Blog
3/9/24: Record year for Alaska Cruise Ships?
Standby Alaska Cruise Ports: The numbers aren’t final, but due to always bigger ships and booming demand, there’s a good chance that 2024 will beat the record set in 2023 when 50 ships made 700+ sailings and delivered 1.65 million passengers to the tranquil villages of the panhandle.
But gone, gone, gone are the days when the good merchants and restauranteurs of Skagway were excited to stay open late when a dozen salmon boats and maybe 25 fishermen tied up in September, 1973, back when the occasional Alaska State ferry visit was the biggest visitor action in town. - I was one of those fishermen, my first time ever in Skagway and what a magical, lost in time, empty streets place it seemed.
But the good thing is that really, you don’t have to go ashore. If you look out from your ship after breakfast, planning your day, and Skagway looks a little too crowded - as it might, a town of maybe 900 with 10,000 visitors on a four or five ship day. On board ship there might be go-kart tracks (Norwegian Bliss and Norwegian Encore and others) or bumper cars, surfing and even sky diving (Ovation of the Seas: in a large plastic transparent tube where up-flowing air can give a weightless feeling and surfing on this pumped water thingie called FlowRider). But seriously - Skagway is a not-to-be-missed port - But I have noticed that at every port there are a few passengers, usually older couples, that simply like to sit companionably, read their book, eat their lunch, and watch the action outside, not to mention enjoying the peace inside with most passengers ashore.
2/23/24: Oops... 50’ x 500’ Floating cruise dock bound for Skagway breaks apart during bad weather!
The dock was built in Washington State and towed to Ketchikan. After waiting for better weather, the big floating dock left Ketchikan on Valentine’s Day, but encountered bad weather in Clarence Straits and broke into three pieces, which were eventually salvaged and towed back into Ketchikan. Examination of the damage yielded hopes that the float could be repaired and installed in Skagway in time for the bulk of the cruise season starting in June.
Ironically the giant float had already made it across what are considered the most challenging parts of the trip - Queen Charlotte Sound in British Columbia and Dixon Entrance on the Alaska-Canada border.
Stay tuned...
3/2/24 - Iditarod Starts With Fewest Mushers In 50-year History.
Typically the almost 1,000 mile race will attract 50 or so mushers with teams of 12-14 dogs each. (And five still have to be hooked up in order to qualify as a finisher). The 2024 field will be just 33 teams. Originally begun in 1973 to commemorate the 1918 dogsled run to Nome with desperately needed Diptheria serum, it became a very competitive world renown event, essentially the Grand Prix of dogsled racing. Usually the mushers would take 8-12 days to get to Nome.
3/7/24: Iditarod Dogsledder Penalized For Improperly Gutting Moose.
Barely 12 hours after the legendary 1,000-mile multiday dogsled race started, musher Dallas Seavey’s team got tangled up with a wayward moose, which Seavey killed around 1 a.m. to save his dogs from becoming injured. Race rules specify that if a musher kills a big game animal like a moose, caribou or buffalo in defense of life or property during the race, he or she must gut the animal. Seavey, a five-time Iditarod champion, apparently did not gut the moose to the judge’s satisfaction and was given a two-hour time penalty.
As Seavey put it, “I gutted it the best I could, but it was ugly,”
2/25/24 - Will Klawock be ready for the its first ships?
After the Huna’s tribe’s success of converting a disused cannery into a cruise port - Icy Strait Point - the town fathers of the Tlingit village of Klawock are hoping to greet their first cruise ships this summer. Klawock, with around 800 souls, is located on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island, NW of Ketchikan. Initially the plan had been to start in 2023, using an old logging dock, but challenges in getting the dock ready in time delayed the start until the 2024 season.
Starting with a modest 6 ship visits this summer (2 each from the Regatta, Seven Seas Explorer and Seabourn Odyssey) visitors will have a much more authentic experience than in the major SE Alaska ports, highlighting traditional native culture, visits to the totem park, as well as sports fishing opportunities. If anyone doubts the need for another Alaska cruise port, try walking down Franklin Street in Juneau with 10,000 visitors.
3/10/24 - Low Yukon River chum salmon runs pose challenges to natives.
Most native villages across the wide swath of the Yukon and Kuskokwim River drainages (essentially much of interior Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada) do not have road access, and receive much of their supplies by barge up the rivers from Seattle. But when the rivers freeze any fresh food comes in by expensive bush plane. For these villagers - the old ways - hunting and gathering was the best and most economical way to supplement “store bought” food.
For generations strong chum runs (also called dogs or dog salmon) and the dry warm summers allowed the natives to smoke and dry large amounts of fish to provide wholesome winter protein both for dog teams and humans. But starting around 2000 for complex reasons, the runs declined substantially to the point where only a limited amount of subsistence fishing has been allowed in recent years.
Resource managers hope that the uptick in Yukon salmon populations in 2023 continues allowing drainage wide harvests in the future.
3/10/24 - Historical Bristol Bay salmon cannery for sale.
In a move suggesting a weak salmon market for 2024, Trident Seafoods, Alaska’s largest seafood processor, announced that it is selling the Diamond NN cannery in South Naknek Alaska. Initially built by a crew brought up on a square rigger from San Francisco in 1890, it operated continuously during the summer salmon season until 2015. Recent record red salmon runs to the Bay have resulted in lower prices and reduced demand. As one salmon processor told me, “Even if we had gotten the fish for free we would have lost money.” This view was not reflected at my local Safeway where thawed frozen Bristol Bay fillets were going for around fifteen bucks a pound.
