Icy Straits Point and Ketchikan

Next morning, I can’t sleep. This happens more and more lately, but I

get to use it to good advantage today and check out our stop in Icy Straight Point while the boys sleep longer. I walk all around and get to watch an otter swim around the ship, sea lions that keep coming up to breathe as I walk along the beach scoping things out. I head back to the ship, we get some breakfast and head out to see the cannery, take a gondola ride from one dock port to the other and get some good pictures of the otter that is still swimming around. This

port is near the largest Tlingit town and we should have gone farther inland, but we’ve seen the wildlife and Oscar is gung ho to get to a trivia competition that is about flags of countries. Oscar is sure that he will kill it and the kid loves to study the Atlas, so maybe. We head up to the bar where trivia happens early luckily because the trivia crew is an intense crew and were already in place from the previous trivia competition. They’re all talking about how the winners got 3 our of 15

questions right, so I’m not feeling very confident about the situation, but Oscar remains confident. And he does know 16 of the 20. It was amazing, but the 16 year old who also apparently studies atlases too.
So, we lose, but Oscar still gets a prize from the head of the trivia because of how young he is. We talk with the other family and discuss cruises we’ve taken and how to raise kids that like to study crazy
things.  One more port and it’s Ketchikan.  We have another pretty lame excursion set up, but it gets us out of the main part of Ketchikan and we get a tour of town, head to the totem poles and are pissed off when we’re told that we need to get back on the shuttle after about only 15 minutes there because another ships passengers are

leaving soon.  They don’t have another shuttle that is coming out this way and we have to be on it, but we’re only pissed before we realize that we’ve pretty much seen every part of the totem pole park that we can anyway.  So, with our main goal the salmon ladder and finding a sea lion figurine for Oscar, we head back to Ketchikan. We hit the brewery of course, then Oscar and I head back to the salmon ladder.  I never thought that huge fish jumping up rocks would be the big wildlife hit of the Alaska trip for him, but there it is.  So, we walk up river when John joins us and try to get to the

hatchery that’s up here, but it’s closed for COVID and we catch a city bus back down to the port area.  We get some pictures and start heading for all the shops to see if we can find a sea lion.  There are walruses, harbor seals, whales and bears galore, but no sea lions for some reason and that’s what Oscar wants.  I finally find a beautiful one in a higher end shop that was recommended to me and we’re not going to pay $100 for knickknack for Oscar.  But in a similar shop I find one made out of nut ivory (yes, they carve little ivory statues from the core of nuts here) one that isn’t ridiculously expensive and want to get Oscar’s approval.  He likes it, but John hates it because even though it’s made from nuts, there’s the ivory statues around it.  Alaska can get past the ivory ban because indigenous tribes are

allowed to hunt so many animals a year as part of their cultural heritage and then can carve the ivory.  But it still upsets John and Oscar to some extent, so over in the corner is a little brown stone sea lion with actual whiskers for even cheaper than the other two and it is sold.  We head back to the ship and our next day is a sea day, so we get to just plan our day around trivia.  Because now Oscar is hooked and he thinks that we’re awesome enough to win.  I try to tamp down his enthusiasm because the big trivia group are hard core and we are not.