Chapter: 193 : Ketichan: Words

Ketichan    

We take a bus to a guided walking tour.

We go past a short street. It is where a cemetery is situated. The sign had to be changed from dead-end street to no-through road.

Rains 300 days a year. Everybody lives on tank water. No town water supply. If it doesn’t rain for four days it is a drought.  This year has actually been very dry and the salmon have had trouble swimming upstream.

We walk in the rainforest looking for a bear. The forest is the second biggest forest in the world. The biggest temperate forest.

The guide shows us giant slug. If you put in your mouth your mouth will go numb. She proves this by putting it in her mouth and saying her mouth is now numb.

A female bear hibernates in winter and gives birth in a cave. She eats the feces of the cubs (to avoid attracting predators). Males will eat the babies if they can get them.

The salmon ie for a year in the stream then a couple of years in the open sea. They then return to their stream (smell) and migrate upstream. They spend about a month in the stream. Their flesh goes rotten as they prepare to spawn. In the stream bears, eagles and other bird try to eat them. After spawning they die. There are five different types of salmon in these streams. Each type forms a run.

We prepare to board the bus. The guide says she will refund us each $80 as we haven’t seen a bear. As she says this a bear decides to deny us a refund. A black bear waddles along the river. It eats fish, sits and walks unconcerned and uninterested in the crowd of tourists taking his photo.

Back on the ship I return to the gym. I gaze out of window and see a whale rise out of the water.

On the walking machine next to me a lady suddenly stops, presses buttons and screams out.

I ask her: Are you alright?

She looks through me and then back to her machine and then I notice she has earphones in her ears.

Whales then start surrounding the ship. Flapping and splashing on every side. Also a few dolphins.

That night I watch USA TV. One channel is violently, passionately anti-Trump. It doesn’t even pretend to be object and even-handed. Another channel barracks for Trump. I know understand why Michelle did not want to talk about politics. In the USA it is different. You barrack fervently for one team or the other.

After our walk in the woods I can now answer one question. I didn’t step in it but I did see it. Yes a bear does shit in the woods.