The Last Saloon Before the Wilderness: A Ketchikan Walking Tour

Ketchikan has always attracted people chasing something – gold, fish, fortune, or a fresh start – and not all of them found what they were looking for. On this walking tour, you'll hear the stories that the cruise industry tends to skip: the scandals, tragedies, and acts of defiance that shaped this remote Alaskan town. You'll also learn how Indigenous communities, immigrants, and working people pushed back against the forces that exploited them.

The tour starts at the Rock, a waterfront statue that packs generations of Ketchikan history into a single bronze monument. From there, you'll head uphill past the site where President Warren G. Harding laid a Masonic cornerstone in 1923 – weeks before his death – and the courthouse that sent two landmark cases all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. You'll also pass the old firehouse, now home to Uncharted Distillery, where a beloved fire chief was caught sneaking back into town in disguise to set more fires.

The route winds down to Creek Street, Ketchikan's former red-light district, where you'll hear the real story behind its most famous resident, Dolly the Sporting Woman, and why the romanticised version sold to cruise passengers leaves out the hardest parts. You'll also stop at the New York Cafe, whose Japanese-American owner was sent to a detention camp during World War II, and learn how neighbours kept his business alive until he returned. The tour ends on the East Street Pier, with views of Pennock Island, the Tongass National Forest, and the cruise ships that now define the town's economy.

On this 30-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear how a young L. Ron Hubbard hosted a radio show at KGBU after his boat broke down in the harbour
• Learn about the SS Princess Sophia disaster, which killed 343 people in 1918, including a 21-year-old Athabascan guide headed to medical school
• Discover how the Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio case, rooted in local cannery segregation, forced Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1991
• Find out why the Connell Lake Dam – privately owned, generating no power – still blocks miles of historic salmon spawning beds
• Step inside the Potlatch Bar, where a chalkboard lists boat parts, fresh fish, and job postings in real time
• Learn how the 1956 Arctic Bar floated off its pilings during a flood and was towed to a new location on Water Street

This short walk through Ketchikan's shadows will leave you with a far richer picture of Alaska than anything you'll find on the main drag.