We stopped at the Anan Wildlife Observatory that's NW of Ketchikan on Thursday morning. They only allow sixty visitors a day and we were lucky to be three of them. We anchored out and took our tender up a creek to meet a Ranger who instructed us on how to safely hike the 1/2 mile trail to the viewing platform. The platform is near a small falls where black and brown bears along with eagles fish for salmon. It was an experience of a lifetime. We ran into one bear on the trail but he went on his way and left us alone. The viewing platform has a three foot fence around it and two park rangers to answer your questions. We were about 15 - 20 feet from this grizzly and just 5 - 10 feet from some black bears. The mothers had the cutest little cubs. The bald eagles were everywhere and very close.

Thursday night we stayed at Wrangell, a wonderful small Alaskan fishing town. We all had the most wonderful fresh prawns (large shrimp) for supper. There is an 18 foot tide here and a fisherman parked his boat on a Grid at high tide so he could work on it when the tide went out.