Tourism

Just days before the relaxation of some travel restrictions at the U.S.–Canada border, Canadian workers are warning of long delays at the border because of a labor dispute.

Some 9,000 employees of the Canada Border Services Agency announced a partial strike starting Friday, Aug. 6. The workers are seeking a new contract.

The Canadian Broadcasting Company reports that the partial strike means employees will still be at work but will only do the minimum amount of work required under contract.

Unions representing the border agents say that could mean long and unavoidable delays. On Friday, a Canadian government travel website listed wait times at some crossing spots as long as two hours, though others had no delays.

Monday, Aug. 9 is the planned opening of the Canadian border to fully vaccinated Americans. The border has been closed to non-essential travel since March of 2020.

UPDATE Aug 8 at 10 a.m.

Authorities have released the names of the five cruise ship visitors and pilot killed in Thursday’s floatplane crash in Misty Fjords National Monument.

The Southeast Aviation pilot was identified as 64-year-old Rolf Lanzendorfer of Cle Elum, Washington. A LinkedIn profile says he’s worked as a commercial pilot for the Ketchikan-based company for more than six years.

The five Holland America Line cruise ship passengers killed were identified as:

• Mark Henderson, 69, of Napa, Calif.
• Jacquelyn Komplin, 60, of Napa, Calif.
• Andrea McArthur, 55, of Woodstock, Georgia
• Rachel McArthur, 20, of Woodstock, Georgia
• Janet Kroll, 77, of Mount Prospect, Illinois

The bodies of the six people were recovered on Saturday afternoon, officials said in a statement. Alaska State Troopers and members of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad arrived at the crash site at 1:45 p.m. Saturday, the state Department of Public Safety said in a statement. It says they will be transported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

Original story 

Six people were killed in a flightseeing plane crash near Ketchikan Thursday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The de Havilland Beaver crashed eight miles northeast of Ketchikan, in the area of Misty Fjords National Monument. A pilot and five passengers aboard were on board.

In a statement, Holland America Line said the five passengers had come to Alaska on one of its cruise ships, the Nieuw Amsterdam, which stopped in Ketchikan on Thursday. The passengers were on a floatplane excursion with an independent tour operator, the cruise line said.

The Coast Guard got an emergency signal from the de Havilland Beaver around 11:20 a.m., said Petty Officer Eli Teller. The Coast Guard, Alaska State Troopers, U. S. Forest Service and Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad responded.

Teller said the distress signal came from about 1,400-feet elevation in the Misty Fjords area. Bad weather hampered the search at first, he said.

According to the Coast Guard, a helicopter spotted the plane’s wreckage on a ridgeline.

Rescuers reached the site just after 2:30 p.m. A Coast Guard helicopter lowered two rescuers, but they found no survivors, the Coast Guard said.

Holland America said the plane excursion was independently operated by Southeast Aviation and not sold by the cruise line. It said the passengers were on a seven-day Alaska cruise that left Seattle on Saturday.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of the victims and with our guests and team members who are affected by this tragedy,” the cruise line said.

Misty Fjords National Monument is a popular flightseeing destination, especially with cruise ship passengers.

In 2019, a midair collision between two flightseeing planes in the Misty Fjords area killed six people. In 2015, nine people died when a flightseeing plane slammed into a mountainside in Misty Fjords.

Alaska Public Media’s Tegan Hanlon and Julia O’Malley contributed to this report.

This story has been updated.

In 2020, COVID-19 shook up Talkeetna’s economy. Businesses shut down early in the year and saw only a partial reopening over the summer. This year, things may look like they’re getting back to normal — but it’s not at all business as usual.

The streets of Talkeetna have been full this summer. In a typical year, most visitors would arrive in Alaska on cruise ships or by traveling through Canada in an RV. But this year the cruise industry is a fraction of its normal size, and the Canadian border is still closed to tourists.

Still, Anita Golton of Flying Squirrel Bakery says business is even higher than before the pandemic.

“It’s very busy. I would say much busier that anybody expected,” she said. “I haven’t had time to really look at the numbers, but maybe 25% busier than two summers ago, before COVID.”

She’s noticed a difference in the clientele this year.

“Flying Squirrel is kind of geared toward independent travelers, and in a normal summer most of them would be on buses or coming off the train. This year everyone is an independent traveler. Maybe 90% of the travelers coming to Talkeetna are coming in a rental car,” she said.

Normally, an increase in customers would be great news. But Golton says there haven’t been enough workers to meet the increased demand. She says she’s not the only restaurant with this problem.

“I see all of the restaurants adapting and doing their best to make it work,” she said. “Most businesses have decided to close one day a week or open an hour later or some adaptation that makes it work for their business, so that the staff that they do have is healthy and happy and able to keep this going for another two months.”

DeAnn Autrey, a local realtor, says the housing market has been brisk, too. But that’s not necessarily good news for local businesses and seasonal workers.

“Our listings here in Talkeetna are up 40%. Our sales are way up too. We are up 52% over last year,” she said.  “I think a lot of people that were maybe living in Anchorage full time, and both husband and wife maybe working full time, have kind of re-evaluated their lives and they like what Talkeetna has to offer.”

And it’s not just folks from Anchorage buying Talkeetna homes.

“We’re definitely seeing an influx of out-of-state people moving up to Alaska,” Autrey said. “I currently have nine pending sales and out of those nine, three of them are from the lower forty-eight.”

According to Autrey, not all the buyers have plans to move in, which means fewer long-term rentals and fewer housing options for local workers.

“They’re looking for homes that they can Airbnb when they’re not using them,” she said. “Then when they want to come up and use them, they will just plot those dates for themselves.”

Sarah Stevens, director of Sunshine Station Childcare, says she’s having a hard time finding workers, too.

“It kind of went back to business as usual except that we don’t really have any employees,” she said.

Stevens says most of her staff left during the pandemic. She’s trying to juggle keeping the center open with limited staff.

“People need childcare, but I’m having to turn parents and kids away to stay in ratio because I can’t staff it,” she said.

The state mandates a minimum staff-to-child ratio, so without daycare workers, Stevens can only accept a limited number of children. But she also feels the lack of international workers is causing a ripple effect for people who need to fill positions.

“I definitely think we don’t have as many seasonal people as we normally do,” she said. “There aren’t any visas this year, and so the lodge is taking up a lot of the local people. And now everybody’s just trying to work seven jobs.”

The J-1 Visa is a cultural, international exchange program. Hotels and restaurants often participate by bringing in workers from other countries, providing temporary housing and employment.

In June 2020, former President Donald Trump placed restrictions on the J-1 program. Those restrictions expired on April 1st, but the program has been struggling to catch up and process the visas. On April 30th, the U.S. state department released a tier structure for prioritizing visa processing. The J-1 employment visa was in the bottom tier.

At Talkeetna restaurants, wait times for food are longer with smaller staffs. Golton says customers are responding with patience.

“I think a lot of people come from bigger cities where they’re used to waiting in line for things,” she said. “We’re used to something kind of different in Talkeetna, where lines seem out of the ordinary. But overall, people have been very, very patient and grateful that we’re open. And if you smile at them, they smile back.”

Tourist season will be winding down soon. It’s an open question whether the economic changes brought by the pandemic will last.

One thing that Talkeetna residents can count on is winter. Winter means time to rejuvenate and prepare for whatever might happen next.

For the first time ever, the largest cruise ship to visit Alaska has made its way to Ketchikan.

At 1,138 feet long and 136 feet wide, the Ovation of the Seas ship loomed over downtown when it docked at Berths 1 and 2. As the only cruise ship in town, there was plenty of space to accommodate it.

Ketchikan Mayor Bob Sivertsen says its ability to easily fit is partially thanks to the sparse roster of cruise ships this year.

“It may be more difficult during a very, very busy season,” he said. “So the timing, and the placement of it is going to be even more of a challenge. But Ketchikan’s up to the challenge.” 

Royal Caribbean Director of Destination Development Preston Carnahan said it took years of work and coordination to get a ship of this size here — including removing a navigational hazard in the Tongass Narrows.

That meant blasting a rock pinnacle located near Berth 2.

“By removing that rock, it basically makes a much safer waterway,” he said. “And that was kind of in cooperation with everyone to bring bigger ships that have a deeper draft.”

The project finished up last year, but he said the pandemic halted any plans to send a ship of this class to Ketchikan. That is, until now. August 2 was the first time that the ship has docked in the city, and cruise director Dan Whitney says it’s also the ship’s first port call in Alaska since the pandemic started.

“It’s exciting to get back because you just didn’t know  when that was going to happen,” he said. “And for it to be happening now, i’s almost surreal.”

It’s not carrying paying passengers. This is a simulated voyage mandated by CDC guidelines. It’s a dry run of sorts to show that pandemic mitigation protocols can be applied. Typically, the Ovation of the Seas can fit more than 4,000 passengers, but just under 600 were on the ship this time, said Carnahan. And he said it won’t be stopping in Ketchikan again this season.

“I think today is significant because it opens the door for the future of this class of ships to start coming to Ketchikan,” he said. “And I think this class of ship is the future in Alaska.”

Carnahan said the preparation for this milestone is significant. It wasn’t just the most recent changes, he said, but a legacy of them.

“It doesn’t happen in a year. And Ketchikan and Ketchikanites have adapted over the last, say, five to 10 years to make this happen,” he said. “So this didn’t happen by accident.”

Ketchikan Mayor Bob Sivertsen said that the city will continue to adapt next year. There’s no word on when this specific cruise ship will be back, but the city is looking ahead to a fuller season in 2022.

With Ketchikan’s 2021 cruise season underway, the downtown cruise ship docks aren’t as quiet as they once were. Two large cruise ships tied up in the community over the weekend, and more are due later in the week.

And though news later broke of a COVID-19 case aboard the Celebrity Millennium, residents and business owners say they’re glad to see the economy getting a little bit closer to pre-pandemic normal.

But the waterfront isn’t exactly buzzing.

Adrianna North was walking her blue heeler Zoë down the docks on Sunday. The Celebrity Millennium towered over the Tongass Trading Company dock store.

“It’s not crowded,” she said. “I was expecting it to be more crowded. But there’s only the one cruise ship, so it’s a little bit different. It’s kind of nice actually seeing different people. I like it.”

She says it’s nothing like the pre-pandemic crowds — and she likes it that way.

“A few years ago, I would take her walking and it was really crowded, like going through a maze,” she said. “But now it’s kind of nice because there’s not so many people.”

The 1,300 or so passengers who came on the Millennium — about half the ship’s capacity — seem to be enjoying their trip to Alaska.

“We love it!” said Corinn Murphy, a high school earth science teacher from New York. “I’m looking forward to taking a look at glaciers live in person and taking pictures for my students for September.”

The cruise lines say 95% of the passengers are fully vaccinated. And that includes Murphy and her daughter Sara. She says the line has provided hand sanitizer, masks and plenty of space, so she’s not concerned about COVID-19.

And though downtown Ketchikan isn’t as packed as it was in 2019, Orca Jewels co-owner Ali Hussein says he’s just glad to see a thousand-foot vessel dominating the skyline.

“It’s a little more fun, and it gets you going,” he said. “I mean, I was excited to wake up this morning just to see that cruise ship! It was really, really pretty awesome.”

His business partner, Tamarah Street, says it’s a different experience with so many fewer people in town.

“I’ve had a couple of the tourists say, ‘Oh, it’s not like it used to be because there’s hardly anybody on the ship, and there’s hardly anybody in town,’ and I’m almost like — that’s got to be kind of nice,” she said. “Even though we’re looking for full capacity, you’ve got to just appreciate it for what it is.”

She says she’s working on making the most of this short, low-volume cruise season.

Ketchikan is scheduled to round out this week with its first calls from Holland America and Princess ships. Another seven ships are scheduled to tie up in Ketchikan next week, including two on Sunday.

Cruise tourism’s restart after a nearly two-year hiatus is bringing hope for a revived economy in Southeast — but also safety concerns on ship and shore.

Nearly a dozen passengers have tested positive for COVID-19 in the first week of large cruise ships’ return to Alaska.

Still, fully-vaccinated cruise passengers have not shown symptoms beyond those of a mild cold, according to cruise companies. And port cities report climbing case counts come from residents, not tourists.

KTOO’s Claire Stremple spoke with Alaska Public Media’s Casey Grove about Southeast Alaska’s 2021 COVID-19 cruise season.

Listen here:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Claire Stremple: In the last week, there have only been about nine COVID-19 cases on cruise ships. Cruise ships are requiring vaccinations.

But the Celebrity Millennium reported a first breakthrough case — that’s a COVID-19 case in a vaccinated person — that was discovered over the weekend. That was the first case detected on a large cruise ship.

That was followed by seven cases on an UnCruise boat — that’s a small local cruise adventurer company. And those people were also fully vaccinated, per the company’s policy.

Yesterday, another case was reported on American Cruise Lines’ American Constellation, and that’s the small cruise boat that got hit with a cluster of over a dozen cases earlier this month.

So, cruises are finding these cases because they test anyone with symptoms.

Casey Grove: How bad have the symptoms been, and how are the patients being treated?

Claire Stremple: Cruise lines are reporting only mild, cold-like symptoms so far. Remember, these people are vaccinated, so they have some defense against the virus.

Casey Grove: What are the folks in cruise port communities saying about this?

Claire Stremple: Officials are saying they expected some cases to come with this season. For example, Skagway is one of the remote communities hardest hit by the last year and a half without cruising. They got their first big boat, the Celebrity Millennium, in there on Tuesday. That’s the ship that reported a positive case in Juneau on Monday. That passenger was medevaced out of town. They’re no longer on the ship. But Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata says he’s encouraging folks to wear their masks.

Andrew Cremata: I think it’s perfectly normal to expect that there are going to be COVID cases. The question is: Have the proper precautions been taken to ensure the spread is minimalized — and the community, the passengers onboard the vessel, are protected? That has been the real work over the last year and a half.

Claire Stremple: Again, these cases are mostly ending up in Juneau. The infected passengers from UnCruise are isolating in a Juneau hotel. And the infected crew is isolating onboard the UnCruise vessel in Juneau’s port. Juneau officials maintain there’s minimal risk to the community. They say none of the passengers have circulated in Juneau as tourists.

Casey Grove: What does it say about the safety of either going on a cruise or the risk of exposure to Alaskans? Is this indicative of further spread?

Claire Stremple: It’s a little too soon to tell. Large cruise lines have been back for only a week. They’ve reported one case. Smaller lines have been on the water longer and have reported more cases. The cruise numbers still look good compared to statewide or nationwide averages.

In Juneau, the last two weeks have been the biggest COVID weeks since the beginning of the pandemic. But Juneau Deputy City Manager Robert Barr says those cases aren’t from cruises.

Robert Barr: The main risk is not from cruise ships, and not from tourists. The significant majority of cases that we’re seeing are among our residents. And as we’re able to contact trace those investigations, it’s clear that they’re not coming from tourism.

Casey Grove: Okay, Claire, are cruises to Alaska at risk because of all this?

Claire Stremple: There’s no sign of that so far. And so far, that seems to be a municipality-level decision. In Juneau, there’s no hard-and-fast threshold where the city will cancel cruises. Official say they’re taking things on a case-by-case basis.