Ketchikan is... Where the Trees Come to Dance
Those who live here are called to interact with the forest for different reasons and in different ways.
Our commonality is the call. Harvesting wood has been fundamental to making life for as long trees have been here, about 8,000 years. (This was a dry pine forest until ice and water conspired to change it into a rainforest). Traditionally, cedar has been used for canoes, houses, baskets, clothing, rope, fish traps, art, and medicine. Early settlers, when they came, began hand logging the trees to build structures and walkways.
A spruce mill opened in 1903, and a pulp mill in 1954. While the spruce mill helped build the town, the pulp mill exploded it: what oil would be to the North, trees were here. Money and investments rolled in, bars lined the streets, and a tunnel was blasted through the cliff so that workers could more quickly be funneled out to the mill.
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