2009 Alaska Vacation - Ketchikan the DUCK tour

Next we got to walk around and shop for about a 1/2 hour until we went on the DUCK!!! The duck is an amphibious vehicle that is 6 feet off the ground and can drive on land as well as cruise on the water... that was cool!! On our duck tour, we learned about Ketchikan. Our tour guides were natives to Ketchikan and were great tour guides. We saw quite a bit of Ketchikan and learned about their history. Here are a few tidbits...
*They have a fish ladder in a river that they needed to build to help the fish spawn.
*there was a tunnel that we went through that literally you were able to drive over it, drive through it, and you could canoe under it!
*There was a Burger King that went out of business in 6 months... it wasn't that they didn't want the restaurant, but the drive through window was on the water... literally!! With the 90 mile an hour winds and the rain... the restaurant didn't last long.
*It was a ordnance back in the day that for every bar they had open, they had to have a church. As our guide said... there were a lot of churches.
*Even though there were many churches, they still had Creek Street (the red light district) and there is now a museum of "Dolly's" house.
*Near the fish latter, there was a trail labeled with a city sign that said "Married Man's Trail". This was the trail that led to the back door of the red light district.
*They also had houses high up on cliffs and the city streets to get to these houses were wooden stairways. Literally, the city roads were wooden stairways!! The city maintains these "roads" and shovels them in the snow, just amazing!!!
*Then the Eagles... the Eagles in Ketchikan were completely AMAZING!!!!!

Again... lots of pictures here, sorry! I hope you enjoy!!

Welcome to Ketchikan!!!

There is a story here. A dear friend of mine Nancy, actually was raised here in Ketchikan. She told me the story of KetchiCandies... something she will always remember from growing up. We had to stop in and get a box. mmm they were good! Thanks Nancy... love ya!

Jerome standing in front of the Creek Street sign... this is the red light district.

This is another view of Creek Street... they were right on the river.

So this is a picture of their river and the fish ladder on the left.

And right next to that river was this sign. It was the trail along the river to the backside of Creek Street. It was said that the married men didn't want to be caught at Creek Street, so they would go through the muddy trail along the river so they wouldn't be seen.

Now this staircase is the public street I was talking about... They maintain these stairs, shovel them in the snow... now most of these public streets are there because there is no other access to these homes... so imagine... you have 5 young children and a car full of groceries... You have to hoof it up these stairs as many trips as it takes. My friend Nancy lived up at the top of one of these streets and yes... her mom had 5 kids and that was the only access. WOW... amazing!!! All the garbage has to come back down... presents... how difficult would it be to bring presents up there and keep them from the kids... amazing... simply amazing!!

Here's a blurry picture (we were on the duck) but a picture of the city street sign for the stairs. This just blows me away!!

OK, this is a wooden carving of an Eagle and they laugh because they say the Eagle's bum is pointed toward Juno, so they like to say they are mooning Juno.

This is a picture of the vehicle that we were on, this is the duck on the water!

Here's a great picture of Lloyd and Candy on the Boat!

Here's a picture of Julie and Dan on the right and then on the left... a VERY proud Jerome... If you notice, he's holding up his metal from the zip lines!! And look at that smile, isn't it wonderful!

OK, next are pictures of the Eagles, they were AMAZING!!! I couldn't believe how many we saw... the coolest thing is we saw so many while we were on the duck and on the water looking back at the shore. I highly recommend the Duck Tour if you go to Ketchikan.

So here's an Eagle sitting on the rocks.

I really love some of these pictures of the Eagles, these two Eagles were sitting at the top of a boat mast, I was able to zoom in and boy I think these animals are Beautiful!

Here's another picture that's cool... if you can look closely, there are 3 Eagles in this picture... Look for the white heads... ah, I just love it!!!

I saved the BEST for last... I actually cried when I saw that I got this picture, I know a little lame, but it was so emotional to get this Eagle in flight. Viewing all these Eagles was very moving. I LOVE this picture... If you are able to zoom in at all, you can see his talons, man, these birds are big and strong! Amazing & Beautiful!