Ketchikan, Alaska – Into the Wilds

Rosie and The Operator were sitting on a plane in Seattle en route to Ketchikan Alaska a little worse for wear after a big night out in Vancouver and feeling more than a little sorry for themselves.  Over the intercom the pilot welcomes us all on board in a loud, drawn out Southern Style accent.

‘Welcome y’all on this flight to Ketchikan Alaska! Whoooo’s gooooing fiiiiishing!’  The mainly male passengers onboard all respond with a rousing cheer.  ‘Y’all are too late! I caught them all last week,’ he guffaws loudly as everyone cheers, claps and whoops.

Well, here we are Welcome to Ketchikan, the Salmon Capital of Alaska…..and the fish are running!  This tiny town of 8,600 is the first port in Alaska and is the start of the famed and beautiful cruising highway through the Alaskan Inside Passage. It’s a town full of quirky surprises, and is VERY colourful in every sense of the word…historically, pictorially and legendary.  Plus, it was the perfect size for a two full day stopover.

Flying in, all Rosie can see is sea and long fingers of mountainous forest covered land.  The green is even and unbroken for as far as the eye can see with nothing at all to interrupt the flow of forest.  We are at the beginning of the end of the world now Rosie!   Wait, there is the runway, a strip cut straight from the forest on the foreshore across the bay from the town of Ketchikan.  We land, and walk through the small single room, wood lined terminal  filled with stuffed moose,  bear and giant deer heads mounted on the walls.  Pallets are loaded high with white chiller boxes full of salmon all ready to be freighted to distant parts of the world.  We all head towards the ferry for the 5 minute ride which will take us across the Tongass Narrows to the town of Ketchikan.

Where are all the taxis Rosie asks The Operator?  The rod carrying fisherman are melting away from the terminal and hopping into large dark windowed SUVs with exotic lodge names emblazoned on the sides.   One taxi pulls up and Rosie leaps to it…dang, it has already been booked….Rosie asks how we get a taxi in this town?  You phone for one…here is a card said the driver.  Sitting, waiting in the sunshine, the only people left in the carpark that is the ferry terminal Rosie and the Operator wait for a taxi and watch the float planes land and take off from the water in front of us.

The main road winds around the waterfront but the taxi deviates up the wooded hillside. We are staying in Knobs Hill, the highest part of town that was built on, and where, well you guessed it…all the rich knobs built their mansions in the early days of the town.

Ketchikan was established in 1880 with it’s economy of the day being based on fishing, canneries and logging.  The town was split in two by this huge outcrop of rock, Knobs Hill.  On one side was the original working mans settlement of Newtown that housed the mills, canneries and basic fishing port.  Not long after this settlement was established, on the other side of the hill, the red light district of Creek Street was open and business was booming. In order for the men to access Creek Street a well worn track called the Married Mans Trail linked the two areas by discretely going up and over Knobs Hill through the forest.

Otherwise, back in the day you skirted around the outcrop on a rickety narrow plank street.  Hopkins Alley boardwalk was laid in 1902 and is part of the pioneering cannery neighborhood cut off from the Creek Side.

To access the houses on top of  Knob Hill from cannery row a set of 117 stairs was built which are still used today….of course Rosie and The Operator were staying on the hill….Rosie loves climbing stairs!

And what a hell of a stair climb it was…the views though from the apartment were so worth it!

It wasn’t until the 1950s that a tunnel was bored through the rock hill to link both sides.  The tunnel today has a claim to fame from Ripleys as being the only tunnel in the world where you can drive through, around and over it.

Creek Street red light district in Ketchikan is the most famous…and most photographed street in Alaska. This colourful area built on pilings over the Salmon Creek was established in 1902, in its heydey it had more than 30 bawdy houses, each with one or two working girls living and plying their trade from the colourful, small wooden, peak roofed shacks.  Some of the houses also became speakeasies during the days of prohibition with bootleggers rowing in booze deliveries late at night.

Its a lovely stroll from one end to the other along the uneven and wonky boardwalk.  It starts with a beautiful view up Salmon Creek and its….iconic, giant salmon that proudly represents the town.  Things were a little wiffy around the waterway, dead salmon were floating in the creek and lying bloated and partly decomposed on the banks.

This is all part of the life cycle of the salmon at this time of the year when alot dont make it to their spawning grounds and die on the way.  There was alot of tutting and gasps of disgust from the cruise ship tourists who didn’t seen to understand this and were abit grossed out.  The houses are small and compact and all have an out look over the creek as there is only a single row of them poised above the creek on their stilt legs.

Most of these wee houses today are souvenir shops, artists galleries and tea rooms, the stories though of their prior infamy kept alive on large information boards on the sides of every house which is so interesting.

Creek Streets most famous madam in the red light district was Dolly Arthur and this bright green house is hers and the quote on the outside is also one of her most famous sayings.  This colourful lady lived and worked here, in the same house,, from the day she bought it in 1919 for $800, right up until her death in 1975.  Her house is a living museum and it is exactly as she left it still to this day….quite amazing….just like the legend which is Dolly.

Dolly Arthur was born in Idaho in 1888 .  As a teenager she realized she liked men and they liked her company.  She also realized she could make more money entertaining them than what she could working her current job as a waitress.  So, in 1919 Dolly moved to Ketchikan and became a red light madam working all on her own out of her own house.  She had men wait their turn in the downstairs parlor and she would call them up when she was ready for them.  Dollys prices were, well, very inflated but she had no problems with takers and business was steady!  For example, a man used to earn $1 per day either logging or fishing back in the day.  Dolly charged .50cents for a small shot of whiskey.  $2 for a whole glass of whisky and $3 for a turn with her, she was also a specialist at up selling her $5 combos with her sweet talking.

Check out the wallpaper in the house, isn’t it just beautiful.

In the hallway were cupboards where her bootleg liquor was stored so she could offer her gentlemen callers a shot of the fire water.  Another cupboard in the hallway was the custom made men’s washroom complete with a urinal that flowed straight to the creek.

Dolly’s boudoir was upstairs…with a secret panel in her wardrobe where she hid more bootleg liquor which was banned due to prohibition.  This room was the biggest in the house and had the most windows.  These are Dollys actual clothes still hanging in the wardrobe and part of her hat collection is laid out in the room to see.  The floorboards squeak as you walk around and the view out of the bedroom window over her sewing table up the creek is lovely.

Dolly also bought all of the latest toys of the day too.  Good grief, that vibrator looks like a cake mixer or some form of renovation tool.

Upstairs next to the bedroom was Dolly’s bathroom. The flower rosettes on the shower curtains were silk condoms…all the rage of the day….she bought them especially from France, realised how useless they were and made them into rosettes instead.

Her kitchen is just retro heaven and it is so amazing to have this wee time capsule today.  The small dining room is just amazing as well.

Dolly did have a boyfriend and shared her home with Lefty, her on again off again lover during the time she lived there. Business always came first though and Lefty always had to wait his turn.  Dolly was also known for her fiery temper and language that would put a sailor to shame if you got on the wrong side of her.

Prostitution was banned in the mid fifties, but it was known that Dolly still had gentlemen callers pretty much right up until the time of her death.  Gotta love Dolly and Rosie loved her place and this snapshot of her life.

Ketchikan, just like its salmon, is also famous for its rain.  It is said to rain more than 230 days a year here with the rainfall record having been broken earlier this year with over 139mm falling in one day!  It was as dry as a bone though on the days we were there and the sun was shining, Rosie had bought a new rain coat especially but was glad we didn’t have to bust it out.

This statue on the main promenade in town depicts the industries this town was built on back in the 1880s.

Its September and the creeks and rivers around the town are full of mature Salmon heading inland from the sea to their spawning grounds upriver to lay and fertilise their eggs.  Rosie and The Operator went for a walk around the back streets of the town that borders on the creeks and were amazed at what we saw.

As soon as these saltwater fish hit the freshwater of the rivers they stop feeding, the energy they need to fight up the currents of the rivers comes from their own body stores they have built up.

Look over the side of any bridge in town, and the water is thick with fish, especially in quieter water where they rest for awhile before moving on.  It was truly incredible, we have never seen anything like it.

When the females release their eggs and the males have fertilised them….the fish die. The fish then decompose, releasing nutrients into the river soil. There were a lot of corpses everywhere not only releasing nourishing nutrients….but a stinking fishy stench as well, just like on Creek Street.

This local mural shows male salmon. When they hit the fresh river water they start to grow a protruding hooked nose used for fighting off other males in the bid for fertilisation dominance.

The guys that are flying into town and fishing for salmon are all heading out to the river mouths to catch the well fed prime fish before they hit the freshwater of the river.  This is when the fish are at their best.  This too is where the bears like to fish for salmon to bulk up for the winter.  It is said that each bear will eat about 30 salmon a day when they are running to bulk up for their winter hibernation.

What to do with your catch on a fishing holiday? Never fear. They will pack it for you here and ship your fresh fish anywhere in the world. The numbers of packaged polystyrene coolers we saw at the airport on pallets was testament to this and the scale of logistic transportation services here incredible.

The town itself is modest with most houses being built on the hillside leading down to the water, alot have at least a peek of the harbor or creek….and all have some form of steps and stairs to get to them.  Ketchikan conquers the rocky steep terrain with ingenuity and lumber…having built trestles on the hillsides for the houses to be built on.

The houses furthest away from Knobs Hill are simple and back onto the hillside of forest, the cladding looks scanty and thin for a climate where it snows for a good 4 months of the year.  Green moss on the roofs and walls, broken guttering and overgrown yards add to the sense of dampness and despondency in certain parts of town.  Yet look abit harder and they all have an element of getting on with life and a little…quirkiness.

The towns fortunes are slowly recovering from the closure of the last logging mill in 1997 but local business out with the main tourist streets that border the cruise terminals all look like they have seen better days. The savior of the town is still fishing and now of course tourism.

During the summer season on average over 10,000 visitors from a maximum of 4 different cruise ships dock and flood the town….every day.  The volume of visitors eclipse the number of people that live here!  It is a two edged sword for the town, yes, visitors spend money in the town but the cruise ship lines have also bought up most of the downtown and lease the shops out to foreigners during the summer.

The few local business that are left advertise it proudly in their windows like a badge of honor.  Come winter, and the cruise ships stop coming until next summer, the downtown of Ketchikan turns into a ghost town with most of the shops shut.

Rosie must say though that the local Alaskan sporting goods and general stores are real eye openers for the goods they have in them, it was great wandering around looking at all the strange stuff they sell here for their great outdoors which are so different to ours.  Plus, the stuffed animals they have in them….actually the beautiful, majestic stuffed animals they have everywhere here…is quite disturbing, plus the sale of fur is still a big thing here!  Rosie would have thought public opinion would have shut those stores decades ago.  A fur bikini….really!

Surrounded by so much forest and in a State where so many livelihoods have relied on forestry and logging, past and present…of course we are going to go to the towns cheesy Lumberjack show!  And it was so much fun!

The stars of the show are all young champions of axe throwing, pole climbing, wood chopping and sawing…with genuine back country lumberjack experience…apparently.  The show is based on two actual local logging camps situated 90km apart from the other just out of Kethcikan. The Dawson Creek Camp is a Canadian logging company and their neighbors and rivals are an American Camp called Spruce Mill.

The two camps actually hold yearly competitions based on all of the disciplines in logging to vie for the title and bragging rights of champion camp.  This show is a recreation of the actual logging camp competitions.  There’s a lot of joking around and audience participation in the show….but deep down these guys are pretty competitive and don’t like loosing…even if it is just a show.  It was a great way to spend an hour, the skills demonstrated were high class, the lads even smiled and posed for ages afterwards so everyone there could get a picture of them or with them.

Rosie and The Operator had a great time in small, beautiful Ketchikan.   It is a great town to wander around and check out the history, experience nature at its finest, get a really good meal, (of which Rosie can say we certainly ate our fare share of salmon, halibut, cod & chowder)  shop if you are so inclined or, just relax…..

…..well, actually we didn’t relax all that much Ketchikan is a damn noisy wee town!  Rosie thought we would be basking in the silence overlooking the Tongass Narrows from out deck.  To be honest, a cruise ship pretty well parked in front of our windows every morning.  Rosie got a fright walking to the bathroom when she could look into the staterooms of the ship and pretty much wave to the tourists as they looked at her.

The buzzing of the float planes which landed and took off on the Narrows outside the window were great to watch but sounded continually like a nest of angry bees.

Thank goodness its night time said The Operator, the ship has gone, the sun is setting and the planes have stopped for the night…this is indeed beautiful said Rosie, just listen to the silence.  Then the band in the bar below us started and didn’t stop until 2am….every night.