Norwegian Cruise Line's Bliss sails into Ketchikan, Alaska. Photo / Sarah Daniell
Norwegian Cruise Line's Bliss sails into Ketchikan, Alaska. Photo / Sarah Daniell
Dale Omenson is leaning against the door of the old brothel in the late April sun, wearing a red feather boa, red sequined top and a velvet leopard-print jacket. It's just after 10.30am, a little early for business, but it's the start of the tourist season and Omenson, curator of what is now Dolly's Historic Museum, is ready.
She's in her late 60s now, but when Dale was just 8 years old, she ran away to the Creek Street red-light district. She'd misbehaved and her mother or father had told her she was a "bad girl". So, when she showed up, and the infamous madam, Dolly Arthur, asked her what she was doing there, she replied, "This is where they told me the bad girls go."
In the 1800s, when fishermen, miners and lumberjacks stopped in Ketchikan for respite, recreation and company, Dolly's was lit up with the names of the "girls" - Frenchie, Prairie Chicken and Deep Water Mary. At Dolly's, no smoking, drinking or swearing was allowed. Dolly lived at Number 24 Creek St with her boyfriend, Lefty.
Dolly (who was born Thelma Copeland in 1888 and died in 1975), was a formidable force. Like many of the women of her time and profession, she was tough. She had to be. She bought property, paid off police to operate, advocated for her workers' financial independence and the right to their privacy and respect. Another madam, an African American from Arkansas was a fierce advocate for sex workers. Annie Watkins, known affectionately as "mama" by those she employed, was an entrepreneur who invested in a number of houses on Creek St.
Dale Omenson, the curator at Dolly's House Museum, in Ketchikan, Alaska. Photo / Sarah Daniell
Ketchikan's streets are paved with rich, layered stories. Until the 1980s, there was the same number of churches as bars. On Creek St, the brothels are now brightly painted souvenir shops where you can buy pens shaped like humpback whales, finely carved bone-handled knives, tea towels and jewellery.
There's a shop on the walkway where you can sample hot- and cold-smoked salmon. Simply Salmon has been in the same family of fisher people for generations. They smoke it, can it, and send it all over the world from the Salmon capital of world.
Everyone in Ketchikan goes back. Way back. The mountains go up, way up and the water falls down, endlessly, relentlessly.
The Tlingit people named this place Kitch-Kan, meaning "the thundering wings of an eagle." The area is shaped just like an eagle in flight.
Although Tongass National Park is the largest temperate rainforest in the world (7 million hectares), the defining element in Ketchikan is the water.
It rains in Ketchikan, in southeastern Alaska, about 233 days - or about 4m a year. The winds can get up to 128km/h - technically a hurricane - but according to Celeste, who drives the bus from the port to the centre of town, that's just a regular wind storm.
At this time of year, we can expect 14 hours of daylight but in the depths of a Ketchikan winter, in December, it's seven.
The morning Norwegian Bliss sails into Ward Cove from the Inside Passage of the North Pacific, there is not a whisper of wind and I hoof it around the town, with my jacket tied around my waist.
The hills and mountains rise up steeply from the tiny city built on stilts. If a staircase has more than 100 steps, it's considered a street. There are more than 1000 islands here, and many people build houses on them and commute by boat to school or work. Many of the locals live on boats and you can kayak under the town. A bear cub once showed up at the local grocery store, having strayed from the forest, and ran riot in the aisles till the mother eventually showed up.
Clouds gather over Ketchikan, in the south east of Alaska. Photo / Sarah Daniell
After wandering Creek St, I head to the Tongass Historical Museum, which has an extraordinary curation of Native Alaskan heritage and history, artefacts and photographs. Ketchikan Creek is the central thread of the town. It was used as a summer fishing camp by the Tlingit, who were the first people here.
By the turn of the 20th century when non-Native settlers could benefit from the rich resources, commerce came - gold rushes, salmon canneries - they became recipients of this ancient knowledge. A note at the museum says this shared knowledge "allowed them to survive, gather and exploit these resources - sometimes all too well".
There's a giant steel sculpture of "Old Groaner" - a legendary black bear who moaned and marauded the creeks where prospectors searched for a fortune. There's a glass case with Old Groaner's skull. It measures nearly 27 inches (68.5cm) on the Boone and Crockett scale, the official scale of world record animals.
Perhaps the most extraordinary, compelling exhibits are the collection of portraits taken by First Nation photographer Benjamin Alfred Haldane. They defy the colonial narrative of a Christian "utopia". Many of those portraits were on glass negatives and were rescued, fortunately, from a landfill in 2003.
They tell another story through another lens, of the spirit of a place and people that remains against the overwhelming forces of commerce and colonisation.
As we pull out of port, I lean on the ship's rail and gaze at the countless islands dotted throughout the cove. Many have tiny houses that seem, at this distance, too flimsy to withstand the power of a hurricane-grade wind and relentless rainfall. A glorious fantasy land, but not for the faint-hearted.
Waiters at the Red Onion Saloon, in Skagway. Photo / Sarah Daniell
STREET SCENES AND A SKAGWAY SALOON
At the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway, Alaska, it's a sea of cleavage, corsets and bustles. They serve hot chili and cold beer and the women waiters stuff tips down their fronts. The men look like Seattle hipsters. Periodically a "madam" will appear at the top of the stairs and holler an invitation to come on up and have a tour.
The saloon was also a brothel in the 1890s gold rush. Today it's like a bawdy improv show, packed with tourists and the waiting line snakes along the pavement. Afterwards, I head out for a wander and find a bookstore, and find a collection of short stories, "The Way Winter Comes," by Alaskan writer Sherry Simpson. How does one understand such a place, much less explain it, she asks.
The Red Onion Saloon, built during the 1890s gold rush, in Skagway, Alaska. Photo / Sarah Daniell
That day we'd taken the train along the White Pass and Yukon Route, built for the gold rush. It's a monumental engineering feat. Back then, for the thousands who steamed up the Inside Passage and arrived in Skagway to begin the march to fortune up the treacherous trek to Klondike, it would have been unimaginably torturous. The Red Onion must have been an oasis in a desert of unrelenting misery for prospectors.
Although not for the "ladies" who worked there and suffered extortion and abuse. Out the window, it's a panorama of river, ice, mountains, snow and trees. Impossible to understand, dazzling to experience. The main economy here now is tourism, and the streets are already teeming with people. I buy fridge magnets and chocolate, and amble back to the ship, passing boats on the dry dock with names like Miss Fitz and Moonbeam.
A bright yellow streetcar goes to "all points of interest" and on the side it says: "Skagway Alaska Street Car Tour - nothing like it in the world."
Checklist ALASKA DETAILS Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Bliss sails a range of Alaska itineraries from Seattle, Washington. For prices and more details, see ncl.com
