The Skagway tour company criticized last February by former employees for neglecting safety practices, and that six months later experienced a death on one of its tours, has reapplied for two tour permits at Glacier Point. One guide who worked for the company at the time wrote the borough assembly that the company promotes safety. Another who quit after the death told the CVN the company minimizes danger and silences those who question the status quo.

In July 2018, Steven Willis, 50, drowned during an Alaska Excursions canoe trip after high water forced his boat to go broadside and its motor failed to start—an event one of the former guides who criticized the company last February warned could happen. In the aftermath, several assembly members discussed revoking or suspending the company’s permit, but decided to wait to discuss the issue until Alaska Excursions applied to renew their permit in 2019. The company is being sued by former guests who were injured during a zip-line tour and others as a result of a vehicle accident.

In October, borough attorney Brooks Chandler said the municipality had legal standing to revoke the 2018 permit, or deny the renewal in 2019. “If the primary motivation is elevating a public policy of safe commercial tours, that motivation is best expressed through the denial of a permit renewal request,” Chandler wrote, citing borough code that states the purpose of the commercial tour permitting process is to “protect public safety and welfare.”

While about 10 former employees criticized the company before the death, only two employees working for Alaska Excursions when the death occurred have gone on the record. Callie Snyder wrote a letter to the borough assembly on Sept. 24 in which she defended the company’s safety practices.

She said company owner Robert Murphy has done “everything within his power this summer to ensure” his tours at Glacier Point are safe. She said the company told her they would reimburse her for 75 percent of the cost of a wilderness first aid responder course and provided whitewater rescue training for the guides at the beginning of the season.

“Robert Murphy came out to train the canoe guides on delta landing procedures when he realized that a former manager had been remiss in his duties,” Snyder wrote the assembly. She said Murphy replaced all the old canoe motors with new ones. She described the death as “simply a tragic accident.”

Former employee Evan Mielke, who said he quit because of Willis’ death, told the CVN he wanted to go on the record after he read Snyder’s letter. “Honestly, if Callie hadn’t written a letter, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you,” Mielke told the CVN in November. “Morally, I can’t really let that stand. I figured that I should explain at least one side of the story Robert is not allowing out.”

Before the death, Mielke said he and other guides suggested to Glacier Point management that they should install a safety line near the canoe launch area that a guide could use to stop the canoe from going into the rapids. After the death, Mielke said he received pushback from Murphy, who minimized the concern.

“I was told on multiple occasions that a line like that wasn’t feasible,” Mielke said. “They spent so long basically trying to tell us ‘it’s all on (you) and if you’re uncomfortable out there, it’s because of your inability, not because it’s dangerous.’ Robert would say things like, ‘we never had a safety line in the past.’ It all revolves around his arrogance, that something bad has never happened so it won’t, and if anybody brings anything up, they get sort of shushed.”

Mielke disputes the assertion that the death was an unpreventable accident. “If (the death) had happened with a line out there you could say ‘this was an accident, something that nobody saw coming,’” Mielke said. “The fact that I, in the first three weeks, said ‘hey we should have a safety line there in case something happens in that area,’ that doesn’t strike me as a freak accident, it strikes me as something that could have been prevented.”

The company installed a safety line shortly after the death, Mielke said.

Murphy told the CVN that they hope to work with the borough to continue operating tours at Glacier Point and questioned Mielke’s motivation to go on the record. “I can only say that we firmly stand by our safety protocols and operational procedures,” Murphy wrote. “While we suspect that this may be a guide that had motivation to contact you, I believe that it would only be fair to contact any of the guides that completed the season with us to get their first-hand opinion of how we operate.”

In August, Mielke emailed the company to request his end-of-season bonus. Alaska Excursions manager Erin Redington responded to Mielke saying they would evaluate and discuss his request. Mielke said he never heard from the company again, according to the email.

Former guide and ski patroller Ashely Pugh also worked at Glacier Point last summer. She disputed some of Mielke’s claims, and told the CVN that Murphy listened to guides, that the death was unavoidable and that safety concerns were not routinely ignored. She confirmed that the company added the line after the death, and that some guides suggested installing a safety line before the accident. “It was a suggestion but…the tour ran for 15 years prior to this with no issues and no safety line,” Pugh said. “I do not believe that Alaska Excursions ever put me or my guests into an unsafe environment.”

A former zip-line guest is suing the company for negligence after a guide allegedly failed to operate the zip-line’s brake system, “sending (her) careening into a nearby tree at a high rate of speed,” according to a civil district court complaint. The guest’s attorney said she suffered from cracked vertebrae. The complaint alleges Alaska Excursions was negligent in its failure to properly train its employees, to maintain the safety of their clients, and that it was reckless in its operation of a zip-line.

In August 2017, 28 tourists were injured after an Alaska Excursions Unimog touring vehicle went off the road in Skagway; injuries included broken bones.

On Sept. 18, three plaintiffs filed a complaint against Alaska Excursions in civil superior court for personal injury and/or property damages that was “automobile related,” according to court records.

Alaska Excursions has an ATV tour permit and a canoe tour permit at Glacier Point. The borough assembly will hold a public hearing for the ATV permit at its Jan. 22 meeting.

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