Locally Owned

A common theme to all of the cruise stops we’ve made (with the major exception of Icy Strait Point) is cruise-owned shops and businesses. Many of the same jewelry stores show up in each port, and many of the souvenir stores have contracts with the ships to promote their particular store.

Because the tourist industry is so huge in these towns in the summer, local Alaskans want to be able to take advantage of the potential customers. Most of the cruise ship passengers have no idea which stores are owned by the cruise ships (or even that they are owned by the cruise companies), so the Alaska-owned stores all put up signs in their windows touting that they are locally-owned and operated. This is a really huge deal in these towns, so we did our best to shop only in these stores that benefited the local residents and paid no attention to which stores recommended by our cruise ship shopping experts.

There’s a fine line in Alaska between being happy about the cruise ship’s customer base and ruing that the thousands of visitors are ruining the small towns. In some towns (like Ketchikan), the visitors seem overwhelming. In others (Juneau), the visitors are intense, but there’s still a real feel of a city there. It’s an interesting balance to watch these towns try to maintain throughout the summer months.