![]() ![]() ![]() It's a prospect that excites business owners and officials in Nome, but concerns others who worry about the impact of additional tourists and vessel traffic on the environment and animals Alaska Natives depend on for subsistence. The expansion, expected to be operational by the end of the decade, will accommodate not just larger cruise ships of up to 4,000 passengers, but cargo ships to deliver additional goods for the 60 Alaska Native villages in the region, and military vessels to counter the presence of Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic. That's expected to change as a more than $600-million US expansion makes Nome, population 3,500, the U.S.'s first deep-water Arctic port. While smaller cruise ships are able to dock, officials say that of the dozen arriving this year, half will anchor offshore. The problem remains: There's no place to park the big boats. It was 2016, and at the time, the cruise ship Serenity was the largest vessel ever to sail through the Northwest Passage.īut as the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome - a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and its 1898 gold rush than luxury travel. Its well-heeled tourists had to shimmy into small boats for another ride to shore. The cruise ship with about 1,000 passengers anchored off Nome, Alaska, too big to squeeze into into the tundra city's tiny port. ![]()
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