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Ketchikan

Ketchikan: Totem Poles, Salmon and a Lot of Rain

Wooden Creek Street buildings on stilts above the water, backed by evergreen forest.

Photo: Gary Bembridge from London, UK · BY-2.0

More views of Ketchikan

Ketchikan is Alaska's southernmost cruise port and, by annual precipitation, one of the rainiest cities in the United States. It receives about 160 inches of rainfall per year. Bringing a waterproof layer is not cautious — it's required. The rain does mean that the surrounding mountains and the Tongass National Forest stay extraordinarily green; Ketchikan in the rain is not unpleasant, just wet.

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Ships dock downtown, directly along the waterfront. The main street, Dock Street and its continuation as Mission Street, runs along the waterfront and is walkable from any of the piers. Creek Street, the most photographed block in Ketchikan, is a row of wooden buildings on stilts above Ketchikan Creek — a former red-light district turned into a compact shopping area. The salmon run up the creek in late summer; you can often see them from the walkways.

Totem poles in Ketchikan are not decoration — they are an active part of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultural practice, and Ketchikan has the highest concentration of standing totem poles anywhere in the world. Saxman Native Village, 2.3 miles south of downtown, has more than 20 original poles and a working carving center open to visitors. Totem Bight State Historical Park, 10 miles north of town, has a reconstructed clan house and a smaller collection of poles in a coastal forest setting. Both are worth the trip; both require transportation from the pier.

Misty Fjords National Monument, accessible by floatplane or fast boat, is one of the most dramatic landscapes in Southeast Alaska — a 2.3-million-acre wilderness of granite walls, hanging glaciers, and deep fjords. The floatplane tour from Ketchikan is an hour each way and the aerial perspective is unique. It's weather-dependent; tours cancel in low visibility.

For food, Alaskan salmon chowder at any of the creek-side shops near Creek Street is the most reasonable and locally honest meal you'll find near the pier. The salmon here is Alaskan and fresh. Fish and chips from one of the Creek Street vendors consistently outperforms equivalent dishes available aboard.

Dolly's House Museum in Creek Street is a preserved and interpretively signed former brothel — small but genuinely entertaining as a piece of local social history.

The Alaska cruise season runs May through September. Ketchikan is the first stop southbound and one of the last northbound; the shoulder weeks of May and September offer fewer crowds at sites and more reliable calm weather, though rain is possible any week.

Good to know

What to Expect

Four berths line the downtown waterfront, numbered from south to north, and some ships use a separate dock at Ward Cove, outside town.

  • Ward Cove, where Norwegian Cruise Line has priority docking, runs a free shuttle to Berth 4 that takes about 20 minutes each way.
  • From Berth 4, allow about 15 minutes to walk to the center of downtown.
  • From the downtown berths, the Tongass Historical Museum beside Creek Street is about a 10-minute walk and the Totem Heritage Center about 15.
  • The visitors bureau has desks at Berths 1 and 3.

Getting Around

Downtown is walkable, and a free shuttle bus loops through it every 20 minutes while large ships are in port.

  • The public bus costs $2 a ride (2026), paid in cash with exact change.
  • The Silver Line South bus runs hourly to Saxman Totem Park, 2.5 miles south, and the Silver Line North runs hourly to Totem Bight, 10 miles north.
  • From Ward Cove, allow at least 30 minutes to reach downtown, and check the time of the last shuttle back.

Tipping and Currency

Ketchikan is in the United States, so standard US tipping applies.

  • Tip at restaurants and for taxis as you would at home.
  • Guides, floatplane pilots and fishing-charter crews usually receive a tip at the end of the trip.
  • The public bus takes cash only, so carry small bills and coins.

What to Eat

Seafood is the reason to eat in Ketchikan, a town that began with a salmon saltery.

  • Look for local salmon and halibut on menus near the berths.
  • Cape Fox Tours runs food tours at the George Inlet Cannery, for anyone who wants the salmon story with the meal.
  • If you buy smoked salmon to take home, ask the shop whether it needs to stay cold.

Tlingit Culture and History

Ketchikan's standing totem poles are spread across several sites in and around town.

  • The Totem Heritage Center keeps 19th-century poles brought in during the 1970s from the Tlingit villages on Tongass and Village Islands and the Haida village of Old Kasaan.
  • Saxman is a Tlingit community. Its totem park holds poles moved from old village sites or recarved in the 1930s.
  • Totem Bight State Historical Park has a community house and poles that Native carvers repaired or copied from 1938. Entry is $5 a person (2026).
  • Totem poles record family and clan histories. They are not objects of worship.

Traveling with Kids

The simplest outing with children is Creek Street, a boardwalk above a creek that fills with salmon in July and August.

  • The Southeast Alaska Discovery Center, run by the Forest Service at 50 Main Street, is free for visitors 15 and under and $5 for adults (summer 2026).
  • Children 12 and under are free at the Totem Heritage Center and the Tongass Historical Museum, and adults pay $7 (2026).
  • The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show, a block from the downtown berths, lasts about an hour.

A Brief History

Ketchikan Creek was a Tlingit summer fish camp long before a town grew up beside it.

  • The town is named after the creek. The Tlingit name is Kichx̱áan, and its meaning is uncertain.
  • A salmon saltery set up in 1885 started the settlement, and Ketchikan was incorporated on August 25, 1900.
  • Metlakatla, on nearby Annette Island, was settled in the 1880s by Tsimshian people who left British Columbia with the missionary William Duncan, and it is still a Tsimshian community.
  • Creek Street was the red-light district from 1903, when a city ordinance moved the brothels there, until they were shut down in 1954.
  • In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps paid Native carvers to restore and recarve poles from abandoned villages, which is how the totem parks at Saxman and Totem Bight came about.

Shopping & Local Markets

For Alaska Native art, look for the Silver Hand seal, the state's mark for work made by Alaska Native artists.

  • The Silver Hand seal is a black oval containing a silver hand, and the state keeps a public registry of permitted artists.
  • The Totem Heritage Center exhibits work by the Tlingit carver Nathan Jackson and the Haida weaver Delores Churchill, a useful look at the real thing before you shop.
  • Ask who made a piece and where. A shop selling genuine work can tell you.

Beaches

Ketchikan is not a beach port, and the draw is the forest and the water around it.

  • Misty Fjords National Monument is about 40 miles east, and floatplane tours from Ketchikan spend about an hour in the air.
  • Deer Mountain rises 3,001 feet behind downtown, and its trail gains 2,600 feet in 2.75 miles, a strenuous hike.
  • The Tongass, which surrounds the town, is the largest national forest in the United States at 16.7 million acres.

Accessibility

The main sights are close to the downtown berths, but ships at Ward Cove depend on a shuttle bus to reach them.

  • Ask your ship whether the gangway will be step-free in Ketchikan.
  • Public buses carry a wheelchair ramp, and drivers deploy it on request, so tell the driver you want it.
  • From Berth 4, the Ward Cove operator points guests with limited mobility to the borough's free bus, which leaves every 20 minutes for stops around downtown.
  • Creek Street is a boardwalk on stilts set into a steep slope. Ask at the visitors bureau desks at Berths 1 and 3 about step-free access.
  • Cape Fox Tours says its Saxman tour vehicles take wheelchairs, scooters and walkers for guests who can manage two or three steps.
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