Ketchikan, Alaska Native Cultureel en Wildlife Avontuur

Our guide, (Beta); an indigenous young woman from Saxman Village shared her wisdom with great stories that she was given by the elders :"As they were told to her":! She was by far the highlight of my tour!

This was a disappointing tour. Our guide was very friendly, professional, and knowledgeable. Though not her fault, there was confusion with another guests reservations, “no show” guests requiring us to wait on them for 15 minutes, and traffic jam in parking area that all resulted in us losing about 20 min of our tour. The location of the included attractions are far. I felt like the majority of our time was spent riding in the van. We started at Totem Bright Park which was beautiful and interesting but was a long ride to get to. By the time we finally arrived there and everyone had to go to the restroom, it was already more than an hour into our 3 hr tour. We stayed there maybe 45 min to a hour. Then we had a long ride to Rotary Beach, but because of the delays we missed low tide and the only thing we saw were two tiny crabs. We were there maybe 10-15 min. which was too long with nothing to see. We then drove to Herring Cove that the description said we’d visit the “famous bear viewing area”. Everything I saw about HC when trying to decide which tour to book to see bears showed a long wooden boardwalk. It looked beautiful and a way to be close to the water, not crowded, and I’d get to go far enough in to see bears. This was the main attraction I wanted to see and why I booked. We pulled up to a small crowded parking area on the side of the road for our “viewing”. The guide said the boardwalk is private property and costs about $200 per person more to use. We saw no bears (which I fully understand is out of the guide’s control) and no salmon. I walked around the metal parking barricade trying to get a better view, but couldn’t see anything worth the time. We stayed maybe 15 min. We then drove back to town, past Creek Street, and pulled up to Salmon Ladder where we had the option to end our tour there or get dropped off at pickup location. We ended here and watched the salmon and explored Creek Street on our own. We spent 3 hours and other than the totem poles, felt like was a waste of our limited time in this beautiful town simply riding in a van. .

Excellent tour! Local tour guide was awesome. Most informative & personable. Highly recommended. Well organized.

Excellent tour and just the right length for a toddler to join along. Our guide was very knowledgeable and answered everyone’s questions. We did have an issue with our Viator reservation only showing 2 people on their records despite the ticket stating 4 people and being charged for all 4. Luckily there were enough seats on the bus for all of us in the end.

Fantastic tour in a smaller coach. Our local tour guide, EchoHawk, was incredibly knowledgeable of the indigenous heritage and culture in Ketchikan and gave us a very personable and friendly afternoon. Would highly recommend over the larger, cruise line tours.

Meta (her name) was excellent and very knowledgeable about her culture and the sites we visited. I selected this tour from several similar ones, because I wanted to support the native people of the area and felt they could provide insights not available on other tours — which I felt she did.

Our tour guide Meta exceeded every expectation! She is so knowledgeable about Ketchikan’s land, history, wildlife, and people. She answered all our questions with detail. She was friendly, easy to talk to, and very engaging. I would highly recommend this tour, especially with Meta!

Meta was very knowledgeable and we learned a lot about the indigenous people in the area. We saw an Eagles nest, which was awesome and enjoyed the totem park. Would recommend this tour to anyone.

Dan was a very knowledgeable tour guide! He gave us an in depth history of Ketchikan and the native culture and customs. We visited the national Totem pole park which was super interesting, as well as getting to see the salmon that are spawning this time of year. We did go to a bear Lookout point and stayed for quite a while, but unfortunately, we had no bear sightings. Apparently we had missed a few of them earlier that morning. Unfortunately, these things are not planned so we were just out of luck in that respect. All in all, Dan was a wonderful tour guide and I would highly recommend him!

The offer seemed quite expensive in relation to what was provided. Unfortunately, the water bottle per person mentioned in the booking was not provided, and individual seat cushions on the bus were not clean. It was also noticeable that the bus did not stop at the announced end point of the tour, but the driver continued on without an announcement or goodbye. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding here, but for us, the situation was very unusual. Fortunately, our actual destination was not far away. On the other hand, the uncomplicated and flexible rebooking that we were able to take advantage of when our ship was delayed and we could not make the original appointment was very positive. That is why we are giving three stars – primarily because of this accommodating solution.