Final day in Ketchikan. . . ferry to Prince Rupert, B.C.

First off, I must congratulate my son, Brandon, and his beautiful wife, Megan, on the birth today of their first child . . . a beautiful

little girl they named Brynlee. Congrats to them and I am anxious to see my newest grandbaby when we get back to the lower 48.

Our ferry leaves at 7:45 p.m., so we broke camp this morning and drove down to the Totem Park. This is a park that has many totem poles that were relocated here from other areas where they were deteriorating. They restored them and placed them in the park where people can walk around, view them, and learn the history that the totems tell.

Next door is a recreated village which is really a stop for the cruise lines. They own it and take the people off the cruise ships to this village they built. Hmmmm. Kind of strange. The biggest building there is the gift shop. . . small wonder. The carvings and totems here are authentic, I guess, but are new carvings and not historic. It was more of an exhibit to explain life of the natives, but there wasn't a lot to see. Mostly the bus drivers kept yelling at the people to get back on the bus. . . that they were taking too much time. LOL

We came on into town and took the by-pass up over the top of the village to a city park. This park sits at the top of the hill behind Ketchikan and the salmon come upstream here to spawn. And that is what they were doing apparently. Some were already dead. "Spawn till you die!" is the catch phrase around here. LOL We did a lot of walking around and went to the Totem Heritage Center where we took some more pictures of totems.

We eventually drove back downtown and are sitting in line now at the ferry dock waiting on our time to load. An eagle is sitting here watching our departure. We still have to pack up our freezer stuff, but that doesn't take long. We have a 7.5 hour sailing to Prince Rupert. We leave at 7:45 p.m. and arrive there at 3:15 a.m. We did book a cabin since it was overnight and it would be good if we could get some sleep before we get off the ferry. We will try anyway. Once off the boat, we plan to drive across Canada to Winnepeg, then start heading south. Not sure how long it will take us, but we are anxious now to get back so we can see our new grandbaby.

Till next time. . .

Dale