A commercial tour boat ran aground during low tide Friday on the Chilkat River Flats near Pyramid Island. According to Haines Harbormaster Henry Pollan, no passengers were on board the Alaska Excursions vessel, just a captain and crew members. The vessel Klondike Kate set anchor and waited until the boat floated to start heading back to Skagway.

Pollan and assistant harbormaster Melina Shields communicated with the crew while they were stranded earlier in the day. She said they “seemed to have the situation under control.”

The Haines police department, fire and rescue and Wildlife Troopers were notified but were not needed.

Pollan said most nautical charts show the flats as an undesirable travel area, so boats getting stranded is an uncommon situation.

Alaska Excursions currently holds a commercial tour permit with the Haines Borough. The permit allows the company to bring tourists on a motorized watercraft to Glacier Point. Its tour route starts in Haines or Skagway, sails to view Sea Lion Rock, and then heads north to Glacier Point.

In 2019, Alaska State Troopers found that the company had not registered its canoes. In February 2018, employees publicly criticized the company’s safety when owner Robert Murphy applied for a new Glacier Point tour permit. A few months later in July, a man died while on an Alaska Excursions canoe tour.

As of Friday afternoon, no one from the Alaska Excursions Skagway office was available to answer questions. A call to Murphy was not immediately returned.