Crammed with tourists, Alaska’s capital wonders what will happen as Mendenhall Glacier continues to recede

Juneau — Thousands of tourists flock daily from the cruise ships towering downtown to the boardwalk of the Alaska capital. Vendors market trips along the coast and queues of buses are waiting ready to ship tourists, many to Mendenhall Glacier, the region’s crowning jewel.

The grey, white and blue rocky glaciers are swarming with tourist helicopters and kayakers, canoers and visitors on foot. With so many people coming to see the glaciers and other wonders of Juneau that record numbers are expected this year, the immediate concern for the city is how to manage all this. . Some residents seek shelter in quieter areas during the summer, and an agreement between the city and the cruise industry will limit the number of ships arriving next year.

But climate change is melting the Mendenhall Glacier. It’s receding so quickly that by 2050 it could be out of sight from the visitor centers that once towered outside.

This raises another question Junod is now beginning to ponder. “Then what happens?”

“We need to think about glaciers and whether we can watch them retreat,” said Alexandra Pearce, the city’s tourism manager. Emphasis should also be placed on reducing environmental impact, she said. “People come to Alaska to see what they think is a pristine environment. It’s our responsibility to preserve it for our residents and visitors.”

Glaciers flow from the rocky outcroppings of the mountains into lakes dotted with icebergs. Researchers at the University of Alaska Southeast estimate that the surface has receded eight football fields between 2007 and 2021. Trail markers commemorate the glacier’s retrogression and mark where ice once was. A thicket of plants grew under its influence.

Elan Hood, professor of environmental science at the University of Alaska Southeast, said most of the ice loss was due to thinning due to warmer temperatures, while the giant chunks shattered. Mendenhall has now largely retreated from the lake that gave it its name.

Scientists are trying to understand what this change means for ecosystems, including salmon habitat.

There is also uncertainty in tourism.

Most people enjoy the glacier from the trail across Lake Mendenhall near the visitor center. The dizzying Blue Grotto that drew crowds a few years ago has collapsed, leaving puddles where it once seemed possible to step out of the rock onto the ice.

Manoj Pillai, a cruise ship worker from India, snapped a photo from the popular observatory on a recent holiday.

“If the glacier is this beautiful today, what would it have been like 10, 20 years ago? I’m just imagining it,” he said.

Officials at the Tongass National Forest, where the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area is located below, are preparing for even more visitors in the next 30 years, even as they look to the future when the glacier is less commonly seen.

The agency is proposing new trails and parking lots, an additional visitor center and public-use cabins at the lakeside campground. Researchers don’t expect it to take at least a century for glaciers to completely disappear.

“We talked about, ‘If we can’t see the glacier, is it worth investing in a facility?'” said Tristan Fulherty, the forest’s Juneau area ranger. “Will we still get the same number of visitors?”

The roaring waterfalls, a popular spot for selfies, salmon runs, black bears and trails, may continue to attract tourists even when the glacier is out of sight from the visitor center, but the “largest The attraction is the glacier,” he said.

About 700,000 people are expected to visit this year, and about 1 million people are expected to visit by 2050.

Other sites offer warnings. Annual visitor numbers to Begich at the Boggs Visitor Center southeast of Anchorage he peaked at about 400,000 in the 1990s, when the Portage Glacier became a tourist draw. But now, on clear days, parts of the glacier remain visible from the center, which was visited by about 30,000 people last year, said Brandon Lail, a spokesman for Chugach National Forest, which manages the site. said Mr. Officials are discussing the center’s future, he said.

“Begich, where’s the Boggs Visitor Center going?” Lail said. “If the original reason it was put there is no longer really relevant, how can it remain relevant in future promotions?”

At Mendenhall, rangers talk to visitors about climate change. Their purpose is to “evoke wonder and awe, but also hope and action,” said Laura Buchheit, Juno Deputy Ranger for the Forest.

rear A Season Stagnated Due to the PandemicThis year Juneau expects approximately 1.6 million cruise passengers during the April-October season.

Surrounded by rainforest, the city is a stop on most week-long cruises to Alaska that depart from Seattle or Vancouver, British Columbia. Leaving the docks, visitors can hop aboard the popular tram to the mountainside in minutes to see bald eagles perched on telephone poles and enjoy a vibrant Alaska Native arts community.

On its busiest days, about 20,000 people, two-thirds of the city’s population, flock from boats.

City leaders and major cruise lines have agreed to limit the number of ships to five per day next year. But critics fear that congestion will not ease as ships continue to get bigger. Some residents want one day a week without boats. This year, seven ships arrived in one day.

Juneau Tours and Whale Watch is one of about 20 companies licensed to offer glacier transport, guides and other services. The company’s general manager Serene Hutchinson said he was in such high demand that he approached his quota mid-season. She said the shuttle service to the glacier was forced to stop, but her business still offers limited tours that include the glacier.

Other bus companies have also reached their limits, and tourism officials are urging visitors to explore elsewhere or take other means to reach the glacier.

Hutchinson, who isn’t worried about Juneau losing its luster as the glacier retreats, said the visitation restrictions benefit travel companies by improving the experience, rather than letting tourists be “shoehorned” by the glacier. said it could lead to

“Alaska is doing the work for us, isn’t it?” she said. “All we have to do is get out of the way and let people look, smell and breathe.”

Juneau tourism manager Pierce said discussions about what a sustainable Southeast Alaskan tourism industry should look like are just beginning.

In Sitka, home to a dormant volcano, the number of cruise passengers surpassed the town’s 8,400 population a day earlier this summer, overwhelming businesses and slowing internet speeds, prompting officials to question whether there is too much tourism. .

Juneau plans to conduct research that could lead to future growth, such as building trails for tourism companies.

Kelly Kirkpatrick, who has lived in Juneau for nearly 30 years, remembers when Mendenhall’s face was “long across the water and above our heads.” She called the glacier a national treasure because of its accessibility, and noted her irony that carbon-emitting helicopters and cruise ships are chasing the melting glacier. She worries that current levels of tourism are not sustainable.

Plants and animals will take time to adapt as Mendenhall retreats, she says.

Humans are no different.

“There are too many people on the planet who want to do the same thing,” said Kirkpatrick. “You don’t want to be the one who closes the door and says, ‘I’m the last one, you won’t let me in.’ But we have to have the ability to say, ‘No more.'”