Ketchikan: Lighthouse, Totems, & Eagles
At the time I booked my Lighthouse, Totems, & Eagles excursion, I already had Whales and Bears planned in Icy Strait Point and glaciers in Tracy Arm Fjord and Juneau. I know totems are a big deal in this area and I wanted to book something with a guarantee to see bald eagles so this excursion worked out good for me.
As you can see my meeting location was right next to the ship so it was easy to find.
Our bus is delayed. Our excursion isn’t for 10 more minutes but the ticket says it departs from the pier 15 minutes prior to the start time which was five minutes ago.
They said our bus was delayed then they put us on the bus that’s been sitting here the whole time.
We are packed in. There are no empty seats
It rains 288 days out of the year here. Deer mountain is the highest peak at 3001 feet
This is a state ferry. They’re trying to sell it for $1 million. There was an offer of $680 thousand cash to make it into a hotel, restaurant and museum. The state turned it down.
They said a different bus will be picking us up after the tour. Hopefully a bigger one. We were packed in there. I didn’t realize we had a 20 minute bus ride to and from a boat.
They have booth seating in the lower level.
Upstairs is where the captain is.
This is the exterior area of the upper level. They provided binoculars.
There are a few seats on the second floor inside where some stayed the entire tour.
I stayed outside and it wasn’t very crowded.
I’m pretty sure he said this was an NCL port. There isn’t a lot around here so unless you’re going on this tour, I wouldn’t want to dock here.
This is our first eagle.
There’s another.
They have hot chocolate, coffee, tea, water, and sodas all included.
There’s an eagle nest in these trees to the left of the white thing.
The boat captain worked with the daughter of the family that lives on this island. He said it was interesting. She learned to drive a boat before a car.
That was great. An eagle landed on the totem pole.
Here’s a raven messing with the eagle.
This is a totem pole museum you can go tour. We’re getting the boat version of the tour.
When the local bowling alley closed the owner of this house bought the balls for lawn art.
Whipple creek waterfall.
Pre-Covid these houses were high six figures. Now they’re 1.5 million and up. The boat captain is looking for his first house here and 800-1200 square foot is running $350 thousand and up.
Two eagles on this tree.
They provided a snack. It’s almost all local products. The tour is owned by a local family who are very appreciative of the business.
Guard island lighthouse.
There’s an eagle to the right of the lighthouse.
We were able to get pretty close to this eagle.
There’s an eagle nest in the middle of that tree.
This is the boat that ferries people and cars between Ketchikan and Prince of Wales
Their other boat is going out as we return.
I thought the best thing on that snack plate was the spread. Here is the recipe.
Oh good a big bus came to pick us up. I think this is what we were supposed to be on to begin with.
Plenty of space to stretch the old wings out.
Our tour size is 23 people.
Float planes
And we got dropped off back by the ships.
I don’t know what tour that was but they got delivered right back to the door of the ship.
I enjoyed the tour. My main issue is we didn’t have a lot of time in this port. I wanted to eat here. I did go to the fish house when I got back as you’ll see in my next article. But I really had to rush it to get back to the ship in time. If I came back I would probably do something closer to the ship.
