By Bob Van Leer

  (KETCHIKAN, ALASKA, Tuesday, July 22, 1997) - Our cruise ship, MS. Ryndam, docked early this morning at Ketchikan, Alaska's southernmost city.

  Ketchikan is located on an island and can only be reached by air or water. This region is the natural home of float planes. There is lots of protected water, lots of isolated country and no roads.

  The town is more of a stringtown than Gold Beach. It is located on a very narrow bench along the shore and is a tangle of pilings, stairways and boardwalks, with houses and buildings creeping up the slopes. The area population is about 15,000 and we were told this doubles in the summer.

  Our ship is tied up to a dock and when we first looked out this morning our window was just at dock level. The other side of the dock is a main street with wall-to-wall tourist shops.

  On the west side of the ship is the busy "inside passage", called here the Alaska Marine Highway. There is a lot of boating action to watch on the passage. And while we were eating lunch a bald eagle dove right alongside of the ship to get a fish for his lunch. This try was not successful.

  Ketchican has an airport with jet passenger service. However, it's on the wrong side of the channel. So all passengers and freight have to be transported over by ferry. 

  The State of Alaska ferry trapped in Prince Rupert, B. C., just south of here, by angry Canadian fishermen was released yesterday, but there will be a lot of recriminations. The State of Alaska is trying to find someone to sue and has notified Prince Rupert authorities it may cancel agreements for dock facilities at the city. We passed the ferry which is now tied up at a dock in Ketchikan after its release.

  Imagine the impact of tour ships here. The MS Rotterdam V, also Holland American, is tied up right behind us. It is southbound. The two ships have perhaps 3000 passengers between them, all let off right downtown with just a few hours to shop.

  The climate here makes Gold Beach seem dry. The average annual rainfall is 162 inches, right at twice what we get.

  Southeast Alaska was originally populated by the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Indians. Today we went on a tour of the Saxman Tlingit native village just three miles out of Ketchikan. Saxman boasts the world's largest collection of totem poles, some up to a century old and brought from a previous site of the village.

$2500 PER FOOT
  We were treated to demonstrations of native culture including song and dance. An interesting part of the tour was a visit to a totem pole shop. Native artisans are still turning out the poles of red and yellow cedar and red alder. We were told poles are for sale, but the price is not cheap. They are sold by the foot at a price of $500 to $2500 per foot depending on the skill of the carver. A foot of finished product represents a week's work.

  Southeast Alaska used to depend on salmon and Ketchikan was, at one time, the salmon canning capital of the world. Salmon fishing fell sharply in the 1950's and 1960's. Where there were 30 canneries, there are three.

  The U.S. Forest Service contracted with Ketchikan Pulp in 1954. The company built a $53 million mill that employed 500 and the Forest Service agreed to supply timber. The mill needed an expensive updating and the mill wanted to extend the years of a guaranteed timber supply. The Forest Service was unwilling to do this and the mill closed in March with the loss of 406 jobs. This leaves Ketchikan dependent on tourists for a living, a situation that sounds familiar. Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens has just made moves to have 400 Forest Service employees transferred from Juneau in Ketchikan which, of course, doesn't make people in Juneau happy. Just north of Ketchikan we saw the first clear cuts.

  Nearby is the Misty Fjords National Monument, created by presidential proclamation in 1978. It is huge, 2.3 million acres, about the same size as the state of New Jersey. Curry County's size is about a million acres.

  We have come 558 miles from Vancouver and have 131 miles to go to Juneau.