Three large totems greet you in the lobby of this center run by the National Park Service (NPS), while a school of silver salmon suspended from the ceiling leads you toward a slice of re-created temperate rainforest. Upstairs, the exhibit hall features sections on Southeast Alaska’s ecosystems and Alaska Native traditions.

　　You can even view wildlife here: there’s a spotting scope trained on Deer Mountain for mountain goats, while underwater cameras in Ketchikan Creek let you watch thousands of salmon struggling upstream to spawn.