Alaska’s Risky Bet on Cruises

Executive Producer: Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Additional Production: Kaitlin Armstrong
Editor: Meg Driscoll
Original Music: Catherine Anderson
Mixing and Sound Design: Emma Munger
Engineers: Al Banks, Charlie Kaier, Diana Martinez
Tile Art: Nick Rogacki

Peak Travel is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

[SOUND OF SEAGULLS CHIRPING, CAR DOOR OPENING]
WANDA KASHUDOHA CULP: Here we are. If you want to come in and spend a little bit of time, and make a plan and move from there.
KAITLIN ARMSTRONG, PRODUCER: That sounds great.
TARIRO MZEZEWA, HOST: Producer Kaitlin Armstrong is speaking with Kashudoha, a native Tlingit woman who’s reflecting on her favorite memories from her childhood in Hoonah, Alaska.
[MUSIC]
WKC: This is where I’m most happy, is out on the land, in the woods, or on the water, or on the beach.
TM: Hoonah is on Chichagof Island in the southeast region of Alaska.
WKC: I was raised in Hoonah, a Tlingit village about 40 miles west from Juneau.
TM: Kashudoha said it was an idyllic place for her and her family to grow up.
WKC: The fishermen would come in and bring us salmon, if they would be out getting beach food like gumboots or clams and cockles. The nice sunny hot days, without even planning it, we would all know we were going down to the cannery to spend the day just cruising, you know, exploring the area or just laying around in the sun. And that is where we would picnic, and also, beach asparagus would grow there. Easy to harvest.
TM: Back then, the spot where she and her family spent so much time was just a wild patch of land near the water. Outside of their conversations and the occasional seagull, it was mostly quiet. But in 2001, local leaders broke ground on Icy Strait Point, a privately owned cruise port. And now, her picnic spot looks completely different.
WKC: Now overrun with tourists, four-wheelers, the whole nine yards, no more beach asparagus, it’s all stepped on. You don’t want to pick it.
TM: The port was specifically built as a dock for massive cruise ships. Some of them carried more than three times the population of the town, which was just under 900 people at the time.
ANDREW ENGELSON: The ships are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, you know, from the days of, like, the Titanic.
TM: Andrew Engleson is a journalist who has reported on cruise ships. He says there are a lot of reasons why they’re so appealing for many tourists.
AE: It’s very accessible. Like if you’re older or you have mobility issues, you know, it just, it’s this whole little city, basically. Pretty much all of your needs are taken care of, you know? You have a hotel, lots of restaurants, swimming pools.
TM: Cruises continue to be quite popular, raking in almost $8 billion in 2022, and remain one of the most beloved ways to travel.
[THEME MUSIC]
That growth has continued despite bad press for cruises in recent years.
[SOUND OF NEWSCASTS]
NEWSCASTER 1: “A cruise nightmare. We’re getting some shocking new video tonight from aboard a Carnival cruise ship.“
NEWSCASTER 2: “Nine stories high, 65,000 tons, and out of control. The MSC Opera plows into Venice’s quayside.”
NEWSCASTER 3: “How did cruise ships become such a catastrophe for the planet?”
TM: From WHYY, this is Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa. Today, we’re looking at why, in the face of global criticism, cruises dominate the tourism industry. We’ll visit two towns in Alaska where the ships have taken hold, becoming the main source of income, and meet two women who are fighting the influence of cruises on their communities.
[MIDROLL BREAK]
[SOUND OF WAVES CRASHING, BIRDS CHIRPING]
Hoonah is known for its stunning, natural beauty and its indigenous, largely Tlingit community. Before tourism, it had other industries.
JOHAN HINCHMAN: Every salmon that was ever canned here at Hoonah Packing Company or Icy Strait Salmon Company, every fish came into this fish house by a mechanical elevator. And so inside this building, you can see pictures with like 20,000 salmon laying on that floor.
TM: Johan Hinchman, the director of special projects for Icy Strait Point, is giving Kaitlin a history lesson on the port of Hoonah. He says in the late ‘90s, the fishing and logging industries, which had sustained the town, were in decline.
JH: The fishing had gone down. The timber business had gone down. There were very few jobs.
TM: By the year 2000, Hoonah was in rough shape. The unemployment rate was 20% and rising. People were moving out to find work in other places. Ed Phillips, owner of Icy Strait Lodge, says that before cruises, his economic prospects were dire.
ED PHILLIPS: Everybody was leaving. I was stuck. I was really, literally, it was do or die. [Laughter]
TM: Developers from the cruise industry saw their opportunity and seized it.
[MUSIC]
In 2003, they commissioned a consulting group to present a report on the economic benefits of bringing ships to the small town. The report was written with input from cruise company executives. The group proposed that the town invest in a deep water facility, where large vessels could dock. It also suggested building shops and restaurants in the area to accommodate big groups of visitors. They’d call the new privately owned port Icy Strait Point, and a portion of the revenue they’d bring in would go back to the Tlingit community. Hoonah city manager Dennis Quaid — not that one — says it wasn’t a quick process.
DENNIS QUAID: The crux was the city of Hoonah had very little money to support extending the water main out to ISP. And so we had a huge debate, six months back and forth, whether we should do it or not.
TM: Ultimately, local leaders decided to build the port.
DQ: We ended up spending our last savings account to extend the water line to Icy Strait Point to facilitate their construction.
TM: The people Kaitlin spoke with say the boost in tourism has turned Hoonah’s economy around over the last 20 years. Dennis has seen it firsthand.
DQ: We did it, and it’s paid off in spades. We’ve gotten that money back tenfold. So to give you some historical perspective, when I was in the council in the ‘90s, 1% of our sales tax represented about $140,000 in revenue; 1% of sales tax now is a half million dollars in revenue. And so that gives you the picture of the growth from local revenue captured to outside revenue captured for tourism.
TM: Welcoming cruises has allowed the town to invest back into itself.
DQ: It’s given us extra resources from the cruise ship passenger vessel tax that happens. We use that to match, to build wastewater and water improvements in town that impacts residents and visitors alike, which has been a huge plus for the town. You can look at jobs we’ve created just for supporting tourism itself.
TM: Johan says that in order to facilitate this kind of growth, Hoonah regularly has to handle a lot of people at once.
JH: For a community of 950 people, we’ve been able to accommodate as many as 11,000 guests onshore.
TM: But the cruises don’t just bring 11,000 people to the port.
[MUSIC]
AE: There’s an array of impacts. You know, these are run-on diesel engines. They put out a lot of CO2. I think we calculated it, like, one cruise is equivalent to 600 cars, like, running for a year.
TM: Andrew has reported on issues with cruises in cities across the U.S.
AE: They have to drop off a bunch of trash. You have to treat the sewage, you have gray water that comes out, and those things all go back out into the ocean.
TM: Gray water is the wastewater generated from kitchen sinks, showers, and laundry. Because it contains contaminants, it can deplete oxygen levels in ocean water and harm aquatic life.
AE: There’s ship engine noise that can affect killer whales.
TM: For these whale populations, engine noise can interfere with echolocation and communication, disrupting their feeding and social behaviors. And ships that dock near coastal ecosystems, like Hoonah’s, can destroy habitats for sea turtles, fish, and crabs.
AARON BRAKEL: We rely on these waters for our food and our economy. And our relationship with the land and water is really important.
TM: Aaron Brakel works for the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, which combines science and grassroots advocacy to support environmental efforts in the state. He’s worried that, when communities embrace cruise ships, they make massive compromises to their quality of life.
AB: We need to think about this in a broader perspective, what’s happening as a result of inviting these sharply increasing numbers of cruise ships and passengers into our communities? Because there are no positive environmental impacts from bringing these large vessels.
TM: At this point, Aaron feels the best we can do is mitigate the damage.
AB: So we’re all in this responsibility about, how do we limit the negative impacts? And we’re not engaged in that right now. But we do really encourage people to think deeply about the broad-scale impacts of the cruise ship industry.
[MUSIC]
TM: So far, the industry faces few consequences for its actions. In 2011, officials fined Holland America just $17,000 for dumping 85,000 liters of untreated greywater into Glacier Bay. That’s the equivalent of the fare for just 11 passengers. As the industry grows, it’s worsening an already bad situation.
AB: The context, of course, is we are in this period of very serious climate change. We are experiencing that tremendously here in southeast Alaska with the melting of our glaciers, the increase in these large flood events. The warmer air in the Pacific Ocean carries more moisture and so we’re seeing that. There’s a global ecological species extinction crisis.
TM: He thinks it would be a mistake to only consider the economic benefits of cruises and tourism.
AB: This is an amazing place doing really, really valuable things for the whole world. So it’s very, very, very important for us to think about the impacts not just in terms of the economy, but the ecology.
TM: Andrew says the people of Hoonah still wrestle with these economic and ecological trade-offs.
AE: It’s a big economic benefit for that group. But at the same time, I talk to people who’ve left the town because it’s changed, and it doesn’t feel like a native community anymore. It’s like Disneyland. It’s a theme park.
TM: Kashudoha is one of those residents who left town. She moved to Juneau in 2021.
WKC: Tourism came on us so hard that there was no transition for us. It was just a matter of survival.
TM: She left in part because she felt she could no longer enjoy her favorite pastimes, like going out in her boat and having picnics.
[MUSIC]
WKC: You see how that changed everything? Our family’s style of doing business and economy was destroyed.
TM: Coming up next on Peak Travel, what happens when regular people dare to take on the cruise industry?
[MIDROLL BREAK]
[MUSIC]
Welcome back to Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa.
Forty miles east of Hoonah, Alaska’s capital, Juneau, has been dealing with cruise ship tourism for over a century. For some residents, it’s a struggle.
KARLA HART: My life on a daily basis is impacted by the cruise industry.
TM: Karla Hart says she regularly has to deal with a large volume of visitors and all the chaos that their excursions bring.
[SOUND OF HELICOPTER ENGINES WHIRRING]
KH: I don’t live near town. I live under the flight path of helicopter sightseeing tours. The noise from the helicopters now is just a trigger for all of the other impacts the cruise industry has on the community, too.
TM; Karla has been suspicious of the industry’s influence on her city from the beginning.
KH: I could see that the industry was one that would take and take and take, and I believe in local control and local government, and so I was going to our local government saying, “We need to decide what we want and how much we want.”
TM: In the summer of 2019, she had an idea to start something she called Ship-Free Saturdays.
KH: Ship-Free Saturdays ballot initiative would have no cruise ships in Juneau that are over 250 passengers on Saturdays and on the 4th of July.
[MUSIC]
TM: She wanted to get it on the ballot for the 2021 elections so her neighbors could vote on it. It seemed like a small change to Karla, but it quickly became a controversial local issue,
[SOUND OF NEWSCAST]
NEWSCASTER: “A group campaigning against the initiative, worried the local economy will take a big hit. After all, the cruise industry was responsible for more than $300 million in spending in Juneau last year. “
TM: The pushback was surprising to her because according to one study, 74% of Juneau’s residents wanted some restrictions on the cruise industry, specifically to limit the number of ships that enter the port each day. But in the lead-up to the 2021 elections, there were signs of influence. The industry formed a PAC called Protect Juneau’s Future.
KH: This group went really hard and heavy at working to get people to not sign the initiatives at all.
TM: The negative PR campaign worked, and in 2021, Ship-Free Saturdays was voted down. Karla was determined though, and at her next chance, in 2024, she got the signatures to put the initiative back on the ballot.
[MUSIC]
TM: In response, Protect Juneau’s Future doubled down on its efforts to challenge her. It poured an incredible amount of money into ad campaigns, lobbying efforts, and public outreach in the city.
KH: They had raised something over $500,000 at this point, including $75,000 donations each from Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and Carnival Corporation. And they listed debts of another $480,000 or something beyond the money that they’ve raised.
TM: By comparison, Karla’s group raised a little over $500, most of which was spent on printing flyers. While Protect Juneau’s Future was working to sway public opinion, Karla says cruise companies were also putting pressure on local businesses behind the scenes.
KH: They put the word out, apparently, to nonprofits around Juneau that they’ve contributed to, saying, “If any of your board members sign this initiative, you will not get donations from our businesses again.” And that had a very chilling effect on a lot of people signing.
TM: We reached out to the Cruise Lines International Association, an industry group, to comment on this assessment. They said, “We have no evidence that supports this false and outrageous claim.” They described themselves as a collaborative partner for both cruise lines and the residents of Juneau.
In any case, the pressure was too much to overcome. Ship-Free Saturdays was voted down again. But for Karla, the fight goes on. She’s using her experience in Juneau to raise awareness around the world.
KH: We ended up forming the Global Cruise Activist Network, and through that, I have been working regularly with people all over much of the world: Europe, Australia, New Zealand.
TM: It’s a point of pride that her opponents had to spend a million dollars to fight her initiative. The momentum is building.
KH: What we’re doing here, it’s history-making.
TM: Meanwhile, as Karla tries to limit the impact of tourism in Juneau, smaller towns like Hoonah continue to depend on it.
[SOUND OF WAVES LAPPING, BIRDS CHIRPING]
And despite concerns about the environment, the community at large seems to feel that it’s the only option. According to local store owner Travis Lewis…
TRAVIS LEWIS: It’s a double-edged sword, for sure. I have a hard time with people that whine about the tourism.
TM: He wants the community to work together to make the most of their circumstances.
TL: My old-time Alaskan philosophy, we’re all on the same lifeboat. If one side goes down, we’re all going to get wet. I would like to see a little bit more cooperation between the entities, but overall, I have to say it’s been very positive.
TM: He feels the town chose this path when the industry approached them about creating Icy Strait Point 20 years ago.
TL: We voted for the dock to go in. What did you think was going to happen?
TM: Unlike Kashudoha, he sees ways of preserving tradition, even with the cruise industry.
TL: My son in first grade, his science project, the class went down, they dug up cockles, they smoked them, they canned them. It was all integrated with their science. They had elders from the tribe show them. And again, being able to have a subsistence lifestyle and preserve the old ways, and embrace the new ways is a good combination for our young people.
[MUSIC]
TM: But a question remains. Can they strike enough of a balance between cruise tourism and their old way of life? For example, the very cockles he’s referring to, their populations have been in decline since the 1990s, in part due to pollution. Clearly, cruises offer an exciting and accessible way to explore the world, providing adventure, relaxation, and luxury in one tidy package. Who wouldn’t love the idea of traveling to a fabulous new location every day on their floating resort?
But it’s hard to look away from the shocking damage they’re doing to our oceans on a regular basis with few consequences. Maybe the question isn’t, “To cruise or not to cruise,” but, “How can we cruise better?” At least one study suggests that if we limit ship capacity to 250 passengers, we can greatly reduce the environmental impacts of the industry. Maybe the industry can be given a disincentive greater than a slap-on-the-wrist, $20,000 fine to not dump waste in protected waters. At a minimum, it would be helpful if initiatives like Karla’s could be considered without powerful corporations throwing their political weight around. Maybe we could try a version of cruising that’s intentionally a little smaller.
Next time, on Peak Travel…

[MUSIC]

[SOUND OF PLANE LANDING]

ANNOUNCEMENT OVER LOUDSPEAKER: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Paro International Airport…

TM: Nestled in the Himalayas, Bhutan has implemented a “high-value, low-impact” tourism model.

SUSHMITA PATHAK: Bhutan does not want casual tourists. They want tourists who are conscious about the effect they have on the place that they visit.

TM: As more destinations grapple with the effects of overtourism, what can Bhutan teach us about how to manage it?
CB RAMKUMAR: Bhutan was proof of concept. It can be replicated across any scale, any geography, anywhere in the world.
TM: That’s next time, on Peak Travel.

[THEME MUSIC]
TM: This is Peak Travel. I’m your host, Tariro Mzezewa.
Our executive producer is Tom Grahsler.
Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg. And our associate producer is Bibiana Correa. We had production help on this episode from Kaitlin Armstrong.
Our editor is Meg Driscoll. Original music by Catherine Anderson. Mixing and sound design by Emma Munger. Engineering by Al Banks, Charlie Kaier, and Diana Martinez. Our tile art was created by Nick Rogacki.
Peak Travel is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX and part of the NPR Podcast Network. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Travis Lewis as a member of the Tlingit tribe.