Ketchikan

After leaving Glacier Bay, the ship began sailing back south arriving in Ketchikan, Alaska, early Friday morning.

We had decided to go to the Great American Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan.  Since we had a couple of hours before the show began, we decided to walk around downtown Ketchikan.  Because I didn't want to have to carry the backpack around and it wasn't raining, I put the tickets in my back pocket and carried the camera around my neck.

We went to the visitor's center located right on the dock and picked up a map of the town.  We walked by this tunnel with a house built on top of it.

 

Then, we walked down a few more streets...

...to Whale Park where this totem pole was displayed.

We then walked toward Creek Street...

...where another taller totem pole was on display.  (Ketchikan is known for its totem poles.)

Behind Creek street flowed a creek...

...which was full a salmon.

We could see the salmon trying to jump up stream (but they were a little difficult to catch in the pictures).

We walked further up this trail...

...toward a fish ladder where we hoped to get a picture of the salmon swimming upstream.  Success!

It was just about this time that when I checked my back pocket for the tickets and discovered they were no longer there.  :(  I checked my other pockets but found nothing.  Chuck thought maybe I left them in the room on the ship but I was sure I had remembered putting them in my back pocket. 

We began tracing our steps back to the ship looking on the ground hoping to maybe find them somewhere.  When we were on the street beside Whale Park (where we saw the first totem pole), Chuck looked over and saw what looked like a folded envelope on the ground.  I quickly walked into the park and there was the folded envelope with our tickets still inside.  We couldn't believe it! 

I gave the tickets to Chuck where he put them in his shorts pocket with a button on them!  We walked around the town a little more...

until time for the lumberjack show to start.

The two teams of lumberjacks (Spruce Mill and Dawson Creek) competed in log cutting,

ax throwing,

two-man log sawing,

more log cutting,

pole climbing,

and log rolling.

One of the Dawson Creek lumberjacks displayed his "carving with a chainsaw" skills...

...which (all in fun) weren't very good.  This is supposed to be a rabbit.

 

But then he turned the log around and made it a little chair which was too small for him...

...but not too small for this little girl from the audience.

Although this was an entertainment show, the lumberjacks competing in the show do compete in actual lumberjack competitions.  After the show, we quickly headed back to the ship that was leaving about 30 minutes after the show was over.

When we returned to our room after dinner later that evening, we had a towel monkey hanging from the ceiling in our cabin.  :)