Ketchikan, Alaska

Ketchikan is an old frontier town with old wooden boardwalks and a street that used to house a red light district back in gold prospecting days. There are also many totem poles around town, and tourist shops and....that's pretty much it. Oh, and it rains a lot.

Chris saw a place on the tourist map that said Eagle Viewing, so when we were on the free tourist shuttle bus, I asked the young driver about it. He squinted at my map as if he'd never seen his hometown laid out on paper before, and said, "Eagle Viewing area? I don't know what that is. I never look at a map here." (In a town of 8,000 people the locals don't generally feel the need to consult a map.)

I said, "I mean, is it even... would there be eagles around, this time of year? Is it worth looking?"

"The best place I can think of would be right next to E.C. Phillips," he said. "You might see some from there."

"E...C.... Phillips?" I'm looking at my map.

"Next stop," he said, starting up the bus.

At the next stop, he told us to go over to what looked like a warehouse parking lot by the shore and look back towards the trees. We crunched across the gravel as the bus pulled away, and looked around aimlessly. Here, eagle-eagle.

"Hear that?" Chris said suddenly.

I had heard it, but hadn't quite registered it. An eagle cry. I turned just in time to see the eagle who had just shrieked above us, swoop in and land in one of the trees behind us. A tree that, now that Eagle #1 had so kindly focused our attention, we saw held 2 additional eagles. The tree next to it held two also.

Before moving to the Pacific Northwest I never dreamed I would see that many bald eagles in my lifetime, much less all in one place. As we walked back toward town, our highest count was 12 eagles. We watched one clean his feathers, clear as day through the binoculars.

Thank you, young bus driver who's never heard of the Eagle Viewing Area but knows where you might see some eagles.Read more