Rainy Day Plans for Every Alaska Port

It will rain. Southeast Alaska is temperate rainforest and Ketchikan alone averages around 140 inches a year. The useful question is not how to avoid it but what to do in it, and the answer is different in every port.

The right mental model is not that rain interrupts an Alaska cruise but that it is the ordinary condition and a dry day is the bonus. Plan on that basis and a wet port day stops being a problem.

What still runs

Only the last two are genuinely at risk, which is why we advise booking anything airborne for the earliest slot in the port day so a later re flight is possible.

Ketchikan

The wettest port on the circuit, at around 140 inches a year, and the best equipped for it.

• Southeast Alaska Discovery Center, five minutes from the berth, ninety minutes, genuinely good
• Totem Heritage Center, original nineteenth century poles, indoors
• Creek Street under an umbrella of trees, and the salmon in the creek below from July
• Bering Sea crab fishermen's tour, which is covered
• Rainforest zipline, which runs regardless

Overcast is actually better for photographing totem poles, because direct sun destroys the carved detail.

Juneau

• Alaska State Museum, ninety minutes, ten minutes from the dock
• Mendenhall Glacier visitor centre, which is indoors with large windows onto the glacier
• Mount Roberts Tramway, though the summit view may be cloud
• Whale watching, which runs and is not diminished by rain
• Macaulay Salmon Hatchery, indoors and better than it sounds

The Mendenhall shuttle plus the visitor centre plus Nugget Falls in waterproofs is a perfectly good wet day.

Skagway

The driest port at around 26 inches a year, so this is the least likely place to need a plan.

• White Pass railway, entirely weather proof and the best excursion in Alaska
• Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park visitor centre, free
• Broadway with its covered boardwalks
• Red Onion Saloon tour
• Skagway Museum

See Skagway.

Sitka

• Alaska Raptor Center, largely covered, about an hour
• Fortress of the Bear, outdoor viewing but from covered platforms
• Sitka National Historical Park visitor centre with its Native cultural workshop
• Russian Bishop's House, indoors
• St Michael's Cathedral

The totem trail in Sitka National Historical Park is a mile of level path through rainforest, and it is arguably better in rain than in sun.

Icy Strait Point

• Cannery Museum, free and indoors
• The gondolas, enclosed
• Whale watching, which runs
• Restaurants at the site, which are covered

The site is compact and the gondolas remove the walking, which makes Icy Strait Point one of the easier wet weather ports.

Victoria

Usually an evening call, and Canada's mildest city.

• Butchart Gardens, which has covered areas and is beautiful in rain
• Royal BC Museum, if your call is during the day
• The Empress for afternoon tea
• Inner Harbour shops and restaurants

The gear that makes it fine

Three items turn a miserable wet day into a normal one:

1. A genuinely waterproof shell with a hood. Test it in a shower before you travel.
2. Waterproof shoes. Wet feet ruin a day faster than anything else.
3. A dry bag or waterproof pouch for camera and phone.

Skip the umbrella. Alaska rain arrives with wind and umbrellas invert. See the packing list.

What rain improves

• Glacial ice reads bluer under overcast skies than in bright sun
• Waterfalls in Tracy Arm and along the fjords multiply after rain
• Rainforest photographs far better in flat light
• Mist between islands is the classic Inside Passage image
• Crowds thin noticeably, which makes ports more pleasant

A grey day in Alaska is not a lost day. It is what the place actually looks like.