Researchers look at how tourism impacts the region

The Hurtigruten cruiseship Roald Amundsen docked at the causeway last Tuesday, hustled into the port earlier than their planned arrival as a significant storm was forecasted. On Wednesday the passengers debarked to a wet and windy Nome, with the option to roam Nome or to hole up in the Mini for activities and interviews by visiting researchers.
It was a transitional day for the ship that can hold up to 500 passengers. One group got off in the morning to tour Nome then flew out in the afternoon replaced by the next crop of cruisers off the planes who got to explore Nome before beginning their journey.
An estimated 500 visitors attended tours throughout the day. Clad in their easily identified red and electric yellow jackets the passengers were happy to be shuttled around, not many were seen out walking in the weather.
Another ship was also due to bring passengers that day, the Hanseatic Spirit, though the storm diverted them, and they continued their journey without stopping in Nome.
At the Mini, passengers gathered for gold panning put on by AKAU Gold resort’s Augie Krutzsch and his family, and to hear Iditarod stories and pet sled dogs at the mushing demonstration, typically outdoor attractions were shut inside to escape the weather. This was to the advantage of researchers who were in Nome to gather data for a long-term study made up of three elements, one being tourism.

Studying changes at sea
Four researchers, two from University of Alaska and two from Michigan State University, were in the right place to conduct their surveys of cruise passengers traveling through the Bering Sea. This is just one part of an Arctic Telecoupling project supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. Telecoupling is a study of the interaction between human and natural systems, and the team is doing just that: They are looking at how shipping, tourism and marine mammals in the Bering Strait interact and impact each other.
The project began in 2021, and funding will end next summer, but there is still a lot of work to be done as researchers synthesize their data and continue write papers on findings.
While in Nome, UAA Graduate Student Bella Block and MSU PhD student Michele Remer were surveying passengers, finding out where they came from, what their travel history is, ages, and how they arrived in Nome.
Remer has a special interest in invasive species and had a section of questions that dug into tourists’ familiarity with the concept, especially as they travel across different regions. “Education is really important for minimizing the spread of invasives,” Remer said. Sustainable tourism was also mentioned, with Remer hoping to create a visual life cycle of a traveler’s trip, visualizing the carbon cost of a cruise.
The team is intent on making their findings useful to many audiences, including the region they’re studying. According to them, this starts with data presentation. On their website, arctictelecoupling.org, there is an infographic that explains the work done so far, but the goal is to share final discoveries with entities like the Nome Visitors Center and thus expanding local knowledge of how tourism impacts the region.
“A lot of my job is to help them [researchers] come up with ways to make this available for people. Scientific papers are great but they’re not the most accessible things in the world, depending on who you are, I always say my job is mostly going: ‘What?’” Assistant Director and Communications Strategist Sue Nichols of MSU said.
Nichols and UAA Associate Professor of Natural Resources Management and Policy Jennifer Schmidt were managing this portion of the research, this having been one of many trips to Nome for the study.
Shipping traffic, commercial fishing and climate change are just a few more factors being considered during this study. And while they were around, the Roald Amundsen guests were useful to the cause.
“Everybody is a bit of a cog in that wheel of looking to understand things in the big picture,” Nichols said.
Nomeites can expect to learn from their findings at the latest next year, but the team says papers and information on certain sections of the study will be coming out periodically before then.