2023-08-06 08:02:33
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Thousands of tourists fill a boardwalk in Alaska’s capital every day, disembarking from cruise ships that hover above the downtown area. Vendors offer coastal tours and lines of buses wait to take visitors, many to the area’s star: Mendenhall Glacier.
Visitors swoop down on the glacier, a jagged mass of blue, white, and blue, either from hovering helicopters or from the ground in kayaks, canoes, or on foot. So many people come to see the glacier and other Juneau wonders that the city’s main concern is how to manage them all, given record numbers forecast this year. Some residents flee to quieter places in the summer, and an agreement between the city and the cruise industry will limit the number of ships for next year.
But climate change is melting the Mendenhall Glacier. It is receding so fast that by 2050 it will no longer be visible from the visitor center that once stood before it.
That has raised another question that the city is only beginning to consider: what will happen then?
“We need to think regarding our glacier and the ability to see glaciers as they recede,” said Alexandra Pierce, the city’s tourism manager. “People come to Alaska to see what they consider to be a pristine environment, and it is our responsibility to preserve it for residents and visitors.”
The glacier descends from the rocky terrain between mountains to a lake dotted with icebergs. His forehead receded the equivalent of eight football fields between 2007 and 2021, according to estimates by researchers at the University of Alaska Southeast. There are markers that record the evolution of the glacier and show how far the ice reached. Since then, vegetation has occupied the space.
Although huge chunks of ice have broken off, most of the ice loss stems from melting due to rising temperatures, explained Eran Hood, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Alaska Southeast. The Mendenhall has largely receded from the lake that bears its name.
Scientists are trying to understand what those changes will mean for ecosystems, such as salmon habitat.
There is also uncertainty for tourism.
Most people enjoy the view of the glacier from paths on the other side of Mendenhall Lake, near the visitor center. The dazzling blue caverns that drew crowds a few years ago have collapsed, and now there are pools of water where once you might walk from rock to ice.
Manoj Pillai, an Indian cruise ship worker, took photos from a popular vantage point on a recent day off.
“If the glacier is so beautiful now, what would it be like 10 or 20 years ago? I can barely imagine it,” she commented.
Officials in the Tongass National Forest, home to the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area, are preparing for more visitors over the next 30 years as they look to a future when the glacier is no longer so easy to see.
The agency is proposing new walking trails and parking areas, as well as an additional visitor center, public-use cabins, and a lakeside campground. The researchers do not expect the glacier to disappear completely in at least the next century.
“We’ve talked regarding whether it’s worth the investment in facilities if the glacier disappears from view,” said Tristan Fluharty, head of the Juneau district forest rangers. “Will it have the same volume of visits?”
A massive waterfall that’s a popular selfie spot, salmon fishing, black bear fishing and walking trails might continue to draw tourists when the glacier isn’t visible from the visitor center, though “the glacier is the big draw,” admitted.
Some 700,000 tourists are expected this year, and around a million by 2050.
Experience elsewhere offers warning messages. Annual attendance at the Begich Visitor Center, Boggs, southeast of Anchorage, hit its record high of regarding 400,000 in the 1990s, with Portage Glacier serving as a major incentive. But now, on clear days, you can barely see a line of the glacier from the center, which was attended by regarding 30,000 people last year, said Brandon Raile, a spokesman for the Chugach National Forest, which manages the site. Authorities are talking regarding the future of the facility, he said.
“What regarding the Begich Visitor Center, Boggs?” Raile asked. “How do we keep it relevant when the original reason for putting it here is no longer relevant?”
In the Mendenhall, guards speak to visitors regarding climate change. They try to “inspire awe and awe, but also hope and action,” said Laura Buchheit, number two for the Juneau District Forest Rangers.
Following tourist seasons thwarted by the pandemic, some 1.6 million cruise passengers are expected this year in a season between April and October.
The city, nestled in a rainforest, is a stop on what are often week-long Alaska cruises that begin in Seattle or Vancouver, British Columbia. Tourists can leave the docks and be on the mountainside in a matter of minutes thanks to a popular cable car, see bald eagles perched on streetlights, and enjoy the vibrant Alaskan Native arts community.
On the busiest days, 20,000 people disembark, equivalent to two thirds of the city’s population.
The city authorities and the big cruise companies agreed to a daily limit of five ships for the coming year. But critics fear that won’t reduce congestion if the ships get bigger and bigger. Some neighbors would like to have one day a week without boats. This year seven boats have coincided in one day.
Juneau Tours and Whale Watch is one of two dozen companies licensed to offer services such as transportation or guided tours of the glacier. Serene Hutchinson, the firm’s managing director, noted that demand has been so high that she was close to filling her quota at midseason. Shuttle services to the glacier had to be suspended, but her business still offers limited tours that include the glacier, she said.
Other bus operators are reaching their quota and tourism officials are urging visitors to see other sights or reach the glacier in another way.
Limits on visits can benefit tourism businesses by improving the experience rather than tourists being “crowded” onto the glacier, said Hutchinson, who isn’t concerned Juneau will lose its luster as the glacier recedes.
“Alaska does the work for us, right?” he said. “All we have to do is get out of the way and let people look and smell and breathe.”
Pierce, Juneau’s tourism manager, said the conversation regarding what a sustainable industry in Southeast Alaska might look like has only just begun.
In Sitka, home to a dormant volcano, cruise ship passengers exceeded the local population of 8,400 on one day this summer, overwhelming businesses, slowing internet connections and leaving authorities wondering how much tourism is too much. .
Juneau plans to conduct a study that might guide future growth, for example building walking routes for tourism businesses.
Kerry Kirkpatrick, who has lived in Juneau for nearly 30 years, remembers when the front of Mendenhall was “across the water and loomed over our heads.” She described the glacier as a national treasure for its accessibility and noted the irony of helicopters and cruise ships, vehicles that emit carbon dioxide, taking people to a melting glacier. She fears that the current level of tourism is not sustainable.
As Mendenhall recedes, plants and animals will need time to adjust, he said.
Humans too.
“There are too many people on the planet who want to do the same things,” Kirkpatrick said. “You don’t want to be the person who closes the door and says, ‘I’m the last one and you can’t come.’ But we do have the ability to say, ‘No, no more.'”
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