Our next stop struck me as a bit odd. On one hand, the cruise stops at an old fish cannery that’s been fixed up and filled with restaurants, jewelry shops, and as many “official” souvenirs as you could ever hope to buy. On the other hand, a mile or so walk away is the rugged little town of Hoonah with a single school building, one main store, and rows of rusted fishing boats. The disparity between the town and the cruise terminal seems more pronounced at this location than in the others. A larger town like Juneau fixes up a few token shops downtown and deals with a few thousand more tourists fairly easily. Skagway thrives on tourism anyway so the town is fixed up and managed accordingly. Hoonah seems untouched by the cruise ships and even slightly bitter that they dock so closely and the cruise lines seem more than happy to wrangle all their money-spending tourists into the shops that they themselves own.
We walked into town first to check it out. The marina has quite a few boats that look like people just cruising through and there was a pretty nice playground that we stopped and played around on. The general store (also a hardware store) made me realize how expensive food is up in Alaska. I suppose they do have to fly or ship by boat everything that they get. We bought some shampoo, a bag of coffee, and some sodas. Rather support the town than the cruise ship and I’d imagine the town is cheaper anyway.
