The Wrangell Parks and Recreation Advisory Board met last Wednesday, Oct. 2, to discuss the increasing use of trails and parks by tour groups, as well as beginning to lay the groundwork for the next Helping Our Parks project. Tourism has been steadily increasing in Wrangell, with approximately 22,000 tourists expected to visit town via cruise ships next year. As locals may have noticed this spring and summer, tour groups could be seen being led around Wrangell's popular sites, including the parks and nature trails.
"We don't have a permitting process because we don't require that, so I can't tell you exactly who's using our parks for what; for when; for where, but I know that Alaska Waters does some interpretive tours over at Volunteer Park," Parks and Rec Director Kate Thomas said. "Alaska Vistas does walks on the trail up Mt. Dewey, and we've been approached about using City Park as a venue, and Shoemaker Park as a venue."
Growth is a demanding process, Thomas said, so she was bringing the situation to the board's attention so they could consider implementing some kind of permit process for commercial park and trail use. This could look like a simple permit application and a fee for tour companies, she said. There was some discussion about what potential fees could look like. One suggestion was to set a fee per person in the tour group, but board member Keeleigh Solverson said that could be tricky. Getting an accurate headcount could be a challenge for tour guides, and then there was a question of when the companies would have to pay said fees. Another idea was to just set a base fee that companies could pay ahead of time, which would cover their groups for the tourist season.
Another important topic in the meeting was the upcoming HOP Project. This spring will see the third annual Helping Our Parks project, Thomas said. The project brings together community volunteers to fix up one of Wrangell's parks. Volunteer Park saw 61 volunteers donate a total of 211 hours of work to clean and restore the area.
Even though the HOP Project is still months away, Thomas said that it was time to start thinking about it. What did the board want to do this year, she asked. A few suggestions thrown out were to return to Volunteer Park for more work, or to go out to Shoemaker Park this year. Another idea that Thomas suggested was to do the HOP Project differently next year. Instead of having a lot of volunteers come out for one day in one place, why not have volunteers work throughout several days across multiple locations? Work could get done on the Mt. Dewey trail one day, she said as an example, then other volunteers could work in one of the parks the next day.
The board agreed to start thinking about the HOP Project and to begin laying out the details in future meetings.
Reader Comments(0)