Ketchikan: A Town of Contrast

Ketchikan is a town with a population of 8,000 to 18,000, depending on the time of day. Unlike urban areas in which the downtown population swells with workers during the day, Ketchikan’s population swells and shrinks with the arrival and departure of up to four giant cruise ships at a time. When the ships are in, the town is swarmed with people. The “natives” tend to be dressed in worn and creased jeans, the “boat people” tend to have distressed jeans, with the creases ironed in. The picture above tries to illustrate this contrast in another way (that's a yacht, not a cruise ship).