Ketchikan and Neha

Day 15 – May 25

Today we hung around Ketchikan for most of the day doing chores like laundry, shopping, refueling etc… Fuel was $4.29/gal; cheapest so far. Duncanby was the highest at $6.51/gal.

Left about 5pm. Homes in Ketchikan looked old and rough, homes heading out of town and only the shoreline and hillside going up the waterway are some pretty large and spendy. We passed several big Fishing Lodges and a couple small ones. Saw one helicopter going back and forth (5 trips seen) picking what appeared to be one person at a time from the end of the road to take them somewhere. Life is indeed rough up here.

Anchored in Neha Bay. We went for our daily dinghy ride after dinner. Thankfully the tide was low so did not attempt to go over the waterfall and into the lake. Spoke to a nice young man who was raised on the island across from Ketchikan, who told us that there are actually a series of about 4 lakes above where we are anchored. Most are accessible by small boat/dinghy. On the second one up there is actually a camp where scouts and bible study groups hike into. There is actually a year round caretaker there. There are a few small boats on a public dock here. Most are camping on shore. Another day well spent.

The young man (about 23) told us of being raised on the island and going to school each day by boat. As soon as they were old enough the kids drove them selves in a boat load over to Ketchican for school each day. He could drive a boat before he could ride a bike. On days when it was too foggy or whatever for safe crossing they just got marked ‘absent due to weather’. For college he’d left here and spent two years in Ashland Oregon where he studied to be a history teacher. He got disillusioned by a teacher (from Boston) there who after reading one of his papers on ‘Life in Alaska and fishing’ told him that he should better research his topic because as she put it, he didn’t know what he was writing about, and that she had read an article about it. He tried to explain that he ‘did know’ as he had ‘lived it’ but she did not ‘get it’. He left Ashland for Anchorage thinking that maybe back in Alaska they’d better understand. He found that not to be true as most of the instructors were from outside of Alaska. He left school and his thoughts of being a teacher and is back in Ketchikan working for the electric company as a lineman. He will make a lot better living doing that then he would as a teacher. He and about 7 other friends were camping for the weekend.