Skagway waves goodbye to the last cruise ship of 2021

The last ship of the shortened cruise season visited Skagway on Tuesday. KHNS’ Mike Swasey wandered through downtown to get reactions from local businesses and cruise passengers on a rainy, cold October day.

I live less than a block away from Skagway Spirits Distillery and was surprised to see the open sign lit up for the tasting room on Tuesday, so I made that my first stop.

It hadn’t been open much this year. It’s several blocks away from the downtown shopping district and the owners didn’t expect many tourists to make the trek to Alaska Street this summer. But they said they got a call from Lynn and Matt, a couple from Florida, and decided to open their doors and start pouring.

“I love the weather here despite being from Florida might sound weird but yeah being cold and wet instead of the hot and sweaty is, I’ll take that,” said Matt, dressed in his shorts and a long sleeve shirt. His partner Lynn was dressed more for the Skagway weather.

“The scenery is just so beautiful. And it’s just nice to be out and about and in some fresh air,” said Lynn.

I headed downtown next, dodging raindrops and ducking into the few shops on Broadway Street that stayed open for the last cruise ship day. I stopped into Skagway Handloom and Handicrafts and talked to Bemika Aribamongbi. She opened up shop in 2019, one season before the pandemic stopped cruise ship traffic for almost two full years.

“Instead of getting nothing it’s better to open and get something so I’m happy,” said Aribamongbi.

She said at least this year was better than last year.

“Last year was completely zero, you know, we don’t get anything,” said Aribamongbi.

Curio shop Lynch and Kennedy was the next stop.

Viola Gazzara is the consummate salesperson helping customers look at hand-blown glass fish and telling me about what she called the mini-season.

“Six weeks of shortness but loveliness. People have been great. We’ve really enjoyed it. We have a full schedule booked for next year. And we’re just absolutely ecstatic about that. We hope that holds. But you know, it’s so nice to have the people back,” said Gazzara.

Back out into the rain as I continued southbound down Broadway. I ran into Tam and Karen from the San Francisco Bay area waiting under an awning for the SMARTbus shuttle back to their cruise ship.

“There’s plenty to do, certainly in Skagway, actually I found more to do in Skagway than I did in Juneau or Ketchikan,” said Karen.

Tam was impressed with Skagway’s historic district.

It’s gorgeous. I tip my hat to you. This is so charming. I love your city! I’m having a great time on the cruise,” gushed Tam.

Across the street, Sunny Mirchandani from Empire Jewelers told me that even though it took him and his wife about a month to open up the store, and he expects it to take just as long to pack everything up, the shortened summer season was worth it.

“We’ve done okay. And you know, better than what we expected. You know, most of the people I would say were very kind, very understanding,” said Mirchandani.

There’s a tradition in Skagway where a bunch of seasonal workers and a few locals gather at the dock to send off the last cruise ship of the season with bottles of champagne and a group mooning. That didn’t happen this year. It was just me and a few security guards. One of them, Stu Stevens, remembers the big send-offs from years past.

“Usually there’s about 30 or 40 heathens and they’re all trying to get on the dock and we hold them off until the ship is at least a little ways off and headed out. They run out and cheer and moon them,” said Stevens.

This year the Royal Caribbean ship Ovation of the Seas was the last to call on Skagway. They were delayed a day due to weather, so most of the seasonal workers were already on the ferry south to Juneau looking to catch flights to wherever their winter plans take them. The ship slid away from the railroad dock in Skagway silently, there was no mooning, no party, not even a honk of a car horn. Just a giant luxury cruise ship slowly disappearing down the fjord, signaling that the pandemic shortened 2021 cruise season was officially over.