Southeast Alaska: Tourism in Southeast: Visitor-related jobs a key part of the regions's economy - Tourism's rise in Southeast Alaska was tied primarily to the development of cruise lines, which helped the region's economies flourish and continue to transport the vast majority of Southeast's visitors.

Employees of the Blue Fox Restaurant in Ketchikan pose behind the bar in the early-to-mid 20th century.
Photo by the Skinner Foundation, Alaska Steamship Company, Alaska State Library

Today, around a million people visit Southeast Alaska each summer, and most arrive by cruise ship according to a new Alaska Economic Trends report written by Connor Bell, an Alaska Department of Labor economist in Juneau, specializing in the employment and wages of the Southeast and Southwest economic regions.

Tourism was one of Alaska's first industries, and Southeast was the first visitor destination. During the late 19th century, small numbers of tourists traveled north on steamships, sharing space with miners, fishermen, and aspiring business owners in the new territory.

Throughout the next 100 years, the romance of Alaska sank deeper into the American consciousness. Many idealized the ruggedness of Alaska, and it became a point of pride even among Americans who had never seen it.

Though many miners returned home empty-handed, stories of Alaska's natural beauty spread further after the Klondike Gold Rush. Naturalists such as John Muir published detailed accounts of the territory. Sitting President Warren G. Harding traveled through Alaska shortly before his death. Hollywood began producing films set in Alaska.

Steamships fall from favor

Though acclaim for Alaska was widespread, steamships' limited capacity and expense restricted the number of travelers to Southeast. Vacationing by steamship was mostly limited to wealthy travelers, and it lacked the comforts available elsewhere. In 1929, a traveler-class round trip between Seattle and Skagway cost around $90, equivalent to about $1,250 in 2015.

The U.S. built the Alaska-Canada Highway during World War II, and though the Alcan increased traffic into Alaska, most of its travelers went farther north to Southcentral or Fairbanks.

By the 1960s, streamship travel dwindled with the rise of air travel. The U.S. had a huge stock of aircraft at the end of the war, and it provided subsidies and discounts for emerging airlines to purchase surplus army airplanes.

Steamships couldn't compete with the airlines' rates, and sea trips took days rather than hours. Alaska Steamship Company, the last holdout, ended passenger service in 1954. Though Juneau and Annette Island had runways, Alaska's tourist traffic was largely diverted from Southeast.

After steamships became archaic, newly formed cruise line companies began to target a broader market. By building giant ships, they could provide trips at a lower cost per customer while expanding onboard amenities, making travel to Alaska accessible to more Americans and returning the focus to Southeast.

In the second half of the 20th century, the growing number of visitors to Southeast tracked with the development of more and bigger cruise ships. The first cruise ships sailing the Inside Passage in the late 1960s could carry between 300 and 700 passengers. In 2016, Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas will set a new record in the state with its 3,840-passenger capacity. - More...
Thursday PM - August 06, 2015

Alaska: Large wildfires a factor in climate equation - “It’s going to be a bad fire day,” said Scott Rupp in late July as he looked out the window at the thick layer of smoke blanketing the city of Fairbanks.

Fire is a natural part of the boreal forest, an ecosystem dominated by black and white spruce. This species is designed to burn, with cones that release their seeds when under intense heat.
Photo by Scott Rupp

By the middle of July, the Alaska fire season was already the third largest since reliable records began in 1950, with over 4.75 million acres burned. That’s more than double the size of Yellowstone National Park.

Rupp, a fire ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and director of the International Arctic Research Center’s Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning, said, “It took 40 years to burn 25 million acres, and the next 25 million acres took less than 25 years to burn,” noting that large, high-intensity, stand-replacing fires are not out of the ordinary in Alaska. In fact, he said, in the boreal forest, which is mostly composed of black and white spruce, fire is the primary mechanism by which succession occurs. It’s how the species rejuvenate themselves. With most of the state covered in spruce forests, large fire years are expected occasionally.

“However, what sets this fire season and the last two decades apart from the historical record is the growing number and frequency of large fire years we are having in Alaska,” Rupp said.

There isn’t a direct relationship between climate change and fire, but researchers have found strong correlations between warm June temperatures and large fire years. Hot, dry spring conditions, however, do not automatically mean fire — something needs to create the spark and actually start the fire. Lightning starts about 35 percent of the fires in Alaska but account for 90 percent of the total area burned.

“Climate models tell us that average June temperatures will continue to increase through this century, but ignition is the wild card,” explains Rupp. “What will happen in the future is a more complicated story because we don’t understand what will happen with convective storms and the lightning.” - More...
Thursday PM - August 06, 2015