Ketchikan, Alaska, 2025
This is another postcard from our Alaska cruise in July. It features a partial view of Creek Street. This card and a few others were purchased onboard the cruise ship.
Creek Street has two sides, both on pilings
Dolly's House, once a brothel now a tourist attraction
On the previous trip to Alaska Bob and I had walked down to the totem heritage center and then back along to Creek Street via the Married Man’s trail. This time we walked down to the Rock sculpture and on the main streets to connect with Creek Street.
The Rock sculpture group
Plaque on the sculpture
The Rock is a collaborative sculpture that features aspects of the culture of this part of Alaska. Everyone from native peoples, to lumberjacks, fishermen, and miners, are represented. Several artists worked together to create the entire grouping.
Ketchikan Creek at the end of Creek Street
Ketchikan is named after Ketchikan Creek. It is the earliest incorporated city in Alaska (1900) and is located in the southeasternmost part of Alaska. Creek Street is built over the river on stilts or pilings as a way to get around laws concerning brothels and saloons. Since the buildings are not technically on the land, they were exempt from the laws. Today there are many shops along the boardwalk “street” and many artisans have works for sale.
Ketchkikan is full of steep hillsides up the surrounding mountains. I won’t complain about our stairs after seeing how many the people who live in this house have to go up.
Ketchikan is known as the “Rain Capital of Alaska. A giant rain gauge is found in the downtown area near the visitor center.
Also near the Visitor Center is this helpful map with points of interest
On our walk to Creek Street we came upon this very tall totem pole
Once on Creek Street we encountered a large group of people looking up into the trees. One look up and we saw why. This bald eagle was sitting up there looking down on all the tourists.
Saxman Village Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska. 2024
[Photo by Mark Kelley*]
This second postcard features the Saxman Village Totem Park. It is part of the Images of Alaska series by Mark Kelley. The card was printed in Canada and has PC2312 at the upper left corner on the reverse as part of the blurb. The blurb reads: “Saxman Village Totem Park. Ketchikan is the totem pole capital of the world. Saxman Village Totem Park, south of downtown, features the most standing totem poles, 25 poles, in one location in the world.” This is one place that we would like to visit someday. It is just far enough away from where the ship docks that we could not walk to it. There is an option to sign up for an excursion trip, for a large fee, that includes a bus ride to the site, a meal, and a program. It would take all of the shore time and not allow us to meander around and look at other things in the city, so we opted not to do that.
A last view of Ketchikan from our room aboard the ship
For additional information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchikan,_Alaska
* To see more photographs by Mark Kelley: https://www.markkelley.com/