Ketchikan is a small fishing town that became a tourist trap and cruise port.

Ketchikan has the largest collection of preserved totem poles and boasts one Walmart, a frenetic salmon ladder at the end of July, eagles, one Safeway, mountains and water.

There is one main road that changes names about 4 times- it’s Water Street, Tongass Avenue, Stedman Street and Front Street.

There’s one local radio station in town, KRBD, and I’ve met most everyone who works there. There are two local grocery stores: the A & P (Alaska and Proud) and the Tatsuda’s IGA. I know the lady who manages the second store.

 

The town has 11,000 people in it. If you include the Ketchikan Borough (which includes Pennock, Gravina Island and Annette Island), we have 14,000 inhabitants which makes up the 4th largest city in Alaska.

There aren’t many true, true locals at all. There are a lot of transplants who moved here 41 years ago from Idaho and might as well be natives (what the heck is there to do in Idaho?)

The city boasts a thriving arts community, that one can’t really appreciate or see in the summer months when tourism is in full swing.
When the jewelry shops literally close-up shop (ask the locals how they feel about the jewelry shops), the brave and few locals who proudly stay through winter bloom in darkness and the community bears down to endure the sideways rain.

The question I get asked the most, by locals and by tourists, is if I live here year-round. One time I told a creepy guy in a bar that he did so that he would leave me alone (that’s another story, but the fishermen here are known to target the seasonals but they know not to mess with the locals*, *as much). I hate to tell the tourists that I’ve only been here since April because I’d love to let them talk to an authentic Alaskan, but I’m hardly an authentic anything these days except tired, hungry and happy. Those are authentic.

But yes, Ketchikan. It is small. After I worked here for a month, I quickly learned that, not only is there town gossip, it’s actually just town hearsay. If you express an opinion about well, anyone, anything, anytime, they aren’t your words anymore. They have become public property, they are like a mist in the air that leave your mouth and graze the ears of everyone you might see in a given week. I’m sure there are smaller towns in the world (the city itself boasts 8,000), but you have to consider that many of those 8,000 are out on boats more than half of the time and debatably, a 5th of them are street drunk. There is also a native population here that has distanced itself from the “whites.” They use a separate hospital and a culture that is distinctly “other” from the white life.

There are a few black people here, a few brown people here, and lots of whites. I’m just calling it as a see it. There is a good contingency of foreign fancy men who wander the sidewalks with cellphones on ears, discussing their latest diamond or talking with their big boss. Or maybe they are talking with their grandmother, like me. I don’t know, but they’re always sidewalking on their cellphones.

So once you boil down all the social outliers (not outliers because they are not mixed with society, but social outliers to me because I don’t hang out with them) You are working with about 200 people. I feel like I know 200 people here, and they know me. They know the company I work for by the color of my shirt. They probably know if they did or didn’t see me last season. They may recognize me from seeing me on the dock everyday, or they may even notice if my hair changes color.

Mostly people end up here from the West Coast. My boss, originally, is from North Carolina. My friend Molly is originally from Alabama.

You also know all the cars because new cars don’t really come to Ketchikan much. They don’t manufacture them here so the only way they arrive is if someone drives them over on a ferry from Bellingham Washington. Car paint does really well here because of the moisture, but car engines and bodies rust from the rain.

As far as retail goes, well you better get yourself some hobbies because window shopping is not available for sport.

Because I don’t have a car, whenever I am near Walmart (which is only if we are running errands for work), it is a truly special occasion and I run down my list of shopping needs.

 

That’s one of two places where you can probably buy a plastic tote bin or a pair of house slippers. Walmart and Tongass Shopping Center: that’s where the clothes are.

But: what precedes the social over-familiarity is a nice, friendly group of people. The locals aren’t snooty to you if you are living here (they are probably disgruntled if you are a tourist, but so am I), in fact they are warm and want to tell you about their way of life. They know it’s unusual and a bit off the grid. They will tell you that they live on a water tank that is their home water supply, they may even tell you about their gardening. When Sheila Scheer, co-owner of the Lumberjack Show, passed away from a brain aneurism in her 40s the community came together and mourned her loss. There was not a dry eye and I did not even ever see her in person.

You also get a lot of folks here who came from Colorado, Nevada, Washington state somewhere.. and then a lot from the Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin contingency. My theory on these folks, and it is a correct theory, is that they are so used to miserably cold winters that dreary and wet winters by comparison are an absolute breeze. When they come here, they say the winters are the mildest ones they’ve ever experienced. You also meet people like John, who drove our bus today to the Snorkeling Excursion, who moved here from Phoenix because he only got 6 inches of rain a year. Now he gets 12 feet on any given 365 days.

Running into folks you know in the grocery store is like the chance of running into your cousin at a family reunion.

You know the folks at the bar at least by now. You know who you are going to see in the Arctic on a Thursday, the Asylum on a Friday or the Open Mic at Fat Stan’s on Wednesdays with Patrick who works at Crab Cracker Restaurant.

 

Everything in this town closes at 5pm or sooner, if the ships are out before then. But the liquor store, the liquor store, stays open until 1am. This is where the town priorities are.

It is *most likely* for you to see the kiosk salespeople so drunk they are aphasic and then brooding on the docks the next morning.
Facebook is essentially not necessary in this town because facebook is the sidewalk.

It’s a great place to be. There is even a small movie theatre that shows two separate movies on any given day!

Am I a small, middle-of-nowhere kinda gal or a big city lady? Either way, the island life would not be preferable to me for year-round life. I miss 2-day shipping and road trips. I miss TJ Maxx of Bless Gott do I miss TJ Maxx. And Target. I miss Target. I miss furniture thrift stores. But I have the mountains and nice people and occasionally seals in the creek.