Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Canada announced this week new guidelines for cruise ships, following a two-year ban during the pandemic that reduced sailings to Alaska. The guidelines allow ships to depart from or call on Canadian ports but maintain strict covid vaccination and testing requirements for crew and passengers.

The announcement is a positive step toward having a successful summer tourism season, said Haines Borough tourism director Steven Auch, who has advised officials for weeks that the borough could see close to 90,000 cruise passengers this summer, if all scheduled ships call on Haines at full capacity.

Cruise ships bound for Alaska from the Lower 48 are required by law to stop in Canada. But early in the pandemic Canada banned cruises from their ports to mitigate coronavirus spread. Canada’s ban technically ended last November, at the end of the cruise season. This week’s announcement marked the country’s first official acknowledgement that sailings could resume this summer.

Last year the U.S. Congress passed a waiver to allow cruise ships to bypass Canada. Alaska’s congressional delegation drafted legislation last month to extend the waiver, although with Canada’s new guidelines cruise ships will be allowed to call on Canadian towns, albeit with stringent covid requirements.

The guidelines also ensure that cruises can originate in Canada, where prior to the pandemic nearly half of Alaska-bound ships departed, according to a Cruise Lines International Association spokesperson.

All crew and passengers will be required to be vaccinated, with limited exceptions (such as age and religion), and passengers must take a molecular test within 72 hours of arrival in Canada or an antigen test less than a day before arrival.

Last month Canada relaxed its border testing protocol to accept rapid antigen test results within a day of travel, although both molecular/PCR and antigen tests still need to be lab-based, not take-home.

Auch said on Monday he was awaiting word from cruise companies to understand better how they planned to meet Canada’s requirements.

“I’m not sure what ships are/will be capable of, but I imagine it will be very tough to test everyone on a 2,000 plus passenger ship if they need to all be processed on-board after departure. But then again, just because it’s tough doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” Auch said in an email to the CVN.

At least one company, Holland America Line, announced this week that it will be able to follow Canada’s guidelines and operate all of its Alaska trips that start from or call on Canadian ports.

The Alaska Marine Highway System announced this week that it would resume its ferry service between Ketchikan and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The state in April 2020 canceled that service, which connects Southeast to the road system, due to travel restrictions and staffing issues.