July 24, 2011

Sunday, and not a sun day in Alaska.  We have the liquid sunshine again today.  However, I might add that we don’t mind this at all!  We spent a good part of the day sipping our coffee, reading the paper, playing cards, and catching up on what things can be accomplished on a computer without Internet. 

It is a different way of life here.  Total sections of the newspaper are devoted to hunting and fishing, which is pretty much expected. But the greased log walk and ear pull competitions are pretty outstanding events here as well!  I am beginning to feel the cultural differences more acutely. 

After a movie and our lunch we went on a leisurely two mile walk to the south and up the hill.  It was sprinkling when we left on our walk but midway through we were able to take off our ponchos and it was actually pretty warm.  Our walk took us past the Totem Heritage Center.  We did not go in since we were there in the past when cruising. It is certainly worth the stop as they have unrestored totem poles from both the Tlingit and Haida villages. Across the river was the first of fish ladders we would see today, locate at the Deer Mountain Tribal Hatchery and Eagle Center.  We had some wonderful views of the fish ladder and a barrier on the river.  There were cute little gray birds fighting over tiny baby fish they caught.  There is a lovely city park between the two places along the river, a great place for a picnic in nice weather. After my mediocre attempts to take photos of the fish we continued on our walk taking us back down the hill, along beautiful Ketchikan Creek and views of a large fish ladder on a very rough part of the creek.  We walked past a couple of various sites including a feat of engineering where houses are built on the Grant Street trestle structure.  This is how they conquer the challenges of the terrain here in Ketchikan.  We ended up just north of the library.  Most of the ships are gone for the day and we rambled along Creek Street and saw a couple of seals “fishing.” One caught a live fish and headed back toward the bay nonstop.  The other pictured here found a fish head and nibbled away at it as we watched.  We went back down Stedman Street to our apt. buying a cinnamon roll at the Ketchikan Coffee House on our way back home.  That will be a special dessert for us tonight.   

I used the “My Tracks” program on my phone and it indicated several statistics about our walk but I was unable to post it to my Facebook like some of my friends do.  Anyway, it is a fun feature on my phone. 

After a simple dinner of cubed steak, a shared baked potato, and salad we enjoyed that cinnamon roll.  We watched another movie and watched the clouds and fog roll in.  We are really enjoying the cool weather.