Haines Borough officials are trying to learn how many guided tourists visit the Chilkoot Corridor each day in an effort to better manage the stretch of river that is notorious for overcrowding and potentially dangerous human and bear interaction.
The borough assembly voted 4-2 last May to place a moratorium on new commercial tours in the corridor. Soon, the borough assembly will review tour permits borough-wide, and also consider a re-write of the borough’s tour permit code, known as Title 5. Seeking concrete data on how many visitors take tours each day will help the assembly understand questions regarding capacity.
“That’s why we wanted to get this information, to understand what we’re dealing with, because I think there’s a huge difference between the capacity that tour companies have and what they’re actually doing,” borough clerk Alekka Fullerton said at last week’s commerce committee meeting.
Borough staff estimated that the Chilkoot Corridor sees about 300 visitors each day during the peak season, not including independent travelers. The number is staff’s “best guess,” as five tour operators failed to submit data in time for the commerce committee meeting where the issue was discussed last week. The total permitted capacity between the 15 tour companies who guide clients in the corridor is much larger than the estimated 300 visitors during peak season.
Bigger companies have higher limits. Alaska Mountain Guides Adventures, for example, is permitted for 379 guests per day. Alaska Nature Tours is permitted for 124 guests and Chilkoot Lake Tours is permitted for 100 people. Smaller companies, such as Mozeon Charters, is only permitted for 12 guests per day. AMG, Alaska Nature Tours and Mozeon did not provide the borough with how many visitors they guide in time for the meeting. Reporting those numbers is not a requirement.
The 10 companies that provided data reported guiding a total of 3,486 visitors in the area this summer. Fullerton said the actual number of visitors is much more than that.
Commerce committee chair Sean Maidy said he’d like to get a more accurate number if they’re going to talk about capping visitors. “If this was all of the numbers we have…in the Chilkoot Corridor…then I think the discussion would be, do we cap it this next year at 3,500 so it’s not any worse than this last year or was this last year bad enough that we want to go to 3,250 or 3,000 and that’s where the conversation gets ugly,” Maidy said.
Commerce committee member Tom Morphet said existing allowances could double or triple visitor populations, rendering the current moratorium worthless. “If we’re only at 300 a day, under current permitting, the large operators alone can take twice that amount and we have no limits right now on the number of independents,” Morphet said. “Our moratorium is basically worthless in terms of actually limiting numbers out there, and having a real effect. For that reason, I do think we need to obviously go much further out there.”
Next year, the borough will require tour companies to submit how many clients they guided and other reporting criteria, if the borough assembly approves recommended changes to Title 5.
In the meantime, the committee asked Fullerton to retrieve the numbers from the companies who have yet to provide data so they can work with the most concrete data available.
Alaska Mountain Guides owner Sean Gaffney said he plans to submit the requested information, but asked that the borough seek the same information as the state Department of Natural Resources. “I would ask that if the information isn’t really going to be meaningful to managing the industry or to track it, please don’t run us through a bunch of additional hoops that don’t really serve that end,” Gaffney said.
Sockeye Cycle owner Thom Ely said a tour operator he spoke to didn’t provide the requested information because “they’re suspicious of the motives of this,” Ely said. “They were concerned that they might be restricted or such. The state requires all this information. We all have it at our fingertips.”
The Skagway Borough requires permitted tour operators to provide daily numbers, monthly totals and seasonal totals from each year.