One of the many great things about the ferries is that they stop at a few interesting places along the way – Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau and Haines and there’s often enough time to go and have a bit of a walk around. Not all the timings are ideal (we arrived in Juneau before 7am – so we popped in for breakfast) and the ferry terminals are mostly some way out of town (some 14 miles in the case of Juneau!).
These towns are interesting as they are so remote, but they are real working towns – that is they all have industry (lots of fishing, some mining). They all depend heavily on tourism though. I was fascinated by the tension this creates. These small towns are transformed during the short high season by the arrival of between THREE and SIX monster cruise ships every day. 12,000 day trippers certainly change the atmosphere of a town where only 14,000 people actually live.
As a result, the downtown areas are awash with souvenir shops (some gorgeous stuff from local artists and some most likely made in China…). I absolutely hated shuffling round with hoards of cruise people – (don’t you just hate other tourists when you are tourist?). What must it be like to rely on these crowds who descend on the town for a few hours then disappear? At least we got a bit of kudos for taking the ferry…
I particularly liked Ketchikan – a town where a lot of salmon go to spawn.
