In 2020, researchers from the University of Alaska identified 63 adult whales, the most they had seen in a five-year period, said Heidi Pearson, an associate professor of biology at the University of Alaska Southeast. “For the first half of 2021 there was very little cruise ship traffic and that was actually very nice.”įewer ships at sea also gave scientists the opportunity to see the effects on humpback whales. “To see the giant cruises going by and the exhaust and smoke coming off them can have a negative impact,” Mr. Derhoff’s business takes people to Glacier Bay in small kayaks and caters to independent travelers who want a more intimate wilderness experience. Fewer tourists, more whalesĪround Glacier Bay National Park, a haven for seals, whales, dolphins and bears about 90 miles west of Juneau, the cruise ships were not missed, said Stephen Van Derhoff, one of the owners of Spirit Walker Expeditions of Alaska in Gustavus, a town of about 500 people near the park. “My family and I embraced the quiet every chance we got,” Ms.

The streets were so quiet that a family of foxes was regularly seen running downtown, said Jaime Bricker, Skagway’s tourism director, who visited nearby Glacier Point, a popular tourist destination, for the first time in her life. Statewide, there were 124,000 cruise passengers, said Ms. A total of about 57,000 passengers came through Skagway that year, said Mr. The Alaska cruise season is brief - it typically runs from April through October - and the 2021 season was barely salvaged. “It takes about 90 days to stand up a ship and have it ready to sail,” she said. Ships then had to complete the process of bringing back their crews, said Anne Madison, a spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association. But industry leaders still needed to come up with agreements with port communities, which needed reassurances that their fragile health systems would not be overwhelmed should there be an outbreak of Covid, said Ms. In May 2021, Congress passed the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act, which allowed cruise ships to sail directly to Alaska without having to stop in Canada. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser who was catapulted into the spotlight at the start of the pandemic, said he would leave government service by the end of the year. Moderna’s Lawsuits: The vaccine manufacturer sued Pfizer and BioNTech, claiming that its rivals’ Covid-19 shot copied groundbreaking technology that Moderna had developed before the pandemic.Paxlovid Study: The Covid-19 medication Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations and deaths in older patients, but made no difference for patients under 65, new research from Israel found.Boosters: The Food and Drug Administration authorized updated coronavirus booster shots targeting Omicron subvariants, setting up millions of Americans to receive new doses as soon as next week.

Cruise ships 2022