June 25 to 28, 2016
Petersburg to Sitka is an 13 hour ferry ride, this one at
night. We booked the last available
cabin to be more comfortable and maybe get a decent night’s sleep. Good plan.
The berths were fairly comfortable, it was nice to have a place to leave
our belongings. The bathroom was bigger
than ours in the RV, with a shower that had more pressure than our house back
home. Arrival in Sitka was at 9 am, so
we headed immediately to the National Forest Campground nearby. I’m looking forward to hiking some of the
trails.
Since it was Sunday, the Visitor Center was closed. That is usually our first stop to find out
what to do and see. We decided to just
drive around, and found a gem. The
Fortress of the Bear is a rescue program that adopts orphaned bear cubs. Alaska has no rehabilitation program for
bears, they will not release them back into the wild, so orphaned cubs are
usually shot. This program adopts them,
acclimates them to human contact, and tries to rehome them to zoos and wildlife
parks. Currently there are 3 black bears
and 6 brown (grizzly) bears. They aren’t
really cubs anymore, but still young. It
was great watching them interact from the viewing platform.
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