Ketchikan is the ancestral home of Alaska's Tlingit Indians. The largest collection of totem poles in the world is on display here. Nature buffs will appreciate the lush rain forests and the Misty Fjords National Monument.
Ketchikan has a population of 14,500 and is built along a steep hillside, with sections of the town built right over the water on pilings. An outstanding collection of totem poles make a visit to Ketchikan essential for anyone interested in Native art. Ketchikan's name supposedly comes from the native term "Katch Kanna", which roughly translates: "spread wings of a thundering eagle" and rightly named, for you only need to look along the water line and you're likely to see many bald eagles on waterside perches.
A few blocks from Ketchikan's downtown cruise ship dock is Creek Street -- famous (or infamous) as a former red-light district whose houses, some restored, follow a curving plank road built over Ketchikan Creek. During the mining heyday this was home to residents like Frenchie, Dolly, Black Mary and Blind Polly. The most renowned of these establishments has been converted into Dolly's Historic Museum. Her house has been fully restored complete with a satin-covered four-poster brass bed and elegant tapestried walls.
Ketchikan is also the jumping-off point for Misty Fjords National Monument, a magnificent wilderness of glaciers, waterfalls, lakes and sheer granite cliffs that rise thousands of feet above narrow waterways carved during the ice ages centuries ago. Tours over this magnificent area are available by floatplane.
