Ketchikan, Alaska: Day 7

On the way from Canada to Alaska, we cruised through Seymour Narrows. Click the link for Google Earth to show you. Most of this channel is about 820 yards wide and the channel currents can get treacherous, described by early ship captains in 1800s as “one of the vilest stretches of water in the world.” One of the contributing factors to the treachery was removed in 1958 when Ripple Rock, a submerged twin-peaked mountain, was blown up. This event was newsworthy enough that it was broadcast on Canadian TV (YouTube link to event).

On the very southern tip of Alaska’s Inside Passage, Ketchikan is a must-see with the most totem poles
in the state. For the two of us, however, we went out of town rather than in.
Our ship anchored immediately next to a ship that is a relative in the Norwegian Cruise Line fleet, the
Norwegian Bliss. She is capable of holding 4004 passengers with 1700 crew compared to us, her very
small cousin, Regatta, with room for 680 passengers (“guests”) and 400 crew. It’s rather daunting to see
a ship that is 3x the size of my hometown!!

We docked about 20 minutes from Ketchikan in a village named Off the Road. Mostly, we are on an
island National Forest, “our nation’s largest national forest, nearly 17 million acres in size. It is home to
the Tlingit, Haida, and Tshimsian Peoples” according to Audubon Alaska. “The Tongass National Forest
provides us with the greatest opportunity in the nation, if not the world, for protecting temperate
rainforest at the ecosystem scale, in the face of climate change. It sequesters more carbon than any
other type of forest on Earth, providing a much-needed opportunity for climate solutions that can
simultaneously bolster regional economies. Our work to protect the Tongass focuses on the intersection
of place, people, and the need for policy that protects this incredible rainforest for the future.
A question for you: What is the difference between a temperate rainforest and a tropical rainforest?
Answer: about 30 degrees—temperature and perhaps latitude. 

One cannot be in this environment without thinking about human interference via over-logging, climate

change, and greed. Our hiking guide, Samantha, shared that the reason the USA was able to purchase
Alaska from Russia was that Russia figured they had eeked everything valuable out of the land already.

 Samantha - you will see a few more photos with her in them. 

We were at the tail end of the cruise ships to this area as winter sets in early up here. Upwards of 100
mph winds buffet the area as darkness encourages hibernation of bear and human. In June, however,
bald eagles take over the town of Ketchikan as the salmon begin to arrive to spawn. Then in June and
July, the bears chase away the eagles as they line the shores to munch the salmon who are still
swimming or those who have died after they’ve laid or fertilized the future.

In awe, we hiked for two hours and marveled at the various species of trees: yellow or red cedar (can
live up to 800 years), Sitka Spruce (good for medicinal tea to battle Ketchikan Crud), “Pixie Puke” lichen, skunk cabbage (smells like marijuana as it decomposes now in the autumn), muskeg (treacherous bogs where water makes the ground spongy enough that a human can sink to one’s shoulders), a “Hobbit Hole nursing tree” which are mossed-over uprooted trees whose shoulders carry new growth above a human-sized hide-out, rivers for salmon, moss as a warm blanket, and countless species of things that grow in the soil and things that feed on them. See the photo of Jerry in front of a massive root system that is probably a yellow cedar uprooted by wind.

"Hobbit Hole" 

Skunk Cabbage