Day Five
Day Five
When we woke this morning the ship was already berthed in Ketchikan; we were scheduled to visit the Rainforest and Wildlife Sanctuary. The average yearly rainfall here is 160 inches – that’s over 13 feet!! So everyone was happy to see that the sun was shining and the sky was blue. It was a short bus ride to the sanctuary and our driver, a year round resident married to a native woman entertained us with stories about the area and life in general in this locale where children can catch salmon by the tail.
In the sanctuary, we split into two groups and after listening to his instructions on what to do if we saw a bear – followed the young man who would be our guide. While we never did see a bear, we did see it’s fresh poop and later learned that the first group had actually seen it! Our guide was so knowledgeable and interesting, describing all of the plants we were seeing, how they grow and their uses. You could tell he loved what he was doing. We saw eagles, ravens and some kind of wren along the approximately one mile trail.
This photo was taken with my Meade Capture View, a combination camera/binocular which should be very helpful on this trip! Thank you, Karen!!
Back at the starting place there was an old saw mill and we saw how they used to harvest the logs into boards. We met a man who carves totem poles and watched him work for a bit; he was happy to answer questions. Then we visited with the lady who rehabilitates injured birds and were able to see up close an
eagle and an owl. There were also some reindeer there with thier antlers in velvet. Of course there was also a gift shop where the usual touristy junk and native art was available as well as free cookies and drinks.
Outside along the porch were two Himalayan Blue Poppy plants!!!!! They were in bud and one was ready to burst open so I could see the brilliant blue of the petals. If only it were a day later it might have been open! I was pretty happy anyway!
On the way back to the ship, our driver deviated from his route to show us the Saxman Native Village and Totem Park which was a tour in itself. We were not able to get off the bus, but did at least see the totems. There are more totem poles in Ketchikan than any other city in the world.
Back on the ship for lunch at the buffet, we were able to just relax and look at the scenery. After lunch I went to an ice carving demonstration where two men very quickly transformed two blocks of ice into sculptures, one a leaping dolphin and the other an angelfish. It only took about 15 minutes! They worked on the edge of a swimming pool so all of the mess went into the water with a little help from the kids in the pool. The sculptures then were moved to the area that was being set up for the On Deck Fish Barbeque.
We went to a lecture “Gold! Gold! Gold! in the Klondike” about the gold rush through Skagway and the dastardly deeds of the villainous Soapy Smith, then stayed for the late afternoon movie, “National Treasure Book Of Secrets” which meant we could not make our assigned dinner seating so we went to the buffet again. The buffet serves the same menu, but of course in the dining room it is served to you all nicely presented in a gourmet fashion on the plate in courses. In the buffet you are able to sample more things though – so it’s a trade off. Eating at the buffet freed us up sooner so we were able to get to the theater in time to actually get good seats for the evenings presentation of Comedy Showtime. The comedian was Cary Long who was hilarious and has been on the Jay Leno Show.
After a stroll on deck, weird that is is still light this late, we stopped to check photographs and email before retiring for the night. They are constantly photographing you in hopes that you will purchase them. I don’t plan to!
