Canada’s Arctic communities unprepared for cruise ship visits: researchers

Cruise passengers with the One Ocean Expeditions on board the Akademik Ioffe attend a cultural performance in Kiilinik High School Aug. 31 when the cruise ship visited Cambridge Bay. Crew organizers said “the visit was a hit and our passengers love the town, the people and the cultural show.” (SUPPLIED PHOTO)

Some communities don’t like it when cruise passengers wander around town snapping photos. This man, one of more than 100 similarly dressed passengers who descended in Iqaluit off a German-run cruise ship, takes a photo in downtown Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

As cruise ships visit certain Arctic communities in Canada more often, negative feelings about those cruise ships continue to grow, says a University of Ottawa researcher who’s directing a three-year, $250,000 federally-funded research project called “Cruise Tourism in Arctic Canada.”

For this project, Jackie Dawson and other researchers visited Ulukhaktok, Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Pond Inlet, Nain and Kuujjuaq to learn what people across Canada’s Arctic think about cruises, how they’re dealing with cruise tourism, and what they want to see in the future if cruise numbers increase.

One major concern: many cruise ship passengers don’t appreciate Inuit hunting traditions.

In 2008, David Qamaniq, a former mayor of Pond Inlet, protested when the M.S. Hanseatic cruise ship was anchored off Pond Inlet by wearing a seal skin around his shoulders to protest the European Union’s proposed ban on seal products. He also alleged that people aboard the cruise ship illegally traded alcohol for fish.

That fear that passengers will bring illness, drugs or alcohol to the communities also exists, Dawson said, although it’s been mainly small boats travelling through the Arctic that have aroused those worries, she said

One example is the Berserk II, decorated with painted shark’s teeth and real caribou antlers, whose “Wild Vikings” carried on in Gjoa Haven in August, 2007, and then tried to hide two illegal crew members before arriving in Cambridge Bay.

Residents of Arctic communities also worry about the risks of garbage and sewage dumping, air and water pollution, disturbance of wildlife, and accidents.

But the top concern expressed to researchers so far is the complaint that cruise tourism provides few financial benefits, Dawson said.

“They see it’s not bringing enough dollars and cents into the communities,” she said.

To get a better idea of what works in cruise tourism, and what doesn’t, researchers have looked closely at Gjoa Haven and Pond Inlet, two Nunavut communities identified as places where cruise tourism is expected to increase in the future due to changing ice conditions.

Cruise tourism is relatively new in Gjoa Haven with between two to four ships arriving every season for the past few years.

There, in addition to gripes about how little money cruise ships bring into the community, people also say cruise visitors don’t understand their subsistence lifestyle and take “inappropriate” photos.

Suggestions for improvements include providing a local liaison person to improve communication and co-ordination between ship, shore and the community.

This has worked in Cambridge Bay where Vicki Aitaok, working with other community members, has developed a full program of activities for cruise ships when they come into town.

Some of the other ideas from Gjoa Haven to get more out of cruises include:

• more school involvement;

• more tourism and small business training programs;

• more protected areas to help preserve sensitive areas and historic sites;

• a landing fee for ships, similar to that paid by Alaska cruise lines;

• additional search and rescue training and equipment; and,

• security and health screening on ships to protect northern people.

Dawson’s project also plans to provide policy-makers with a better idea of what they need to better manage cruise tourism.

Other parts of the circumpolar world that have a more established cruise industry, such as Norway, have set up a formal body to offer information, guidelines and voluntary policies for operators, which directly support community interests, Dawson said.

A group similar to the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators, which is active in northern Europe, could, for example, come up with a “community handbook” of cruise ship regulations, put Inuit environmental and wildlife monitors on ships and develop Arctic cruise regulations.

Cruises to the Canadian Arctic not new, but they doubled in number between 2005 and 2006, and cruises through the Northwest Passage increased by 70 per cent between 2006 and 2009.

Since then, the global recession has kept many of the well-heeled cruise passengers home.

But a total of 32 stops are planned by cruise ships in Nunavut communities this year. As Arctic water become easier to navigate, more cruise ships are expected to arrive.

While it’s unlikely the Arctic cruise ship market is going to explode again as it did a few years ago, there will continue to be “slow growth,” predicts Dawson.

During the 2011 season, the Government of Nunavut has taken a more active role in trying to help Nunavut communities with cruise tourism, encouraging them to apply for money from three GN programs to help subsidize cultural events, tours, or arts and craft fairs offered in conjunction with cruise ship visits.

And the GN came out with a newsletter in four languages, English, French, Inuktitut and Innuinaqtun, which provides information about what kinds of people take cruises, what locals can expect from them and how to make the most of their community visits.

Next week, Dawson will visit Iqaluit to talk about the Cruise Tourism in Arctic Canada project, before heading to Pond Inlet where she’ll talk with people there about the results of her research.