Cats and Trails and Garden Tales

We left Seattle on day 1 and spent the next day and a half enjoying the amenities on the ship, before arriving at our first port, Ketchikan.

I didn’t schedule any shore excursions as we knew from our previous trip (this is our second cruise to Alaska) that everything we wanted to see was in walking distance, starting with historic Creek Street, once infamous for being the town’s red light district.

While I enjoyed looking through the shops, what I really wanted to see were the spawning salmon fighting their way up Ketchikan Creek.

And I did! More salmon than I have ever seen in one place!

“The Pacific salmon in Ketchikan Creek are anadromous. The word means up-running. They hatch from eggs in this rainforest watershed, swim into the ocean as smolts, and spend up to five years growing to maturity at sea. Swarms of them leave the creek, but relatively few survive predators, including us and return as adults to the gravel bed where they emerged into life.”

“Because of their predictable migrations, salmon have been food for as long as there have been people and other predators to eat them… Bears, seals, killer whales, sea lions, eagles and human subsistence, commercial, and recreational fishers are all entwined forever with salmon for sustenance. Those salmon that make it back to the streams, creeks and rivers also bring nitrogen and many life-giving ingredients to the forest and watersheds..”

These seals waited for the salmon at the mouth of the creek and enjoyed the easy spoils.

By the way, you may have noticed the rainy conditions we experienced in Ketchikan. It was not unexpected; it’s the rainiest city in the U.S.

Rain and salmon are not the only kings in town. Ketchikan has the largest number of standing totem poles in the world, including the one below:

“The Chief Kyan Totem pole is a lineage pole and has three figures. The Crane, at the top, represents Chief Kyan’s wife, the next figure is a Thunderbird, Chief Kyan’s wife’s clan, and the Bear at the bottom is Chief Kyan’s family crest.” Experience Ketchikan website

The weather cleared as we left Ketchikan (of course)

and soon after I had my best sighting of whales on the trip.

The naturalist onboard had told us to look closely where birds congregated and I did, when I caught a flash of tail.

It got better as I zoomed in and saw the bubble-net feeding, where a group of whales were trapping fish by blowing bubbles under water.

According to Wikipedia – ” Bubble-net feeding is a cooperative feeding method used by groups of humpback whales. This behavior is not instinctual, it is learned; not every population of humpbacks knows how to bubble net feed. Humpback whales use vocalizations to coordinate and efficiently execute the bubble net so they all can feed. As the group circles a school of small fish such as salmon, krill, or herring, they use a team effort to disorient and corral the fish into a “net” of bubbles. One whale will typically begin to exhale out of their blowhole at the school of fish to begin the process.More whales will then blow bubbles while continuing to circle their prey. .. One whale will sound a feeding call, at which point all whales simultaneously swim upwards with mouths open to feed on the trapped fish.”

Can I just say, I was enamored with them?

Later that night I caught the best sunset of the trip.

Later still that night we were woken by the captain at 1:00 am to let us know the northern lights could be seen ahead. He’d told us earlier that he’d let us know – according to the forecast there was a 50 % chance of seeing Aurora Borealis if the sky was clear.

I went outside onto the balcony and saw black sky with lots of stars and a green smudgy haze in the northern distance, hard for my eye to detect.

I snapped a few photos and went back to bed.

I wished I hadn’t for the real show started at 3:30 am, when the green smudge increased in size and intensity to include all colors of the rainbow. I know because the naturalist shared his pictures with us, and because I didn’t ask, I won’t share them with you. Trust me that the colors were brilliant gold, violet and fuchsia.

Maybe next time I’ll stay up longer.

Guess that requires another trip. 🙂

~ Susanne