After 15 years of offering small-ship cruises in Southeast Alaska, Sitka-based Alaskan Dream Cruises closed as of Feb. 4.

Wrangell was among the Southeast communities on the company’s summer tour itineraries, with a total of more than two dozen visits last summer by the 40-passenger Alaskan Dream and 49-passenger Baranof Dream.

“This decision was intentional and necessary,” said Jamey Cagle, one of the owners. “After careful evaluation of our long-term objectives, we determined that concluding cruise operations allows us to responsibly focus our resources where they will have the greatest impact.”

The decision by the Alaska Native-owned cruise line to cease operations reflects a “deliberate alignment” of the company’s business to strengthen its core operations and ensure long-term sustainability, it said.

The news release said the plan is to refocus 100% of the company’s resources on its “founding strengths and roots,” which include Allen Marine Tours day-boat excursions and Allen Marine shipyard operations and marine services. Alaskan Dream Cruises, Allen Marine Tours and Allen Marine are under the parent company AM Owner Group.

Alaskan Dream Cruises is contacting guests with reservations for 2026 and processing refunds.

Losing the cruises will knock a potential 1,000 visits from Wrangell’s cruise passenger traffic this summer, which is projected at 72,000 if all of the other cruise lines stick with their schedule and operate full.

Alaskan Dream Cruises was founded in 2011, offering week-long cruises around Southeast Alaska aboard smaller vessels with capacities of 40 to 80 passengers. Throughout its history, the company provided about 500 cruises aboard the Chichagof Dream, Alaskan Dream, Baranof Dream and Admiralty Dream, the company estimated.

The main part of the Allen family-owned company is the day-cruise business Allen Marine Tours, which was launched in 1970 by Allen Marine founders, Bob and Betty Allen, who started a Sitka shipyard in 1967 in Jamestown Bay. They were the grandparents of current Allen Marine President and CEO Jamey Cagle.

The company expanded to day-boat catamaran cruises, and now hundreds of thousands of cruise passengers, nonprofit groups and independent travelers each year take wildlife cruises out of Sitka, Ketchikan, Juneau and Yakutat to see otters, sea lions, whales, sea birds and occasionally bears, and glaciers.

The day tours also include day-lodge experiences at Fin Island in Sitka and Colt Island in Juneau, as well as culinary tour offerings.

The company operates some 30 such vessels around Southeast, and this business is unaffected by the decision to close Alaskan Dream Cruises.

Company spokesperson Zak Kirkpatrick said Allen Marine has been and will continue to be a cornerstone of Alaska’s maritime and tourism industries, with 105 year-round employees and some 350 seasonal workers.

He said while the company is proud of the cruise experiences it offered through Alaskan Dream Cruises, the challenges of operating such a business was “unique.”

“The small-ship overnight industry carries particularly high overhead and complex logistics,” he said. “In recent years, we’ve seen an expansion in cruise capacity — even in our niche expedition market — with newly built ships recently entering the water or being built.”

The closure of the cruise company will have economic impacts on Sitka and other Southeast ports. Alaskan Dream Cruises employed roughly 10 full-time staff members year-round in Sitka in addition to a seasonal workforce of 100 to 115, most of whom came from outside Sitka, said Jeremy Plank, Allen Marine CFO and one of the owners.

The vessels were serviced in Sitka, Juneau and other ports with groceries, repairs, laundry and other goods and services.