUS-Schedule-2024-Summer (kgbak.us)) to save the travelling time.

Ketchikan free downtown shuttle came every 20 minutes. Crown Princess was docked at berth 4 so we waited for the shuttle at G (Newtown/Berth 4/Ward Cove Shuttle) and got off at K (Federal Bldg/Creek St./Museum).

The shuttle was jam packed with many passengers standing. One man carried a big cooler and a little dog. He stood by the back door and stepped down to let other passengers to get off. Then he stepped into the shuttle again. But before his little dog went back to the bus, the back door was closed. Uh oh! The driver didn’t know and wanted to leave 😨 Many passengers including me yelled to the driver to open the back door. Fortunately a woman was holding the dog’s leash until the back door was opened again.

The man and his little dog got off at the same station as us. Then they went in a different direction.

Wah! Is this legal? Where were the parents?

The first spot I saw salmon was at a fishing area. I was so worried that the salmon would be caught since I expected the salmon to continue their journey to their birth place. I didn’t want them to get hurt or killed😓

In less than 5 minute walk, I found Creek Street … my dream place to visit in Ketchikan!

Some houses on Creek Street are from 100 years ago. Most of them owned by women for their business in 1920s to 1950s. Here is Creek Street’s oldest remaining house and one of its earliest houses of prostitution. Now it is a boutique and gift shop. No wonder during my trip to Ketchikan in May the tour guide said Creek Street District was a Red Light District.

Below shows the map of Creek Street building and property ownership in 1927.

It was a very interesting experience to walk along Creek Street, look down to the creek for salmon, visit different shops in this area and watch the unique scenery through a window.

First Nation patterns are very popular, they can be found on ties.

Different paintings can be purchased such as watercolour of Ketchikan sceneries or Creek Street and Native Indigenous arts.

Forget me not is unique there since it is Alaska state flower.

It was always amazing to look at the creek for salmon. All of the sudden I saw a much bigger creature “There is a huge salmon!”, then my partner said “This is not a salmon.” It only appeared for a second then disappeared so I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of this creature.

Later on I found this sign and learned that various wildlife existed in this area. I suspected the creature I saw was a river otter 🦦

When I walked along and kept going up, the area became familiar. I was there in early June watching the running stream without any salmon or fish (Inspirational Thoughts: Alaska Cruises in the Summer - Part 5 (chan38.blogspot.com)).

In early August, it was completely different, thousands of salmon were gathered in the stream.

六月初, 條溪一條魚都無。八月初, 成千上萬三文魚回到溪流, 場面壯觀。

Salmons were lining up for their turn to swim through this challenging rapid.

Tons of tourists were looking at tons of salmon facing the rapid stream.

橋上遊客享受觀看三文魚奇景, 橋下三文魚為了勇闖急流向上游而努力掙扎。

As a tourist said, the salmon were trying to go upstream, the most challenging part.

How could the salmon swim against the river flow? 逆流而上

Some were jumping up, some were pushing back by the water flow.

Then I saw the trolley crossing bridge above the creek.

Let’s see the other side of the creek (upstream) where salmons just overcame the rapid which is 10 out of 10 level difficulty.

這些都是闖急流成功嘅三文魚, 真係唔容易。又要避過天敵如海中鯊魚海豹、陸上熊人、天上飛鷹。還有人類捕捉, 很敬佩牠們過五關斬六將來到出生地! Salute!

Salmons hatch from eggs in this rainforest watershed, swim into the ocean as smolts, and spend up to 5 years growing to maturity at sea. Swarms of them leave the creek, but relatively few survive predators, including us, and return as adults to the gravel bed where they emerged into life.

During ocean voyages that can be ten thousand miles long, the salmons do not aimlessly wander. Though much remains unknown about salmon navigation it is clear that they feed and eventually swim homeward. The salmons fine-tune their senses using smell and sensitivity to currents to guide them to the stream of their birth. What a wonder of nature!

Last time I visited Saxman Native Village in Ketchikan where many totem poles can be seen. This time I discovered a park with Chief Kyan Totem Pole.

The chocolate shop has a very good name – Forget-Me-Not. It really represents Alaska, I wonder if they have some unique chocolates from Ketchikan or Alaska.

Farewell Ketchikan! About time to leave. I could see a seaplane from my stateroom.

It was always dinner time shortly after we left a port. I had Tomato & Basil Bruschetta as starter, Pan-Fried Chicken Scaloppine as main course and Create my own Sundae as dessert. It was chocolate ice cream with strawberry in pineapple whipped cream. All of them were tasty.

I still had tiny bit of room for second dinner 😅 and I had never tried the dinner buffet in Horizon Court. Let’s try it out! I forgot to take photos of its food selections. I grabbed a figs brie crostino with chickpeas, pumpkins and vegetables. A very healthy option.

The advantage of having dinner in Horizon Court was to enjoy the sunset view with a window seat.