In a normal year, the big topic of conversation would have been the heavy summer rainfall or the December deluge that threatened to cause Ketchikan Lakes Dam to breach. Or it might have been the month-long visit of Phoenix the humpback whale who bubble fed just about every day for four weeks in November at the downtown Ketchikan docks.
But in Ketchikan, in 2020, the biggest news was the same as it was all over the world, the COVID-19 Pandemic and how it changed nearly every facet of our lives over the last nine months of the year.
COVID-19 arrived in March in the First City, and, by the end of the year, more than 250 residents and travelers had tested positive. One local woman, Julie Wasuli of Saxman, died from COVID-19 in December at a hospital in Bellingham, Washington.