By Lucy Silbaugh

The Haines Borough Assembly voted Tuesday to rescind a four-year-old moratorium on new commercial tours in the Chilkoot Corridor.

The decision followed a June 30 recommendation from the borough’s Tourism Advisory Board (TAB).

“Retaining the moratorium does not allow for fair competition,” TAB chair Barbara Nettleton wrote in the board’s letter to the assembly, “and it does not allow (…) an entrepreneur to present an idea that could be well suited for that area and our community.”

The moratorium was imposed in 2018 in response to overcrowding along the corridor, a stretch of the Chilkoot River 10 miles from Haines that attracts hungry brown bears – and accompanying crowds of tourists, photographers and sportfishermen.

Assembly member Cheryl Stickler cited recent road improvements – which Alaska State Parks finished last summer — as proof that the pause on permits was no longer necessary.

“The way the state has redone that road somewhat mitigates what was happening previously,” she said. “There’s very clear direction about where the traffic has to go and where the traffic cannot go. There’s no place for illegal pull-offs.”

But assembly members Debra Schnabel and Caitie Kirby expressed concern about continued crowding and disorder at the corridor’s terminus on Chilkoot Lake. “The problem may not be the road anymore, but I definitely have seen some absolute chaos at the far end of it,” Kirby said. “I can’t picture seeing even more added to that.”

Haines Borough Mayor Douglas Olerud, who visited the area recently with manager Annette Kreitzer, agreed about the chaos but said he didn’t think official tour companies were responsible. He relayed a comment from a long-term resident of Lutak Road, near the corridor, who had told him that “we would rather have more tours, because the tours have somebody guiding them. The problem is with the individuals that don’t have anyone telling them about bear etiquette or where to go or how to behave.”

Nettleton echoed that sentiment in her comment at the meeting. “The tour operators are able to gather large groups of people and contain them, and that mitigates a lot of the negative impact to the area,” she said. She said independent visitors were mostly responsible for past bear-human interactions.

The motion to rescind the moratorium passed 4-2, with assembly members Kirby and Tyler Huling opposed. Huling expressed a desire to hear from bear experts about possible risks before removing the moratorium, and Kirby said she wanted input from tour operators themselves.

Olerud saw the silence of operators – none of whom attended the assembly meeting — as proof that they weren’t against the ban being lifted. He said the Tourism Advisory Board had already held two public hearings on the issue, which some operators did attend. “I got the sense that they didn’t have a problem with this,” he said.

Sean Gaffney, TAB member and president of tour company Alaska Mountain Guides, voted against undoing the ban June 30. He predicted overcrowding would be even more of a problem this summer than it was when the assembly adopted the permit ban.

Schnabel, who initially seemed poised to vote against ending the moratorium, ultimately supported it. She told the CVN she was swayed by the mayor’s argument and the fact that “(the assembly) can always turn people down if (the proposed tour) doesn’t appear to be a positive thing.”

In her letter, Nettleton also emphasized that even if the moratorium were rescinded, all new permit requests would still have to secure the assembly’s support – in addition to approval from the police chief, tourism director and harbormaster.

She also drew attention to a code provision allowing the borough manager “at any time” to “revoke or suspend a permit” for various reasons, including concern for “the safety or welfare of the public.”

“The other thing that persuaded me is that there are new ways of touring,” Schnabel said. “I thought…we don’t have to be stuck in the old framework of a 65-person bus pulling up to the landing and disgorging people in every different direction.”

Schnabel said the assembly has the authority and responsibility not only to consider new permit requests but also to monitor the companies already operating on the corridor.