Ketchikan - Our First (ever) Cruise Port Stop

Ketchikan, Alaska
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

WE excitedly anticipated our very first cruise port stop. Brand new to cruising, we really weren't sure what to expect. I can say that while it was a pretty cool experience, it wasn't completely what we imagined. In 2010, I would say Alaska - more that many other cruise destinations - still maintained some of its essential character in most of the port areas. We were to learn from our subsequent couple cruises that most of the highly visited ports in the Caribbean were a complete carnival of tourist shops and chain restaurants clustered right in the cruise terminal area. Cheap Souvenirs and jewelry (very rarely locally made) is omnipresent around the world.

Brand new to cruising, we really weren't sure what to expect

WHILE THERE was certainly some of the same stuff - particularly in the more populous ports like Ketchikan and Juneau, the stores at least seemed (at that time - we haven't been back since then) to be integrated into the main streets that lined the ports, rather than the "shopping mall" arrangements that you exit the cruise terminals through in most of the Caribbean ports. But the tourist attractions were most certainly prevalent. Somebody figured out a way to separate cruise ship passengers from their money long ago and the business is still thriving today. We have actually found this to be the unfortunate circumstance all over the world. Some of the same corporate businesses (like EFFY, Kay Jewelers, etc.) are in many ports in many parts of the world. And much (if not most) of the "authentic" merchanise has been manufactured somewhere in Asia. Perhaps a cynical note on cruising (cruising has its share of negatives, as we will see going forward).

Ketchikan, Alaska
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

FORTUNATELY, THERE are many other things that are more authentic and do allow us to (however briefly) immerse ourselves in a foreign culture and learn a bit about how the local population lives. We would learn some tricks of the trade in our later cruises that allow us to get away from the "tourist" circumstances - at least a little bit.

Somebody figured out a way to separate cruise ship passengers from their money long ago and the business is still thriving. We have actually found this to be the unfortunate circumstance all over the world

FOR OUR Ketchikan stop, we had booked an off-the-ship excursion, another first for us. My wife had done her own homework and found a "fishing" excursion. Not like you might think, though. We were not going to do any fishing. For the past 5 years, The Discovery Channel had very successfully produced a made-for-television reality series called "The Deadliest Catch," about fishing (primarily for the immensely popular King Crab) in the turbulent and freezing Bering Sea. For our excursion, the provider had rebuilt a once capsized fishing boat identical to the ones used in the series, re-purposing it into a kind of floating theater. It had been renamed "The Aleutian Ballad."

The Aleutian Ballad - "Deadliest Catch" Fishing Boat
Ketchikan, Alaska 
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

WE DID not, of course, go out into the Bering Sea (Ketchikan is well over 1,000 miles as the proverbial crow flies, and by boat, up through the rest of the inside passage and then down around the Katmai Peninsula - perhaps doubling that distance). We sailed out onto the inside passage and they demonstrated some of the fishing techniques involving trailing lines nets and traps; along with the equipment used in the industry.

The Aleutian Ballad - "Deadliest Catch" Fishing Boat
Ketchikan, Alaska 
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

ENTERTAINING. FUN. Interesting. But still kind of hokey tourism. Fortunately, that presentation was not by any stretch of the imagination the actual highlight of this excursion for me. That came as a huge surprise. That morning, as we walked off our cruise ship and toward The Aleutian Ballad, one of the presenters saw me carrying my gear. I had my Nikon DSLR and a decent sized zoom lens attached. He remarked on it and said "we are going to get you some fantastic pictures today!" I took the comment with a grain of salt. I was a "serious" photographer, after all (not to mention maybe a little arrogant? 😐) Different people have different ideas of what is a fantastic image. I didn't have overly high expectations. As we cruised out, I saw some eagles perched in the distance. Way too much distance for any decent shots.

American "Bald" Eagle
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

THEY DID their show and I make a good handful of images. As we headed back, we slid in between two islands; one of them completely uninhabited by humans. I saw lots of dead trees and a couple of perched eagles. Thinking I might have a chance at a shot here, we stopped moving and I heard a couple of odd "plops" in the water. All of a sudden, the air was filled with eagles in flight (perhaps hundreds in all), diving for bait which had been tossed on the water. The source of the "plop" sound. For what was probably only about 10 minutes but seemed like a lot longer, I had some amazing apportunities to shoot eagles: in flight, in the wild, and displaying feeding behavior. The guy had been right (he knew, but kept it a surprise of course) - and I was caught nearly entirely unprepared. I am not sure how many shots I made (likely over 100). Even not being totally ready, I had about 8 -10 that I would deem "keepers." You can see all of them (as well as my other raptor images) on my LightCentricPhotography website galleries. This was the first, and perhaps only chance I will ever have to shoot non-captive eagles at this close a vantage point. It was a rush!

American "Bald" Eagle
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

YOUR FIRST thought might be that "baiting" eagles is illegal. It is. In the U.S. The island we were "parked" in front of was leased out by the State of Alaska to one of the native tribes, along with the surrounding waters, which they had exclusive fishing rights and jurisdiction over. Their tribal laws governed. Our tour purveyor had an exclusive contract with the tribe to do their stop and photo-op there. Whatever your thoughts, it was a thrilling sight for me (as a kid, I saw the movie: "Tora, Tora, Tora," and all I could think of was that movie as I saw the swarming eagles, competing for the bait, having mid-air near collisions, and basic pandemonium. Several times I hear the clicks as they actually banged talons in mid-air. This was, for me, worth price of admission for any other part of the excursion. It was most certainly one of the primary highlights of a very memorable cruise.

American "Bald" Eagle
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

OF ALL the stops on this cruise, I had done some research on Ketchikan and had identified some photo ops. Once we arrived back in Ketchikan on the Aleutian Ballad, we had just a short time left before the all-aboard time on our cruise ship. I used that time to seek out my primary shore objective in Ketchikan: Creek Street. Unfortunately, the northeast (and in particular Alaska) is know for its abundant rainfall and its corresponding overcast skies. We were unusually blessed by the weather gods for most of our trip (enough so to prompt a photographer acquaintance of mine from Alaska to lament that we had "used up" 70% of their annual alloted sunshine 😀). But for the day in Ketchikan, the sun was not to be found. I was really looking forward to photographing Creek Street and hoped for some nice blue skies for background. Experienced photographers know, when you have dull or boring skies, to compose images to exclude those skies as much as possible. Happily, the dark and relatively still waters of Ketchikan Creek provided decent reflections, even without a bright blue skies.

Creek Street - Ketchikan, Alaska
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

CREEK STREET has a sketchy history. There were other things of interest in Ketchikan, but as I viewed things from my photographer's perspective, Creek Street was the main draw for me in Ketchikan, so I was happy to have time to shoot it before our shore time ended. The buildings of Creek Street were built out over the waters of Ketchikan Creek. As you can see from the opening images as we sailed into our Ketchikan berth, there is little land between the waters of the inside passage and the steep mountain faces to the east. What land there is, is mostly rock, and difficult to excavate for building, so they simply built out over the water (I have read that much of Ketchikan was built in this manner).

Creek Street - Ketchikan, Alaska
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

THE HISTORY. Back in the late 1800's much of this part of the country was undeveloped. What was there was mainly hunting, fishing and trapping. Just before the turn of the century, the Alaskan Gold Rush happened (I will cover that in more detail in an upcoming blog about Skagway). Beginning in about 1903, Creek Street was the center for the city's numerous brothels (at one time as many as 40 of them lining the creek), "serving" the growing population of loggers, gold miners, fishermen, until the mid-1950's when the city shut them down. Today, the old buildings have all survived and been maintained as small shops and eating establishments. The scene is picturesque in spite of its "colorful" history. I didn't get those pretty blue skies with marshmallow clouds. But I could certainly imagine it, and with the help of Photoshop, I made my own beautiful skies for the picture below. 😎

Creek Street - Ketchikan, Alaska
Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved

WE HAD started our Alaska port stops with a bang. We would continue to have some amazing experiences. Our next stop would be Alaska's capital city: Juneau.