In Better Times: a CruiseWest ship sails into
Victoria, BC on May 1, 2008.
Photo © Aaron Saunders
Updated Saturday, December 4: added additional funding and port call information.
If you've taken an Alaska cruise before, chances are it stopped at the major players in that region: Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway. Other ports of call, like Wrangell and Prince Rupert, British Columbia have also become more popular over the past decade as the number of ships calling to the region increased and lines looked for more diversity.
The town of Campbell River, British Columbia had hopes of becoming the next Prince Rupert or Sitka, Alaska. Located along the Inside Passage route, $19 million dollars was put forth by the City of Campbell River, the Province of British Columbia, Western Economic Diversification Canada, and the bulk by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.
In 2008, a total of five ships brought 2,559 passengers to Campbell River. In 2009, that number decreased to just 162 passengers who called aboard one pocket-size cruise vessel.
No ships have called there since.
So what went wrong? According to an article in the Victoria Times-Colonist, the recent demise of Cruise West struck a terrible blow against the terminal, as the line was still considering a return to the city. But Campbell River's problems began long before CruiseWest ceased operations.
In order to satisfy the Jones Act, which stipulates that all vessels leaving from a United States port must call first in a "distant foreign port" before returning, all cruise ships leaving from Seattle must call first at a Canadian port. Most choose to spend an evening in Victoria, BC, due to its proximity to both the open Pacific Ocean and Seattle. A few ships call instead at Prince Rupert, British Columbia, ideal due to its location just south of Ketchikan, Alaska.
Campbell River, however, lacks both of these advantages. It is on the complete opposite side of Vancouver Island from Victoria, and is sufficiently far enough away from any Alaskan port to require almost a full day's sailing through the narrow Inside Passage in order to reach it. Ships traveling to Victoria, on the other hand, can utilise the open Pacific Ocean, allowing them to travel at a higher rate of speed and maintain their itineraries.
Like it or not, the fact of the matter is that these Seattle-based departures drive demand for calls at easy-to-reach, infrastructure-ready Canadian ports. Before Seattle became a major powerhouse in the Alaskan cruise market in 1999, very few ships called in Victoria, and not a single ship stopped in Prince Rupert. The classic Alaska cruise, as it was, operated out of Vancouver - thus, even on one-way trips between Alaska and Vancouver, there simply was no reason to stop at any Canadian port.
That is still the case today with sailings departing from Vancouver, the vast majority of which run one week in length and travel either round-trip, or between Vancouver and northern Alaskan ports like Anchorage and Seward.
On a week-long itinerary, there simply isn't time to call at ports like Campbell River.
Cruise lines have experimented with longer Alaskan sailings before, but strangely many have never taken off. Norwegian Cruise Line debuted an innovative series of 10-and-12 day sailings aboard Norwegian Dream for the 2005 cruise season. While the cruises themselves were received very positively, they were overshadowed after that ship developed engine problems just weeks into the season, forcing the cancellation of many of the unique ports of call.
At the time, NCL took a heck of beating in the press, and hasn't been back in that capacity since.
The future of Campbell River's cruise terminal still hangs in the balance. It's ready to receive even the largest ships plying the Inside Passage during the summer, and can be ready to go by the start of the 2011 season in April.
The question is: will anyone come?
So far, no ships are scheduled to call at the port next year.
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