Ketchikan often reminds me of some of the major vacation towns in northern Wisconsin.  Similar to Minocqua, Hayward, Eagle River or my own home town, it started life as a base of operations for extraction industries; timber and fisheries.  But as time passed and those resources were over-exploited and then closely regulated, a wholesale shift occurred toward tourism.  The only differences being how long ago it happened and how the tourist get there.  The transition to a tourism based economy happened within my lifetime.  And instead of the tourists streaming up Highway 51, the tourists pour off of the 2-4 cruise ships that are docked here at any given time over the summer.

If you have ever been on a cruise ship anywhere in the world, you have an idea of the size of the ones that park themselves bow-to-stern here in Ketchikan.  The Tongass Narrows (the waterway between Ketchikan and its neighboring island) are no wider than the Mississippi River is in the upper Midwest so these large ships are even more impressive in this context.

Among the locals I’ve talked to, there is a bit of nostalgia for days of Ketchikan as a major fishing port and lumber town.  But at the same time, they cannot deny the immense and vital revenue stream that comes with these cruise ships.  It’s basically the reason this town exists nowadays.  Still there’s always a bit of melancholy about a place that now has to cater to those with disposable income.  It’s the downside to living in a beautiful place.  Other people want to come and gawk at it, take pictures of its quaintness, pick up a T-shirt and an embossed shot glass as proof that they once visited someplace cool.  It’s a balance between the pride such attention fosters and the resentment of dealing with people who have expectations about a place based on a brochure or a website.  You’ll have that any where tourists congregate.

There is a townie bar near where I am staying and I have had the opportunity to get some older dudes to start talking about this and that.  It’s one of the more interesting aspects of traveling so much.  You invariably get to talking to some local about whatever if you post up at the right bar.  I feel like people open up a little more about their town when you tell them you’re there for work instead of leisure.  There is less obligation to impress and you get more straight talk about what’s good and what’s bad.