Ketchikan

Our last stop on the Alaska section of our cruise was Ketchikan.

In some ways, Ketchikan was a more attractive port stop than Sitka. Some of it is on stilts at the water's edge and some of the habitation there is only accessible via flights of steps, sometimes in their hundreds.

Again, we had a First Nation guide who showed us around the area, including the Rainbow Falls at the roadside and who took us to his tribal community to explain a few things about the way of life of his ancestors.

I asked him how his tribe chose a new chief when one was needed.  He didn't answer directly, but his answer was a touch sad as he said that nobody really wanted the job these days or any of the other jobs.  The 'Red Indians' that I had in mind from the countless cowboy movies and TV series of my youth have long since disappeared.  Nowadays they drive round in pickups or all-wheel drives and have all the accoutrements of the materialistic life that the white man enjoys.

That said, our guide told us that it was only in the 1950s that things changed when they were finally allowed to come inside Ketchikan's boundaries and even today, you sense that there are some low incomes around and unemployed people on benefits/welfare.

He repeated what we had heard before - that his wife had to come from a neighbouring tribe as it would be considered incest for him to have married within his own tribe.  In that way it seems that they kept the gene pool healthy.  Children were then brought up in the tribe of the mother.