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Ketchikan: Alaska’s First City
Ketchikan does not offer Alaska’s biggest glaciers or tallest mountains—and it doesn’t have to. There’s a certain charm to Ketchikan, due to its wealth of native culture, colorfully displayed in an amazing collection of totem poles, and its diverse attractions and activities.
The history of maritime exploration, fishing, logging and mining is woven into the local seascape, surrounded by a backdrop of lush rain forest. Ketchikan boasts a wealth of native culture, colorfully displayed in an amazing collection of totem poles. In fact, the Totem Heritage Center has the largest collection of original 19th-century totem poles anywhere. You’ll discover Totem Bight State Park located on the ocean front 9 miles north of town and Saxman native village located 3 miles south.
It was the area’s abundant fish and timber resources that first attracted non-natives to Ketchikan, where Tlingit Indians had operated a fish camp. The township began with Mike Martin’s purchase of 160 acres from Chief Kyan in 1885. The first cannery opened the next year, and by 1936, Ketchikan claimed seven canneries, producing 1.5 million cases of salmon. The many salmon also attract an abundant year-round American Bald Eagle population—with so many nests in the area it’s sometimes called "the eagle capital of America."
Today, besides the wealth of totems, Ketchikan is the site of a major salmon fishery. And if you’re looking to catch some salmon to take home with you, Ketchikan offers one of the best opportunities along the Southeast coast to reel in the big one.
History buffs will seek out century-old Guard Island Lighthouse in the Tongass Narrows, easily viewed from N. Tongass Highway or charter boat. You can also stroll the Creek Street boardwalk, which was home to the red-light district until the 1950s, and today has some fun shops. And of course, vast tracts of forest aren’t far away: Misty Fjords National Monument, a 2.2-million-acre wilderness, begins just east of here, and the vast Tongass National Forest (the nation’s largest) stretches north.
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