Back in business: Skagway, Alaska, welcomes cruise ship season

Dead in the winter, bustling in the summer.

That's how some residents in Skagway, Alaska, describe the town as they are get ready to greet hundreds of thousands of tourists over the summer. 

The community welcomed its first cruise ship of the season on Tuesday, and one business owner says the town wasn't completely prepared. 

"It's the earliest we've had a ship, I believe," Skagway resident Karla Ray told CBC News. "Most of us are not ready for it ... We're really excited for it after a long winter." 

Several local business owners, including Ray, say they are expecting the coming months to be the first "full normal summer" since before the pandemic.

According to the Skagway Development Corporation, the municipality's tourist industry contributed to almost $9 million in sales tax in 2019. But from 2020 to 2022, cruise ship traffic in Alaska dropped dramatically and the municipality had several public health measures in place that restricted mass visitors.

This year, Skagway is expecting to welcome four cruise ships per day. The season might have had a hasty beginning, but it's nonetheless more than welcomed, according to local resident Sam Welsh. 

"It's been a ghost town here ... and just seeing our first ship ... was really cool," said Welsh, who works at Mountain Shop.

"A lot of business owners I saw were in tears at seeing, you know, everybody back in town. Because that's our business. That's where we get our livelihood from."

Getting ready

Steve Jaklitsch owns the Back Alley Rock Shop, a colourful boutique that resembles a museum of rocks from around the world, with fossils and jewlery. He says he prepares for the tourist season months in advance. 

"I go to the Tucson Gem Show, buy a bunch of rocks, ship them up here, fill up my van with as many as I can and then when I get home, I cut them and polish them and put them on the shelf," Jaklitsch said in a recent interview. 

Jaklitsch describes his summer days as "tough," but manageable. 

"It's a crazy schedule," he said. "You know, eight in the morning until eight at night. It's a busy season."

Skagway resident Ray Tsang agrees. The self-titled — unofficial — town ambassador says there's an incomparable difference between the packed stores in the summer and the immaculate streets of the winter. 

When asked about the cruise ship season and what it represents he teasingly says, "money!" 

But there's more to it than business, Tsang added. He says summer in Skagway brings the opportunity to share culture, languages and the history of Skagway's port. 

New season, new chapter 

Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata says this cruise ship season will be making history as the municipality took control of its waterfront earlier in March from the White Pass & Yukon Route railway, the company that leased it for more than five decades.

The municipality marked the achievement on Wednesday with a ceremony dedicated to its port. A few hundred residents and government officials — including Whitehorse Mayor Laura Cabott — attended the event. 

Cremata said in a speech that this was the biggest crowd he'd seen in a while. 

"This is the proudest I've ever been of this community," Cremata said.

"Accomplishments like this don't happen because of government. This is not an accomplishment of the Skagway assembly. This is not an accomplishment of the borough manager and it's certainly not an accomplishment of a mayor. This is the result of community working together with one harmonious voice, resilient, and strong."

Cremata says construction of a new multi-purpose dock is already underway at one of the port's facilities — partly to accommodate larger cruise ships. But Cremata says the municipality will have to wait until the end of the cruise ship season for further renovations. 

Meanwhile, negotiations around Skagway's ore dock continue between the municipality and the Yukon Government.

That facility has been used for decades as a vital dock for Yukon mining companies to be able to ship ore. The Yukon government recently agreed to contribute millions of dollars to upgrade the Alaskan dock in exchange for preferential access to the port.

At Wednesday's ceremony, Cabott recognized that becoming owner of its waterfront is "a big deal for Skagway," but also for the Yukon.

As Skagway fully reopens its door for tourism, she added, that also means Whitehorse —  a two-hour drive from the municipality — will see the benefits of the successful tourist industry. 

"It's great to see that that door is now open again, and we're reestablishing those relationships," she said. "Both for the mining industry ... for tourism. It's great that we're all back together again."