We're in Alaska!!!: Day Nine

Last stop, getting in at 10:00am unless the missing people caused us to be late. I still don’t know if they’re on board. I can see forest outside our window. Our “Princess Patter,” the flyer they distribute each night to brief us on the next day’s destination and activities, says that clocks are being turned ahead one hour tonight, as if we weren’t already confused enough. The farther south we go, the earlier the sun sets. I heard there was a normal sunset yesterday but I missed it. We’ve decided it’s only been really setting since we left Glacier Bay. Alaska is on its own schedule.

We disembarked at Ketchikan and learned that the late people did not make it to the ship before we left Juneau. I hope they got to Ketchikan.

We went for a walk in town after breakfast. This tunnel is in the Guinness Book of Records because there are stairs next to it, roads over and through it, and, at low tide, room for boats to go under it.

We were on the tour to Totem Bight. I’d never heard of a bight before, but the spellchecker has. It's a wide bay formed by a bend or curve in the shoreline. We got to see a nesting bald eagle and her mate, who also screamed for us throughout our visit. Got some decent shots of him and some of the rainforest, too. There was a clear path for the tourists and the rest of the forest floor was mostly muskeg (bogs) covered with sphagnum moss. Our tour guide, Tanya, was fantastic. She is from the lower 48 and came to Alaska eight years ago because she’d been to all the other 49, and then ended up staying on. She was adopted into the Tlingit (pronounced Klinkit) tribe, which is very rare, because she reminded the chief of his late sister. Her Tlingit name means “Princess of a Prince, who gives everything away.” She told us about potlatches, which are kind of like feasts where gifts are given to all the guests and everything you have with you is a gift. She didn’t realize that included the car she drove to the party. Fortunately, the Tlingit man she gave her car to married her a few years later and she got her car back. She explained totem poles and the types (honor, dishonor, funereal, memorial, storytelling, identification and family, I think were all of them). Contrary to what I thought, they have little or no spiritual significance. She gave us some general reading hints (red bodies mean a bloody death, adornment with faces indicates power, upside-down characters are dead, feathered headdress indicates a woman) and was very interesting. Although all of the guides, without exception, said they loved their jobs, Tanya didn’t have to tell us in so many words. It was obvious. She told a funny story about a recent upgrade to the Ketchikan “International” Airport. They had the same automatic doors that most airports have, where a sensor in the mat opens the door. One day a baby black bear stepped on the mat and climbed onto the baggage carousel, entertaining one and all until mama bear tracked him down and stepped on that same mat. They called wildlife services from under cover, got the bears safely into a helicopter and off to the forest when a second baby stepped on the mat! Back comes the helicopter and the process started again. Needless to say, there are no more automatic doors at the Ketchikan Airport.