Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan

This is the only attraction in Ketchikan where the main event is people competing at chopping, sawing and climbing wood as fast as possible. It is a staged timber-sports competition held in a covered, seated arena, not a working camp demonstration and not a museum. Two teams of lumberjacks face off across a series of events, an announcer calls the action, and the whole thing is built to finish in one hour.

The events are real competitive disciplines. Expect springboard chopping, where athletes chop notches into a tall pole and climb it using springboards, crosscut sawing with long two-person saws, axe throwing at targets, underhand chopping, speed climbing and log rolling, where the loser of each heat goes into the water. The athletes are competitive timber sportspeople, and the founder, Rob Scheer, is a three-time world champion in the 90-foot pole climb.

The show runs from May through September, with 1 to 6 performances daily depending on how many cruise ships are in port. Show times change every day because the schedule follows ship arrivals. There are two venues. The original downtown arena is at 420 Spruce Mill Way, a short walk from the cruise berths. A second venue opened at the Port of Ward Cove, right off the pier at 7789 North Tongass Highway, so passengers docking there can walk to it without riding into town.

Seating is covered and the site is described by the operator as handicap accessible for walkers, wheelchairs and electric scooters. At the Ward Cove venue, concessions sell popcorn, cookies, candy, soda, beer, wine and hot drinks, with a snack cart working the crowd during the show and a Company Store gift shop on site.

It suits almost every audience. There is no physical participation required, no wildlife to spot and no weather exposure, which is exactly why it is one of the most reliable bookings in a town where it rains 232.6 days a year in an average year (NOAA NCEI).

You arrive at an open-sided but fully covered arena with tiered seating around a central stage. The floor is built around tall wooden poles and a pool of water, because several events end with somebody falling in. You sit, you stay dry, and the action happens in front of you the whole hour.

The show opens with an introduction to the two teams, dressed in colors, usually framed as a rivalry between camps or regions. From there it moves through a sequence of head-to-head events, with the announcer scoring each one and the teams trading wins. The exact order varies, but the core events are consistent.

- Springboard chop and pole climb. Athletes chop pockets into a tall pole, slot in springboards, climb them and repeat until they reach the top, then hit a bell or a block at the top. This is the signature sight of the show, two climbers racing up separate poles. - Crosscut sawing. Two-person teams pull long bucking saws through upright logs, racing the other side. - Chopping events. Underhand and standing chops with razor-sharp axes, where each swinger cuts a clean disc out of a horizontal or vertical log. - Axe throwing. Competitors hurl hand axes at round targets, aiming for the bull's-eye, often turning it into a crowd-pleasing scoring round. - Log rolling. Two athletes sprint onto floating logs in the pool and spin them with their feet until one falls in. It usually ends the contest and produces the biggest cheer.

Between events there is banter, audience call-and-response and, at the Ward Cove venue, a snack cart selling popcorn, cookies, candy, soda, beer, wine and hot drinks while you watch. The arena is loud, fast and deliberately funny, with the announcer playing to kids in the front rows.

What you do not get is much about Ketchikan itself. This is pure sport and comedy, not a totem park or a history talk. If you want the town's own story afterward, the Tongass Historical Museum and Creek Street are both within walking distance of the downtown arena. The show sits on the former site of the Ketchikan Spruce Mill, built in 1898, once the world's largest spruce mill, which supplied lumber for the Klondike Gold Rush and WWII aircraft before closing in 1983. The arena keeps that connection in its setting, and a quick look at the waterfront outside rounds out the hour.

Start with the honest part. The official site does not publish a ticket price on its public pages. It describes the show, lists its venues and then funnels you into an online ticket-purchase flow, and only there does a figure appear. That matters if you want to compare costs before committing, so here is what secondary sources report instead.

| Item | Figure | Source type | | --- | --- | --- | | Adult ticket | $43.00 to $45.00 | Ticket resale and review sites (TripAdvisor FAQ, Vivid Seats) | | Child ticket | $23.00 | Ticket resale and review sites | | Military discount | about $7.00 off, max 2 tickets | Secondary ticket sites | | Official published price | not stated | The operator's own pages withhold it |

Treat these as reported figures, not published fares. The operator could change its pricing at any time without those third-party pages catching up. If the exact number matters to your budget, you have to enter the checkout flow on the official site to see it, or book a combination tour where the price is stated up front.

The schedule is easier. The show runs May through September, with 1 to 6 shows daily and one hour per show. Exact show times vary daily because the operator matches the cruise ship schedule, adding performances when more ships dock. There are no stated fixed clock hours, so check the specific showtimes for your date when you book. During the off season, October through April, the show does not run.

Two venues, two addresses:

- Downtown: 420 Spruce Mill Way, within walking distance of the cruise berths. - Port of Ward Cove: 7789 North Tongass Highway, right off the pier beside the Ward Cove cruise dock.

Make sure the ticket you buy names the venue you expect, especially if your ship docks at Ward Cove rather than downtown. If you want a stated, all-in price with the show included, the Lumberjack Show and Crab Feast combination publishes its fare openly, and other options sit in our Ketchikan tours list.

How you reach the show depends entirely on which venue your ticket is for, and where your ship ties up.

Downtown venue, 420 Spruce Mill Way, from Berths I to IV. This is the easy one. The arena is in the downtown waterfront area, close enough to walk from all four Panamax berths, which run south to north along the same waterfront. Walk ashore, head toward the creek end of town, and you are there in minutes without spending anything on transport. Pair the walk with Creek Street or the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center before your showtime.

Downtown venue from Ward Cove Dock. If your ship is at Ward Cove, about 7 miles north of downtown, take the complimentary shuttle run by The Mill at Ward Cove. It starts as soon as a ship arrives and runs continuously through the day to Berth IV downtown, taking about 20 minutes each way, and the operator suggests allowing 30 minutes to be safe. From Berth IV you walk to the arena. Check the last shuttle departure for your ship on the daily schedule PDF before you commit, because the shuttle's end time follows the ship schedule rather than a fixed clock time.

Ward Cove venue, 7789 North Tongass Highway. If your ship docks at Ward Cove and you booked the Ward Cove show, this is the simplest of all. The venue sits right off the pier, just left of the cruise dock, so you walk to it.

Ward Cove venue from downtown. This is the awkward combination. There is no published public transit route handed to visitors, no free shuttle runs downtown to Ward Cove in reverse for show customers, and no official page confirming taxi or independent pickup provision at Ward Cove. The realistic options are the Borough bus at $2.00 per adult ride if a route and timing work, or a combination tour that bundles transport. For most visitors the cleanest answer is to book the venue that matches their berth.

In short, walking works for the downtown venue from any downtown berth, the free shuttle plus a walk works from Ward Cove, and the Ward Cove venue is only straightforward if you are already docked there.

One line from the official page, verbatim, because it is the kind of detail nobody else prints: The show site is handicap accessible for walkers, wheelchairs and electric scooters (official)

The show itself is exactly one hour, and the official guidance agrees. How much of your port day it consumes depends on which routing you build around it.

Short ship call. Take the show alone, timed to a performance close to your berth, and treat it as your single booked activity. Walk from the ship, watch the hour, and browse the Company Store or the downtown shops afterward. This costs you about 90 minutes door to door from a downtown berth and leaves the rest of your call free for the tongass national forest viewpoints or a quick look at the totem displays downtown. What it skips is any paid excursion, so if bears or flightseeing are the priority, the show should be the thing you cut.

Full day in port. Put the show in the middle of the day. Morning, walk the creek street boardwalk and the married mans trail stairs. Midday, watch the show. Afternoon, take a longer excursion such as a rainforest walk or a lighthouse boat trip from our shore excursions list. This buys you the best coverage of downtown plus one big-ticket outing, and the show's covered arena sits happily in whatever weather the middle of the day brings.

Second visit. If you have seen the show before, skip it. It is scripted, so the second hour is much like the first. Instead, use the time it would take for misty fjords by floatplane or a bear-viewing trip, neither of which you can repeat often enough. If you are docked at Ward Cove on a repeat visit and want the easy win, the venue next to the pier still works as a low-effort hour with a crab feast attached.

The one-hour runtime is the same at both venues, so the venue choice affects travel time, not show length.

- The official website never shows a price on its public pages. You only see a figure inside the checkout flow, which is why every price you read elsewhere, including the reported $43.00 to $45.00 adult fare, comes from resale and review sites rather than the operator (nobody publishes this). - There are two separate venues, and tickets are venue specific. One is downtown at 420 Spruce Mill Way, the other is at the Port of Ward Cove at 7789 North Tongass Highway, right beside the cruise pier, and booking the wrong one for your berth costs you a 20-minute shuttle ride or worse (Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show). - Show times are set daily against the cruise ship schedule, with between 1 and 6 performances a day, so there is no fixed clock timetable you can plan around more than a day ahead (Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show). - The downtown arena stands on the former site of the Ketchikan Spruce Mill, built in 1898, once the world's largest spruce mill, which supplied lumber for the Klondike Gold Rush and WWII aircraft before closing in 1983 (Wikipedia). - The founder, Rob Scheer, is a three-time world champion in the 90-foot pole climb, one of the events you watch in the show (Wikipedia).