After leaving Seattle we had a full day at sea. This gave us time to explore the ship as well as find our groove a little with the way this whole cruise thing works.

Celebrity (I am sure all of the other cruise lines do this as well) has experts on board who run these “destination highlights presentations” where they talk about the places we are going to giving us a mix of a history lesson as well as some tips about where to go that’s a little off the beaten track. I loved these and went to each of them with my phone to write notes and take pictures of the slides …

A wonderful destination historian (great title huh!) gave us the scoop on our first port – Ketchikan Alaska which means “Thundering Wings of an Eagle”. 8,000 people permanently live in this sleepy little place when the cruise ships aren’t in town and then during cruise season the number of people doubles on most days of the week. Ketchikan is also sometimes known as the first city of Alaska, and that is simply because it is the first Alaskan city that people visit because of its location.

During the gold rush period the number one industry in Ketchikan was prostitution with 80 cents in each dollar being spent with these willing young ladies. One of the quirky paths you can following is called “ Married mans trail” , this was used if a quick exit was necessary if a police raid was on the cards.

Ketchikan has rain 230 days of the year but fortunately for us it was a beautifully clear day for us to enjoy this gorgeous town.

Ketchikan is known for its magnificent scenery, it’s salmon (they are in every stream its amazing) and its history. As well as finding out quite a bit about the amazing madam Dolly Arthur we also had the great pleasure of going to the Totem Heritage Center. Here we saw amazing ancient Totem Poles and were able to read about the history that goes back thousands of years. It was heartbreaking to learn that Totem Poles had been destroyed when the practice of local religion was outlawed. It wasn’t until the 1930’s that the United States forest service began a program to restore and preserve where possible Totem Poles going back hundreds of years. here are a couple of photos with some of the preserved Totems.

Following this sobering but beautiful visit to the Totem Heritage Center we had the opportunity to do the most amazing thing – we jumped onto a floatplane that took us from Ketchikan to the remote Tonga’s National Forest. Here we were met by an Alaskan naturalist (Mark) who led us to a viewing platform that overlooked a salmon spawning stream. And guess what we saw ? A black mama bear catching salmon straight from the stream. It was almost too amazing to describe and I was a little teary both on the 7 seater plane ( it was so cool) and then when we looked down into the stream and saw a mama bear sitting on a rock catching her lunch.

We floated back to the ship on a high, it was so extraordinary – I almost had to pinch myself and then it was sundown….