Chilkoot tour permits discussion continues

How many tour operators should be allowed in the Chilkoot River corridor?

And if a limit is set, how would it be enforced?

Those questions arose at a Sept. 15 meeting of the Haines Borough Assembly commerce committee. But no answers came.

The issue is how much tour traffic the river corridor – a popular place for people to watch bears, fish and sightsee – can absorb. Right now, there are six tour operators permitted in the river corridor by the borough.

Leslie Ross, the borough’s tourism director, said she doubted if her department would approve a permit for a seventh operator. “We can agree we have pretty much maximized our use of that area,” she said.

Complaints emerged in 2015 of too much traffic and of people not following proper bear-watching protocols – citing these as problems that have festered for years.

Assembly members and people in the audience said no borough regulations exist to limit the number of tour operators, no ways exist to enforce any limit and there is need to define a “tour” as opposed to a non-tour group of people.

“It’s a difficult thing to regulate,” Ross said.

“Who decides what’s too much?” asked assembly member Mike Case.

“It’s unreasonable to set numbers for next year because they cannot be enforced,” said assembly member Margaret Friedenauer.

Last February, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources took over management of the river corridor road. Sean Gaffney, operator of Alaska Mountain Guides, said the borough needs to obtain figures from DNR on how many people visit the corridor with the tour groups.

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