Cascadia Report

After a year of COVID-19, ready for a cruise

Cruises may soon resume between Alaska and Washington, boosting tourism in both states but cutting out British Columbia.

Alaska cruises typically stop in B.C. because U.S. law prohibits foreign-flagged vessels – most of the industry – from transporting passengers directly between two American ports. In 2019, Victoria and Vancouver had a combined total of 553 ship visits.

After Ottawa extended its ban on cruises until Feb. 2022 – saying these sailing petri dishes potentially tax the healthcare system – Alaska’s U.S. senators announced plans for an exemption that would allow cruises to skip Canada.

Given  a year of COVID-19, a cruise may not be on everyone’s to-do list. Yet the industry is a driver of Cascadia’s previously booming tourism sector, even if the environmental impacts are severe and the economic benefits are probably overstated.

The ships are floating cities, burning dirty fuel and bringing a city’s worth of sewage. Canada should use the current hiatus as an opportunity to ban dumping raw waste and cut emissions, notes a recent report. (Luckily Victoria's Mr. Floatie isn't fully retired yet.)

The biggest economic benefit goes to home ports, which get the flights, hotel stays, restaurant visits and shopping before and after sailings. Vancouver had the Alaska cruise market to itself until 1999, when Seattle's terminal opened and faster ships made it attractive, especially for American passengers. In 20 years, Seattle's business grew to 1.2 million annual passengers, generating $900 million and 5,500 jobs in 2019, according to the Port of Seattle. Despite the competition, Vancouver still had 800,000 passengers in the last year before the pandemic.

The growth wasn't a straight line. For example, in 2006 Cascadia Report wrote about Seattle losing a cruise line to Vancouver. That turned out to be a blip.

Surely cruises will be back eventually. Now is a chance for some towns to take Sitka's example and reorient toward independent travel and for the region to rethink blind investment given the pros and cons of the industry.

Some of us have a gun problem

After yet another horrific mass shooting in the U.S., many in Cascadia are wondering if something similar could happen here. And how could we possibly let it happen here.

Today 10 people were killed by a gunman with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in a grocery store in Boulder, Colo. -- the second mass-shooting in the U.S. this week. President Biden is calling for a ban on assault weapons, while shills for the gun lobby are offering thoughts and prayers for the dead and their survivors. This is on top of more than 600 mass shootings (four or more dead or injured) in the U.S. last year.

This is insane.

A few years ago I was having breakfast with my family at a diner in Goldendale, Wash., at the eastern end of the Columbia Gorge, when a man walked in with a gun hanging from his belt. He didn't appear physically fit or capable of controlling the firearm, which didn't look safely secured. When I pushed back on this power play I learned that Washington is an "open carry" state where it's okay to walk around with a lethal weapon, regardless of the need or the potential harm it could cause. If you're worried about your family's safety, there's nothing you can do about it. So we got up and left.

Judging from Twitter today, I'm not the only one with such a reaction:

 

Carrying a weapon remains totally legal in Washington and Oregon. There are more rules for driving a car than owning a gun. Local authorities aren't even allowed to pass more restrictive laws to protect their residents. In Washington citizens passed an initiative in 2018, I-1639, that requires recording of semiautomatic rifle sales and mandates that the purchaser have some sort of safety training. But even those gentle restrictions are vehemently rejected by law enforcement officials in some parts of the state. 

When it comes to personal safety, B.C. wins. Per the Firearms Act, a license is required. Anything besides an ordinary shotgun or rifle used in hunting must be registered. A gun buyer must take a Canadian Firearms Safety Court and pass a test, buy a five-year license, and wait 28 days while the RCMP conducts background checks. 

It's way past time for commonsense safety measures in the U.S. Trips to the grocery store shouldn't put us at risk of COVID-19, let alone being shot. A generation of kids shouldn't grow up with the trauma of active-shooter drills. We should be free to move around all of Cascadia without fear.

Reopening the Cascadia border

Fear of COVID-19 closed the border to non-essential travel a full year ago. Now that more Cascadia residents are getting vaccinations, when will they be able to start crossing again? 

"The truth is: There is no plan," according to a recent CBC report on efforts to at least prepare for reopening.

Until the pandemic, the Canadian and U.S. parts of Cascadia were growing relentlessly more integrated, despite a two-decade struggle with border security in the wake of 9/11. For frequent travelers, the border was often seen as a mere formality.

By 2019 about 14 million people crossed and all the talk was about continued growth. That year saw the long-awaited start of seaplane flights between Lake Union and Coal Harbor. The main complaints were about too many users for the crowded water in Seattle. Harbor Air got slews of international headlines for pioneering fully-electric floatplanes.

Then the border closure halted flights, stopped the Victoria Clipper and Coho ferries, and slammed the border economies. Whatcom County lost 506,000 tourists in just a few months, according to a report by Western Washington University. There are similar stories from Whistler, Victoria, and elsewhere, even amid recent talk of B.C. sealing itself off from other provinces.

Despite criticism of how the closure has been handled to date, the assumption of huge pent-up demand for travel is widespread. Cascadia is bound to get more closely connected, with studies calling for high-speed rail between Seattle and Vancouver, along with plans to make conventional trains more competitive with driving or flying.

Back in 2007 Cascadia Report fretted about the impact of a closed border during the Olympics. That seems quaint by comparison.

Could the border start reopening as soon as May? That assumes vaccinations, flatter curves, and management of new strains. Plan on requirements for tests, vaccine documentation, and other red tape.