Onward to Sitka

After a full day at sea and some fun activities, the parachute egg drop, ring toss for a bottle of champagne, and our favorite, cocktail tasting, it was time to put in to dock at another Alaskan town, Sitka. As with all of Alaska, Sitka was once a Russian village mainly used for hunting and fishing. Otters seemed to be the fur of choice and the Russians nearly hunted them to extinction.

Not sure I mentioned this but the United States purchased Alaska from Russia March 30, 1867. The purchase was ratified by the Senate in October of that year and was one of the best purchases ever made for $7.2M dollars! The purchase was nicknamed, Seward’s Folly because lots of folks thought it was a waste of money. You don’t hear that much anymore.

Anyway, Sitka is our next stop. The cruise dock is a bit of a walk to reach town, about 5 miles! Fortunately, there are buses waiting to haul us cruisers downtown. Collette and I decided not to do a tour but instead chose to wander the streets looking for a nice little crab house for lunch. Well, we should have taken a tour. Sitka is a lot like some of our mountain towns with a few bars, grocery stores, banks, clothing stores and other shops that all close on Sunday. Huh, wouldn’t you know it. Still, with a cruise ship in port, you would think they would make an exception to capture a few bucks from the 2,000 people wandering the street. Nope.

Russian Orthodox Church

Downtown Sitka

The 3,276th totem pole we saw

Monument to the prospector

The Russian Bishops House / Orphanage

Downtown (the other way)

Fishing fleet

So, our trek for a crab house went on to no avail. We found a couple of restaurants that were open but nothing we wanted to try. As a result, you get to see pictures of the town. BTW- Sitka is not only the largest city in Alaska, but also the United States. The city encompasses 2,870.3 square miles! And not a single crab house open on Sunday?

Mount Edgecumbe, a dormant volcano, 3,202feet tall.

One of hundreds of islands around Sitka