In 2022 I wanted to book the combo tour that did whale watching and bear watching. It sold out before I could book it so I just did Whale Watching.

Last year when I was looking for a bear tour I was looking for the best tour. My research said that was Neets Bay Bear watching from Ketchikan. It was excellent. This year I decided to try to the other bear tours. The Ketchikan tours only see black bears. This tour is the only opportunity to see brown bears from a ship excursion.

I’m going in with low expectations because I’ve done my research and I’ve seen a lot of people do this and not see any bears.

I stopped by early to find the meeting location. I booked a 1pm but my ticket said to meet at 12:45. The screen said 12:30. I didn’t know if there was a 12:30 and a 1pm or what so I decided to make sure I’m here at 12:30 to be safe.

I returned at 12:25 and it turns out there’s a 12:30 tour about to leave and the time on the screen has changed to 1pm. I sat down on the bench until our start time.

And we are off.

It’s a short walk to the bus from the meeting location.

You can see the zip line from here.

This bus is fairly packed. We have one open seat.

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle outside of the shuttle. This group of five was booked on the 12:30 but missed it. Now they want to get on this one. We only have the one open seat in here.

The lady is really upset and thinks some of us should get bumped because they have the earlier time. Our guide told her they can book the 3pm or not go at all.

This is our guide. She is a member of the local tribe so she has a lot of information about the area.

These are called salmon berries because when they are ripe they know the salmon are in the streams.

We saw a black tail deer just outside of the port.

My totem pole carving friends from last year. It looks like they have a pole and a canoe this year.

We were dropped off here. They have portable bathrooms if you need it.

We are heading into the woods now.

Our guide’s guide is packing a 12 gauge shotgun.

We know a bear has been on this boardwalk.

We are heading to the first of three viewing platforms.

There’s an eagle.

I can see people on the next platform. That must be the 12:30 group.

We are heading to the second platform.

We can see the salmon running really good here.

We saw a bear but he’s really far away. We’re moving to platform three which hangs out closer to the river.

He’s really far away but we saw him splashing in the water, stand up on two feet, catch a fish, eat it, and leave the other direction. He never came down by us.

The bear is leaving the area.

And so are we.

This guy is double packing.

We have a bigger bus this time.

Salmon

We are back in Hoonah.

Now we can see the port area.

This is the bus we came back on.

Now that I’ve been on this tour I think it was good that I came in with low expectations. I feel like we were lucky to see a bear even though it was far away. I don’t think the 12:30 group got to see any bears unless there was one that left just before we got there.

I wouldn’t recommend this tour if you just want to see bears. Do one of the tours out of Ketchikan. Neets Bay Bear watching is the best. But if you’re looking for a cheaper excursion where maybe you see a bear or maybe you don’t, this would be an option for you. The salmon run is the best I’ve seen here. They were actually running on top of the water. I haven’t seen that in other places.