Alaska - Ketchikan - Black bears

This morning we arrived in Ketchikan, our last town that we will be visiting on the Inside Passage of Alaska. All the towns along this south eastern coast of Alaska are not connected by road, the only way you can get there is by boat, by air or as the locals like to joke, 'by birth canal”, which is why a boat cruise is the most practical way to visit this area. The towns do have cars but they are shipped in and only used around the town and cannot drive out of town.

Ketchikan is one of the wettest towns in Alaska, and we had booked onto a float plane trip to go see the bears as this area has a high number of black bears. This excursion is regularly cancelled due to the weather, so we were half expecting the trip to be cancelled and were trying to work out an alternative plan for the day. However, this morning we could not believe it when we woke to sunshine and a dry day.

After breakfast we wandered into the town, it is a charming town with colourful wooden buildings and we all liked it the most out of all the towns we have visited. Later that morning we were taken to the small float plane terminal where we were to board the plane for our 20 minute flight to Neets Bay. We were all so excited, finally we had good weather and after all our other cancellations this planned excursion was going ahead. We were waiting to board when we were told that we would be going in two 10 seater planes, as there were 18 of us booked onto this trip - but the one plane had developed a problem and so both flights were being cancelled, unless 8 people stepped down and let the remaining 10 people go on the one plane. I was so surprised and disappointed to hear this unexpected news that I confess I got very upset with some tears of frustration. After a week of worrying whether this trip would take place due to the weather, we never expected this setback. Pip immediately said she would step down if it meant I could go (bless her) and some others also stepped down as they were offered refunds, and then we had a group of 10, but very sadly Pip and Inca were not coming and I was very upset by that. I got a little angry with the cruise agent in charge of this excursion as in a location where float planes are numerous I found it hard to believe that firstly they could not have given us more warning about the plane problem rather then telling us as we were boarding, and secondly surely they could have sourced another plane to replace the faulty one? I requested they offer an alternative excursion for Pip and Inca so they were taken off to a hatchery where the bears come to fish for salmon, although the chances of seeing bears there was not as good as where we were going.

The float plane trip was very good, it is so smooth I never even felt us take off or land. Our pilot was very young but very skilled. We arrived at Neets Bay and walked about 500m to a river where the bears come down to fish the salmon, and as the salmon are currently spawning the river is bursting with salmon, they are constantly leaping out of the water. As we arrived we saw one bear come down to fish and then saw a second one. The bears fish for salmon and at this time of year if it is a male salmon they discard it, they only want to catch female salmon as they eat the brains and rip the salmon open to eat the salmon eggs which are most nutritious. The area also had so many fat gulls waiting to eat the salmon scraps, and a few bald eagles. We spent a long time at the river waiting to see more bears but only two were in the area while we were there. We also learnt about the salmon life cycle and why they use hatcheries. Black bears are the smallest of the bears and the most common, the coastal Brown bears are the most dangerous and the largest - particularly the Kodiak bears.

When we got back to the boat we were delighted to hear that Inca and Pip had also seen bears from their excursion, they were on a boardwalk above the bears and watched them from above.

We have now set sail again, we have a day at sea tomorrow and then arrive in Vancouver the following day.

In extras a float plane I watched taking off, this is not the plane we went in.