Andrea Nelson, who co-owns Ampersand AK with Amelia Nash, displays salmon-shaped salad spoons made from local birch and sold in the shop.
For the second year in a row, summer visitor numbers in Haines are greatly reduced as the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The downtown streets are usually bustling several days a week with visitors who have disembarked from cruise ships. But this year, just one ship is docking in Haines, about once a week, and right now it’s tied up in Juneau after three coronavirus cases on board.
Still, some downtown Haines businesses say while the town is quieter, locals, independent travelers and people attending events in town are keeping them busy.
“We discovered we don’t rely on cruise ship traffic nearly as much as we thought,” said Andrea Nelson, who owns Ampersand AK with her “artner” Amelia Nash.
Ampersand, which is entering its fourth summer of business, is a cross between an art gallery and a gift shop, said Nelson, whose dog sleeps next to her in the back of the quiet store filled with colorful products made by artists from around the region.
Last year, in the height of the pandemic, Nelson said, they experienced a summer of primarily local business. This year, add independent travelers.
“We do think we’re missing out on the Canadians still, but we’ve been surprised and grateful for just how much impact independent travelers have had,” said Nelson.
The Canadian border has been closed to nonessential travel since March 2020.
Haines Brewing Co. co-owner Paul Wheeler said his business has been feeling the border closure, too. Still, he said, this summer they’ve seen an increase in visiting family and friends, and business from a few weddings.
“It’s been fun to have a slower pace because of the lack of tourism but we’ve come to see that we need them,” said Wheeler. He said business has been increasing month-by-month.
Further down Main Street at the Rusty Compass, a world map hangs on the wall. Each year, visitors are invited to place pins in the map to share where they’re visiting from.
“We don’t have the hundreds of pins going into the map from Europe and Australia,” said business owner Lee Robinson. Still, he said, there are pins in the Lower 48 and some from Europe reflecting visitors from 2020 and 2021.
“We knew there would be an uptick. I think that uptick has been better than anticipated,” Robinson said. He said the business is seeing a lot of good local traffic, as well as some visitors and business from construction and other projects in town.
One small ship is making stops in town throughout the summer, but otherwise travel is limited to people coming by state ferry, plane or, in limited cases, across the Canadian border.
While Haines sees significantly less cruise traffic than the million-plus travelers into Skagway or Juneau, the town still gets around two-thirds of its yearly visitors from the ships, said Haines tourism director Steven Auch.
“In general, we know that without cruise ship traffic we will see a huge decrease in the number of visitors,” he said.
In a typical year, Auch said roughly 150,000 people visit Haines. Some 50,000 of those visitors come directly off cruise ships docked here. Another 50,000 come over from Skagway on the Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry, which mostly shuttles people from ships tied up there. The other 50,000, said Auch, come to Haines by plane, ferry or car.
The American Constellation, a small cruise ship scheduled to stop in Haines approximately once a week throughout the summer, canceled its July 19 sailing after three people on board tested positive for COVID-19 on July 8 and 9.
The ship is expected to resume its scheduled service after completing a 10-day quarantine in Juneau.
Even with limited cruise traffic, business has been picking up, said Mountain Market co-owner Mary Jean Sebens.
She said in 2020, early pandemic precautions and restrictions hurt the store, which sells groceries and liquor in addition to the café.
“It pretty much just cut our café sales in half, almost in an instant,” said Sebens.
But, she said, they figured out a system for curbside orders and slowly, even with mainly local business, things started to pick up.
“We were lucky to have the grocery store and the liquor side. If we had just been a café, I don’t know what that would have looked like,” said Sebens.
They’re now seeing a lot of customers from out of town. “The weddings have been great for business,” Sebens said, adding that they’ve been getting consistent orders for lunches from one of the guiding companies in town. She also credits a more consistent ferry schedule with bringing additional foot traffic to Haines.
Mountain Market remains one of the more cautious businesses in town, and customers are required to wear a face covering inside regardless of their vaccination status. Sebens said she and her husband Mike recognize that the pandemic isn’t over, but she said she remains confident in the strength of their business.
“I feel solid about it because we have that combination of the café, liquor store and coffee-roasting business,” said Sebens. “I feel like we have a strong business model that will help us weather the storm.”