Tourism

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council took a step toward regulating unguided boats that anglers pay to use for halibut fishing. The council may require those boats to be registered and may also impose more restrictive charter bag limits on the customers that utilize them.

With the departure of the Westerdam and the Norwegian Pearl, Juneau’s 2018 cruise season has come to an end. Some in the local tour industry are already concerned about the growing number of visitors each year.

Attorneys sparred over the constitutionality of Juneau’s head tax levied on cruise ship passengers. The oral arguments in federal court could be a prelude of things to come as the lawsuit heads toward trial.

Alaska regulators have sent nine air quality violation notices for cruise ships in Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Haines and Seward. That’s as more than 134 people have called the state’s hotline to report cruise ship air pollution.

Officials say exhaust emissions from a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel docking in Juneau prompted at least 10 complaints to an Alaska regulatory agency.

That’s when outsiders started showing up in Kaktovik: tourists, who wanted to see polar bears before they went extinct.