The State Division of Parks received a boon for its Chilkoot corridor improvement project in the form of $1.5 million of federal funds to add to their remaining $600,000 budget.

In 2011, State Parks was granted nearly one million dollars under an Alaskan Legislative grant introduced by Bill Thomas to help with bear/human interaction and safety and alleviate congestion in the corridor, a popular bear viewing area. Approximately $400,000 has already been spent on planning and prep work for cultural and archeological site surveys on the corridor, according to Preston Kroes, Southeast Area Superintendent for Alaska State Parks. The federal Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act grant funding will help expand the scope of the work, Kroes said.

Now, implementation of the project will be further delayed as State Parks staff broadens their scope and determines how to allocate the additional funds.

“Everything is interconnected,” Kroes said, “So now that we’ve got more money, parts of the project can be done simultaneously. It’s not like we’re going to go in and [spend] the $600,000, and quit and then start the next project.

It’s going to be blended together,” he said.

Kroes said the plan that’s already been determined includes infrastructure and operations. State Parks plans to introduce bear viewing corridors so tourists can view the bears with decreased safety risk and disturbance to the animals. Kroes said they are focused on resurfacing the road, improving parking and implementing restrictions on parking areas.

“One of the issues out there is that people stop and park wherever they want on the road,” Kroes said.

According to Kroes, changes in procedure will be applied as the infrastructure is developed in the park, as early as next summer, but original plans have to adapt to account for the influx of tourism since 2014, when the studies were conducted.

“The whole thing is now a much larger project, but basically what they’re trying to do is [start] next summer, possibly by the middle of the summer,” he said. The project will be implemented over the next two to three summers, Kroes said.

“The project’s original scope included road improvements. We’re trying to expand that as far as we can now that we’re responsible for the whole corridor,” Rys Miranda, chief of design and construction for Alaska State Parks, said in a 2017 CVN report. Miranda said an additional grant, like the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, would be the best way to accomplish that.

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