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Saturday | July 23

Ketchikan

“One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am—a reluctant enthusiast—a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious and awesome space…” –Edward Abbey

Tlingit speaker Joe comes aboard and entertains our guests with a talk in the lounge. He gets a lot of laughs and applause for his discussion of Tlingit family life. He is from Saxman Village (just a couple of miles from downtown Ketchikan).

This is the site where an assemblage of totems are on the forested grounds, a photographers delight. An interpretive center and sales area is an attraction for tourists.

Joe tells us it is highly recommended to “spend all your money here in Ketchikan”, and learn more about the dynamic, vibrant culture of the Tlingits.

After working for InnerSea Discoveries since mid-April, today is my going-home day. My buddy Randall Tate also has time-off and we celebrate with our first sip of alcohol—a pint of beer--since early May.

We are amazed at the good taste of the brew at the Arctic Bar. We laugh and give a toast to the ship that happens to be just a “par 3”, or about a “5-iron” shot away from our table. We enjoy our freedom knowing that our fellow crew members are scurrying about for the impending arrival of the next group of intrepid travelers.

We hop aboard a small motorboat with an eccentric man behind the wheel. He is eating a messy Burger Queen burger and fries as we make our way across the Tongass Narrows to the airport. I ask him if he was for or against the “Bridge to Nowhere” that became famous when Governor Sarah Palin was in office. He was obviously against it as he has a thriving business as a water taxi driver.

I’ll be visiting family and vacationing before returning to Alaska in August to finish the summer season guiding folks in “the Great Land”.