Cruise ships agree to leave the Chilkat Inlet to fishermen

The Norwegian Joy did not elicit much happiness in Haines last week. The mega ship cruised the Chilkat Inlet to view Rainbow Glacier⁠—ruffling some gillnet fishermen and causing other residents to vent frustrations on social media. Industry says they won’t be doing that again.

Dan Kendryna is a Haines fisherman. His 72-hour gillnet opener was interrupted last week by Norwegian Cruise Line’s “Joy” entering the narrow passage of the Chilkat Inlet. That’s also the Northernmost line of the local fishery.

“When it came through, obviously, there was a lot of commotion,” he said.

“It’s hard to maneuver around all those boats.”

He says the thousand-foot mega ship threaded between two small boats in an inlet that was crowded with fishermen.

“She narrowly avoided both of our nets. I was able to maneuver my boat out of the way,” he said.

Cruise ships don’t need permission to sight-see in these waters, and they alerted the borough. But that message didn’t get to fishermen like Kendryna who were caught off guard.

That’s because they expect big ships to be in what are called track lines. Those are agreed upon cruise ship routes, so that small fishing vessels can coexist with big liners. There are no track lines in the Chilkat Inlet.

“To assume that we would move out of the way, that we should pull our nets up for them, is, I think, a little bit of a bold and arrogant assumption,” Kendryna said.

Kendryna is not the only fisherman who doesn’t want to pull his nets for a few hours during his fishing window. He wants more communication between cruise ships and fishermen.

Max Warhatch runs USAG⁠—the United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters Association. He says the message from the cruise industry has been clear.

“They haven’t given us a lot of, you know, leeway. Like, ‘No, we won’t come or we will.’ You know, ‘We will come when it’s closed,’ or anything like that. They’ve always been pretty much just gonna go do it. So look out,” he said.

He says this kind of tight maneuvering is a hazard to fishermen. He expects more of these situations as cruise ship traffic in Alaska increases.

“And it’s going to actually start having an impact on our livelihoods. And I don’t know how we’re going to deal with that yet,” said Warhatch.

He was told the ship had plans to be back during the gillnet opener this week.

In this case, there was an easy fix.

Rick Erickson is head of operations for Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska, which manages shore operations for cruise ships in the state.. He says they were unaware of the opening and the number of fishermen in the inlet⁠—so they won’t route ships that way any longer.

“Once it was found out there was going to be another opening this week in the same area they elected to look for alternatives. The fishermen ca have their spot there in the Bay to do what they do,” he said.

He says the pilots, cruise ship companies, and his agency understood the concerns of the fishermen. They were happy to make a change and cede the inlet in this case.