Ketchikan: Where Cruise Ships and Fishing Fleets Collide

Late May in Ketchikan is soggy and green yet umbrellas are sorely out of place. Locals get about their business in practical rubber boots and thick fleece jackets while somehow immune to the persistent rainfall. The town has exploded in growth to support the booming cruise ship industry and a sea of tourists ebbs and flows like the tide with each docking ship. Meanwhile, impressive fleets of fishing vessels hold firm to their home port here.

This trip, we moored in the basin behind Cruise Ship Berth #3 and enjoyed easy access to restaurants and shops. Among my favorites on Front Street are the Sweet Mermaids coffee shop (rhubarb custard bars – yum!) and the Sourdough Bar for their collection of “character building” boating moments hung like ill-fated trophies on the walls…Ye Be Warned! The local Safeway grocer is a 20-minute walk down the main drag from our berth and taxis would have been an easily found alternative, if I wasn’t otherwise eager to stretch my legs.

On the surface, there appears to be a drastic dichotomy here: the very recent commercial bubble created by the cruise ship economy and the more authentic-feeling maritime town based in frontier history – the latter being much more worn and rusty than the newly popped up rows of jewerly shops, fur stores, and Alaskan knick-knacks built to absorb the attention of the tourist tides. To make a Seattle analogy, the walk away from the tourism center quickly came to feel like the weathered maritime-trade sections of Ballard, charming and genuine, while the tourist center offered more freshly packaged history, such as the famous Creek Street area.

With all of its diverse layers, Ketchikan is our preferred jumping off spot for cruising more remote portions of SE Alaska. The provisioning resources as a result of the bustling cruise ship and fishing industries are plentiful and welcomed as we wait for weather windows to move on.

This year, we’re excited to circle back to Ketchikan in a couple weeks to cheer on the fearless and stalwart participants of the 2018 Race to Alaska. referred to locally as the R2AK. These racing teams press 750 miles north of their June 14th starting gun in Port Townsend, WA, and represent all manner of motorless craft – from screamin’-fast multihulls under sail to inconceivably athletic stand-up paddle boarders and just about everything else human- or wind-powered in between. The first place finishers score a full 10 Boat Units (that’s right…$10K!) Second place takes home a set of steak knives. Yet, unlike other professional sail racing institutions, the initial finishers eagerly linger to cheer on the back half of pack and see which intrepid souls cross the mark on brute determination and raw, self-reliant grit for the truest of bragging rights. Anyone can “watch” the full course online and tap into the engaging and brilliantly written daily race report from the R2AK race committee, which I find to be an addictive source of comedy and inspiration.

In the small-world tapestry of life, recent R2AK victors were coincidentally from a sailing community near and dear to my own personal life history, the historic town of Marblehead, MA, just north of Boston. Despite my strong ties there, I am eager to see a PNW team reclaim the top finish this year…apologies to the trimaran rock star Burd bros and all my dear Marblehead peeps.