Ketchikan Story Project

Ketchikan is more than just a quaint-looking little hamlet on Alaska's fabled Inside Passage. It's also a bustling fishing community with a commitment to sustainability and quality that is unequaled around the world.

Southeast Alaska's Native Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples have imbued Ketchikan with a profound and palpable legacy-despite more than two generations of acculturation that forbade tribal arts, languages, and ceremonies. Thanks to the elders of the time, who worked hard to keep the embers of their Native traditions burning, SE Alaska's Native culture is growing and thriving today.

From the city buses to the totem parks, art is everywhere in Ketchikan. And the artists? They're everywhere, too - working in the canneries, on the fishing boats, behind the mayor's desk... This little island community is home to 350 registered artists. Not bad for a community of 13,000. As one local artist aptly states, "Ketchikan has definitely got talent on steroids."

Through all the industry booms-mining, fishing, logging, tourism-Ketchikan's storied bush pilots have been a lifeline, serving as scouts, air taxi drivers, medivacs, and the Pony Express all rolled into one.

Ketchikan, Alaska, is surrounded by the Tongass National Forest, arguably one of the most beautiful jewels in the U.S. Forest Service's crown. With 17M acres spanning the entire Alaskan panhandle, the Tongass is full of wildlife, waterfalls, salmon streams, and timber. Lots and lots of timber.

Incorporated in 1900, Ketchikan attracted a pastiche of pioneers-loggers, miners, fishermen, missionaries, bush pilots, bootleggers, and others-who started coming in the early part of the 20th century to find their fortunes, start a new life, save the lost, minister to the weary, live off the land, and/or misbehave.