Favorite Cruise Ports: Ketchikan, Alaska

If this is your first time in Ketchikan don’t buy a ship excursion. There are plenty of things to see and do on your own within walking distance of the ship. Just off the ship there will be bus tours available if you want to get an overview of the town first. But you can easily walk to all of the most interesting attractions in the old part of town. Ketchikan is unique in that it is touristy, but not a tourist trap. There is a lot of competition in retail shopping and restaurants, so the prices aren’t bad at all. There’s lots of interesting history involving the local salmon fishing industry, the native cultures in the area, and the bawdy boom times during the gold rush. If you are here July through September you get to see the salmon run. And you don’t have to go anywhere. They run in the river right through the middle of town.

Our favorite things to do in Ketchikan include a visit to the Totem Heritage Center and the totem poles, a stop at Dolly’s House museum for a walk through what was once a wildly successful bordello during Ketchikan’s wild gold rush days, and a bite to eat at one of the local seafood restaurants. You can’t go wrong with any of the locally caught seafood including salmon, halibut, cod, and crabs.

We had a nice lunch at The Alaska Fish House. The AK Sampler had cod, salmon, and haddock. We also tried the Smoked Salmon Chowder. Everything was delicious. It was a very efficient operation. You order on the way in and the food is delivered to your table, so it’s a great meal that doesn’t take up a lot of your time… Next we headed to the river to see the salmon run.

They’ve built wood walkways along the rapids so it is very easy to watch the salmon as they struggle back to their spawning grounds. In the picture on the left you can see the original waterfall that the salmon had to negotiate as well as the concrete salmon ladder that was built to make it a little easier for them. By using the wooden walkways and some hiking paths you can go all the way up to the spawning grounds if you wish.

There were several types of salmon running but the majority were Keta (Chum) salmon and Pink (Humpies, so called for the humpback they develop when spawning. These are the most important commercially. Most Pink salmon end up in a can. -The local harbor seal population was also a big fan of the salmon run. They barely have to work for their food and are quite fun to watch from the wooden walkways along the river.

On every stop in our travels we seek out something that only the locals do. On our way back to the ship we got out of the tourist area and stopped at a local bar. It had one of these drink bells. We have seen these bells in quite a number of places in Alaska. If you ring it, it means you are buying a round for the bar. In the tourist places they have warning signs on them telling you that they take this seriously and you will be buying a round even if you are just jokingly ringing the bell. In this local place there was no warning sign. While we were there one of the local patrons walked in and rang it, and bought a round for everyone in the bar including us. Cheers!

We hope you enjoyed our story of a visit to Ketchikan and that the information helps with your visit.